And now for something completely different. Old news if you already have heard about it…

Quite a few years ago, like many a young IT guy, I had a too little responsibilities and too little common sense, which resulted in a daily driven, highly modified, 450HP Twin Turbo 300ZX gracing my garage - including no less than a Formula 1 derived Launch and Traction Control system… $2000 sets of tyres were dispatched on semi regular occasion, and I learned how to throw a ton of metal and fabric round a racetrack at insane speeds.

Now I’m atoning for my environmental and financial sins by daily riding a 0 HP 2 LP 0 Emission mountain bike turned commuter (with some ugly 1″ wide slicks). Which does amazing things for your fitness, and is absolutely great for venting any frustration you may have had in the office during the day - there’s always a dimwitted motorist who will pull out on you and be needing gentle reminding that you too have a legal right to be on the road.

However. It’s just not the same really…

Then this came along. Built by a fellow expat New Zealander Ian Wright. The Wrightspeed X1. Based on an Ariel Atom, a viciously fast car with one mission in life, to do everything fast, very fast. But this one has a twist. It’s called Lithium Ion. Packed with batteries, electric motors and not a drop of smog producing fuel* in sight I’m in technology-love.

I’m just putting this out there, you know instead of the ‘come join our startup for equity ‘ type emails, how about you be a bit creative and ‘come join our startup and we’ll get one of these bad boys in your driveway’ ?? That’s one way to get my attention..

Better acceleration than anything I’ve driven or been in (and I’ll tell you 600HP is pretty damned quick and this would be faster), limited pollution (the electricity does have to come from somewhere) and it looks like it has fun by the bucket loads.

Check out this video. The astute will notice the Porsche has to do a rolling start, no doubt worried about destroying some clutch plates and the X1 *still* wipes the floor with it.

Or another..

And to think, you wouldn’t have the difficulties of getting a high horsepower sports car off the line, like triple-plate clutches (not fun in traffic), it’s just like an on-off switch. C’mon already, what are you waiting for, lets see these in production…

People in the performance world are really starting to see the benefit, check out this… Killacycle

*Until we have giant solar panel arrays, the energy to produce electricity has to come from somewhere…

Image is licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 1.0 License