Mainstream Media catches the Tesla

Flipping the channels after doing my nightly writing, I caught Electric Cars Help Ween America's Oil Dependence on television. It was so cool to see the Tesla Roadster on the road. Maybe someday I'll have one - or, more likely, the 4 door sedan that Tesla Motors is planning to come out with for less than $50,000. I wrote about the Tesla Roadster before, but to see it on the road was very inspiring.

Chuck Scarborough had a pretty good interview with the CEO of Tesla Motors, Martin Eberhard, but it was naturally short to accomodate the mini-crash in the stock market and other things less pleasant. He did manage to get the uncut video interview on the website - and a bit more. From the central page for the interview and other things:

NEW YORK -- This was my assignment: find out what's happened in the year and a half since I first broadcast a fascinating story about fighting terrorism and global warming with a new kind of car – a plug-in hybrid.

The national security angle went like this: currently we're funding both sides in the war on terror, taxing ourselves to pay for the military and, at the same time, because of a rapacious appetite for oil, sending petro-dollars to regimes that fund our enemies.

Since most of the oil we import is used to fuel transportation, a car that uses little or no gasoline would be a potent weapon in the global struggle with militant Islamists. And, of course, that car wouldn't be spewing greenhouse gases, which brings us to the plug-in hybrid electric car...

Go check it out. The interview is well worth it. The part I loved that Eberhard said was along the lines of, 'we can decide how to generate the electricity to power the car'.

Yeah.