This is extremely cool. $500-600 is a lot of money. But if it ends up happening, the price will come down within a few years.

False.

I was in Egypt a couple of years ago. When I flew into Cairo, the airport had dozens of old planes just sitting around in the sand. Some were partly disassembled, or cut in half, and others looked pretty much intact.

Here in southeast PA, when I was in elementary school, it was "Don't budge"

okay, now I think I understand.

I'm an engineer, and my daily commute is about 15 miles.

I'm not currently inclined to get an electric car, due to range/recharging issues. I sometimes drive 500+ miles in a day, which simply isn't feasible in an electric car these days unless your route goes by one of the few fast-charge locations.

"I was worried I accidently made a bomb."

That's an awesome car, which I would happily pay $15k for.

After subsidies, he was paying a bit over $7k for the lease. Here's the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…

beat me to it.

If I recall correctly, the guy's got a two year lease on the leaf. He expects to save $2k over the two years by using the leaf for his shorter drives. That's including the cost of the lease.

They're perfectly sensible as long as you have a second car for longer drives.

Ya beat me to it

Note: I beat Brian to the Wartsila engine by 6 minutes:

My first thought was: Miata.

I'm living in the US, making considerably more than 12k/year. Here, too, electric cars are currently rich people toys. But I have no doubt that within my lifetime, they'll be completely mainstream.

I must be the only person on Jalopnik who didn't care for that concept.

hm, perhaps they made some subtle improvements between the 87 and 89 models to avoid that.

My family had one of these from '89-2011 in Pennsylvania. Never garaged, very rarely washed. No significant rust when we sold it.