Wrightspeed Makes Electric Cars Even More Exciting
Yesterday BAIA members and BAIA friends had the pleasure to hear Ian Wright talking about his invention: the Wrightspeed X1. The event was hosted by ClubSportiva, a car membership club in San Francisco and made possible by our sponsors: COORitalia, FluidFilm, Birra Moretti, Mana Productions, Andretti Winery, and Caffè del Doge.
Mary Trigiani talks about the event on her blog. I will report with more detail about the event and about this fabulous car. Now I just want to share with you a couple of very interesting videos.
Wrightspeed X1 Electric Car beats Ferrari and Porsche
Wrightspeed X1 vs Lamborghini and NASCAR
More Videos
Two more very interesting videos are available on PBS Science Investigators website:
Latest Updates (added April 4, 2007)
Don't forget to take a look at the event pictures on Flickr. This event has been featured by Wired magazine with an interesting article by Chaddus Bruce: Wrightspeed's X1 Electric Supercar Sparks Hybrid Dreams.
Franco Folini
Wow! Can't stop watching these...
And the event was Weekly Pick of the SF Bay Guardian magazine (search Google for: guardian, electrifying) www.sfbg.com
Posted by: Giorgio | March 30, 2007 at 08:38 PM
Today, at my remarks of how the X1 blew away the Carrera GT, a Porsche owner who saw the video told me: "That's fine if you match a CAR with a go cart on steroids". This was of course a humorous comment. However it made me think: could there be some truth to the old adage that we may be comparing "apples with oranges"? Could the X1 technology be actually protyped in a Porsche or Ferrari today?
Posted by: Matteo Daste | April 03, 2007 at 09:48 PM
Yeah… I had the same feeling from the beginning… a little like when somebody says “I prefer to speed on my motorcycle than on my car…”, only with less emotional, more factual data…
BUT: I think the whole point that Ian Wright was trying to make is: “an electric car, correctly engineered, can be fast and cool to drive”… the goal being, developing battery technology to efficiently propel it.
The whole idea of having more power from a small and light electric engine applies conveniently to the heaviest, most environmentally impacting personal vehicle: the SUV.
The ‘show and tell’ prepared by Ian is less geared towards other car engineers and more focused on attracting the attention of the general public, which could be hiding the next tycoon sponsoring a new venture in this direction…
Attracting some attention on this topic with a couple of stunts, Guglielmo Marconi or Thomas Edison style, is not ‘bad’ or deceiving per se, but of course the distinction between ‘genius’, ‘lucky guy’ and ‘madman’ is often determined by one thing only: success…
Posted by: Giorgio | April 04, 2007 at 08:13 AM
If you are interested in EV's read the book: Solo Life With An Electric Car by Noel Perrin.
Here is a link to Amazon.com listing and a review I wrote:
Amazon Solo Life With An Electric Car
Epinions Review Of Book
Posted by: Reuben Gathright | July 05, 2007 at 06:09 AM