0-60 in 3.9 seconds with 7000 laptop batteries

This isn't really IT related, but it is pretty cool.



This video is of Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear reviewing the Tesla Roadster. This electric car is based on a Lotus, but with an electric motor instead of an engine.
Instead of gas, it uses 6,831 lithium ion cells arranged into 11 "sheets" connected in series; each sheet contains 9 "bricks" connected in series; each "brick" contains 69 cells connected in parallel. These cells are a lot like laptop batteries.

Breaking news! Tesla Issues Response To Top Gear Review

Tesla motors thinks the clip is not fair to the roadster. Among other things, their spokeswoman says:

“They never had to push a car off the track because of lack of charge or a fault and it isn’t clear why the segment included footage showing exactly that.”

Check out the highlights over at Jalopnik.

More Breaking news! Tesla didn't actually run out of batteries!

It seems that the depiction of the Top Gear crew pushing the Tesla back to the garage was staged. This seems pretty underhanded to me. I can't even imagine what the motives were