High-tech entrepreneurs unveil a sporty electric car.
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The venture, based in California and financed by Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, has unveiled a two-seat sports car. It will cost $89,000, and Tesla aims to sell a couple of thousand of them before introducing a cheaper, four-seat version.
The car's design alone is likely to turn old-fashioned notions of electric vehicles on their head. Beyond that, Tesla makes three audacious claims. The first is that the vehicle accelerates from nought to 100km (60 miles) per hour in just four seconds. That is faster than a Ferrari. The second is that it can travel 400km on an overnight charge from an ordinary 240 volt socket. The third is that it is more environmentally friendly than a petrol-driven equivalent.
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http://economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7218442