If you have ever thought that the electric car wouldn’t catch on, because the engines were not powerful enough, or charging was not convenient, think again. Students at MIT recently have developed an electric car using the body of a Mercury Milan, that can go from 0-60 in 9 seconds, has a top speed of 100 mph, can travel 200 miles on a single charge that only takes 10 minutes!

It sounds too good to be true, and in a way, it kind of is. There are a couple of problems with this design, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed were this model to actually catch on.  The fast charge is due to the fact that the car has nearly 8,000 lithium iron-phosphate batteries that are charged. The major problem is that in order to charge these batteries at max speed, you need a 350 kW outlet to plug into. To give you an idea of how much electricity that is, 350 kW is enough to trip the fuses in 8 houses. However, the car can take a charge overnight with a standard house hold plug, so it has that going for it.

There are currently 40 charging stations in America, none of which have the capacity to provide that kind of power. That being said, it’s exciting that the young minds of today are way ahead of the curve when it comes to forward thinking. Lets hope these green minds can continue to innovate and inspire some of the major corporations that produce cars to take a closer look.

Do you think that this has the potential to catch on? Would you consider driving an electric car? how do you think electric cars would affect the rental industry? Would you rent an electric car on your vacation?

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