Think golf cart on steroids. Lots of steroids.

Nope, not done talking about Mind Camp yet. One of the neat things mind campers got to see was an electric car that runs up to 60 MPH which a brochure described as “the world’s fastest urban transportation.” This electric car which you can learn more about at communtercars.com sells for a little over $100,000 (ouch) and is built by hand. It’s classified as a kit car and holds one passenger sitting behind the driver in a separate seat. Definitely not a blue collar car yet although the brochure talks about less sport prototypes that might someday be built on a scale that could bring costs down under $20,000. That’s a more realistic price point for the John Q. Public.

The engineer told us that George Clooney (ER, Batman) just bought one. The car will go 80 miles on a full charge which takes 8 hours on standard 110 volt, about 2 hours on 220 or to 80% in 10 minutes on an offboard dedicated 200 amp charge. They are promoting as a supplement to the family car and detail stats show an equivalent of 195 miles per gallon when factoring in the cost of fuel. For about three grand worth of solar panels, that can make the experience even more economical.

While talking to the engineer and learning all about the car, Scoble came in from the outside and checked it out (see photo above).

Besides washing the car and normal upkeep, replacing the batteries is the biggest service related issue. All 2,000+ pounds worth of batteries are stored at the tire level keeping the center of gravity very low and making for a go-cart like experience when taking turns. You would think looking at the car that it would tip over easily, but not with all that weight so low to the ground.

Apparently that electric power resulted in a minor (?) malfunction resulting in a crash. Eric describes the accident:

While the engineer that designed the commuter car I mentioned above was trying to drive the car over to the trailer they used to transport it there was a malfunction with the acceleration causing the car to move forward very fast up a curb, across some grass, and into a chain link fence. Nobody was injured, the extent of the damage to the car is currently unknown.

Uh, let’s just hope that Batman doesn’t have any of these accelerator malfunctions and go flying off a cliff without his cape.

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