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Fill 'er up - with electricity please!
Only from Rooters!TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - Your car may become just another household appliance if a Japanese vehicle developer and former rally driver gets his way. Uh, not if you get a load of the price tag below. Of course, I don't have a tip jar like Fred, so who am I to complain? Yoshio Takaoka, in collaboration with Italy's Start Lab SAP, has created the Girasole, a fully functional electric car that can be fueled from a home power outlet. The highway-worthy two seater reaches speeds of 65 km per hour (41 mp/h) and travels distances of up to a 120 km on a full battery, which costs about $1. All of this performance for $2+ million? What a bargain! I reach speeds of 41 mph in my neighborhood, this thing wouldn't last a day on the Atlanta interstates. "Previously I was a polluter but as I grew older I felt I had to do penance for this and do something good in return," Takaoka, 63, told Fuji TV, referring to his rally driving heydays. Mods, he's just askin' for the "Wash away your sins" graphic. The Girasole, which means sunflower in Italian, retails for about $2.2 million but drivers can claim a $6,600 subsidy from the government under an environmental protection clause. For all you non-mathmeticians out there, that means it only costs $2.1934 million, not $2.2 million, but who's countin'? Japanese consumers who test drove the car were impressed by its quietness. But the car comes equipped with the clip-clop sound of horse hooves hitting the pavement to alert pedestrians and other drivers. Maybe in Williamsburg or Yorktown, but I'd imagine the average Tokyo resident would want the sounds of Godzilla instead. Posted by: BA 2007-01-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=178812 |