I hope eletric cars get taken seriously in the States before the rest of Detriot gets run over by Chinese owned&engineered companies. "If you can't make it cheaper, make it a lot better and extend the lead."
Good find though. I hope to see more of this anyway.
I am sure someone can make the 001 car charge in under 24 hours.
Just my 2 cents

Sticking solar panels on a car is pretty dumb. It makes much more sense to put them on something that wont break when you hit a pothole, and then plug into it when you need to recharge. But I am interested in the idea of a cheap electric car. GM and Tesla and even Toyota and Honda are competing in worlds that are becoming more and more imaginary and irrelevant with each passing year. The country simply wont survive with an economy that is based on such costly vehicles. If they do not find a way to trim the rediculous amount of fat off these cars, then their industry will suffer the equivalent of a fatal heart attack.

Why can't someone (who hopefully lives close, to make jobs here) take a responsible approach, and build something between an unreasonable supercar (the roadster) and this other toy the Chinese have come up with? Seriously $6,000 with solar panels! Someone in the west should be able to do a $15000 plug in hybrid, with or w/o solar panels.

Wonder what dangerous chemical that made that car out of lol.

Hmm, Toyota?

I've been waiting and waiting for a plug-in hybrid. Last I heard it is still a year or two out with Toyota, despite a California company modding them to this for the last several years.

I'm sure the Chinese car is $6000 for a reason - materials, luxury features (like heating/AC, power windows, power locks, etc), safety features, power/speed, and so forth are probably far below what US citizens would ever accept.

I live in Wisconsin, commuting 50 miles round trip on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I might be able to take the 30 hour recharge rate - but no heating and too light of weight would be a death sentence during the winter.

After my Corolla is paid off in December, I'll start saving up for the plug-in Prius purchase in 2015 or so (hopefully).

As for the Tesla layoffs, I am not surprised. We in the US seem to believe a trend continues forever instead of being cyclical. With oil being relatively "cheap" again, suddenly alternative energy research will be put on the back burner. Top it off with a lack of credit and no savings, and no one could afford a more expensive electric car anyway!

Jay Leno's Garage has a video where he speaks with Louis Palmer, a man from Switzerland who built a solar-recharged electric car. A detachable solar array can ride on a trailer behind the car. Without it, the car is more compact and runs on an internal battery. With the array hooked up, the car runs 20/80 from solar and batteries, respectively.

He built it for less than ten thousand dollars.

It could be quite economically viable to own three of these cars, especially if you live in California or something. I live in Michigan, where we don't see the sun very much in the winter and our cars get covered in snow, but just imagine LA being transformed into a smogless city jungle. You charge the cars when you can, and you have two backups when something goes wrong with one. At a price of $6K each, you're set. For the majority of folks and daily driving, even two of these cars would probably work great. For longer trips, you can just get the old gas guzzler feel from a car rental. Of course, if you're tall you might not consider one of these yet...they are after all, from China.

Solar Power and electric are still not viable alternatives. It takes more electricity to make a solar cell then it will ever produce in its lifetime. Also electric cars are physically impossible to not use more oil then an oil powered car when the electricity comes from an oil source due to the loss of energy in transfer.

Umm. Chevy volt? Who cares if a Chinese auto manufacturer made one for 6k. It probably breaks down like a sub 10k internal combustion car anyway.

Electric cars are only as good as the source of their electricity. As long as we burn coal to produce electricity, along with other environmentally unfriendly methods, electic cars are still accommodating and promoting pollution.

That being said, there are quite a few dams, as well as wind farms here and there... It's just that most electricity isn't so green, so neither are the cars that facilitate the production of such electricity.

And how much energy is used to bring gasoline to your local pump? How much is wasted spilling out on the ground? How much pollution does it create? How much does it cost you to drive an extra mile to the pump? I think solar cars are a great step up. You need to look at the big picture, not just a tiny piece of it. It likely takes more energy to manufacture a new computer processor than it saves you over your old processor. Does that mean it's not a good upgrade? Maybe you should compare apples to apples there friend.

Also, we're not stupidly and suddenly getting rid of combustion vehicles and putting electric cars in their place. We're gravitating to them slowly through new sales. Older gasoline cars will probably be run until they die.

They arent american either...

At least they build their car in the US.