The Model S came out to rave reviews on Friday. Also, as indicated in the Gas2 repost below, the car has received an EPA rating of 89 MPGe and 265 miles of range. This comes close to backing up Tesla’s previously unverified range claim of 300 miles.

Tesla reports that its first batch of 6,500 Model S EVs are sold out. And, not only that, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is predicting that “more than half of new cars manufactured will be fully electric” in 20 years. He’s confident enough about that to say that it’s “a bet I will put money on.” Actually, ”it’s probably going to be in the 12- to 15-year time frame,” he says. Hmm, that would be something.

Michael Graham Richard of TreeHugger has some good thoughts on this:

Are things likely to happen that way? It’s hard to say, but I do know that non-linear systems can surprise people when tipping points are reached. It wasn’t that long ago that almost nobody had cellphones, and someone looking at the cellphone adoption rate could have projected that it would take decades for cellphones to reach even a pretty small market share.

But at some point, certain conditions were met and cellphone adoption exploded rapidly, faster than almost anyone could have predicted. These conditions were things like price, performance, size and portability, the network effect (the more people have them, the more useful they become), features, familiarity, etc.

Electric cars aren’t cellphones and even if they reach the right conditions, adoption won’t be as fast. But it could be much faster than some people think. Once you reach a certain level of price, performance, familiarity, and infrastructure, things could happen rapidly. At some point, most new car buyers just won’t have much reason to prefer a gasoline car over a fully electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle, and with some help from high oil prices and a better economy, people will be more ready to spend a bit more upfront for big fuel savings over time.

Here are more details on the Tesla Model S from Gas2:

EPA Rates Tesla Model S At 89 MPGe, 265-Mile Range (via Gas 2.0)

It’s hard to believe that of all the major automakers around the world, it took an upstart known as Tesla to build and sell a viable electric car. Sure, the Tesla Model S starts at $50,000 after tax breaks, but the EPA rating now certifies the mileage claims from Tesla itself. The EPA has officially…

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Zachary Shahan (2291 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on your favorite social network, go to: zacharyshahan.com