WHEN YOU'VE LOST POWERLINE... (via Bart):

I have always been skeptical of electric vehicles, mostly because of my perception that electric car makers are more interested in subsisting on government subsidies than in competing on a level playing field for my business. So I was intrigued when I got an email this morning from Jeff Evanson, Tesla Motors' Vice-President of investor relations. Evanson, a long-time Power Line reader, pointed out that the company raised over $1 billion last week, and will use a portion of those proceeds to pay off its loan with the Department of Energy ahead of schedule. This will make Tesla the only US-based auto maker with no government debt. [...]

The Model S starts at $58,570 and costs a mere 6 cents per mile to run-and that's at California electricity prices.

All of this may be old hat to you, but it was news to me. Tesla's success, financial as well as technical, suggests that the long-awaited era of electric vehicles may be closer at hand than we thought.

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