. Musk is convinced that world oil supplies will plateau by 2020 and run out by the middle of the century and so he built the Tesla Roadster which, in the typically flamboyant style of a Richard Branson, he is planning to send orbiting around Mars too on his most powerful rocket yet. Trying to make it happen quickly is “showboat” billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose Tesla Motors has placed itself at the cutting edge of technology to buck the traditional auto giants.

Not only are there lower running costs as power is cheaper than refined fossil fuels, but also maintenance costs may be less as the engines are simpler. It’s early days yet but innovation will be driven by necessity because mankind will have little choice but to go off fossil fuels. Environmentalists will point out that burning fossil fuels to generate the additional power required to charge up all the nation’s electric vehicles will be equally hazardous. There are lower running costs, as power is cheaper than refined fossil fuels.Let’s face it, Uber’s “Flying Cars” are going to be an elitist experiment compared to what electric locomotion is going to achieve for mass transportation.

Why, India got its first-ever Tesla Model X SUV just a few days ago! But the Indian revolution would truly take off when electric two-wheelers get popular. Why, even New Delhi might breathe a little easier if all its vehicles — odd and even — move the electric way.. Today, China VRLA batteries factory we think 2030 is a realistic changeover date, but things could happen much sooner,” says Venu Srinivasan, managing director of two and three-wheeler giant, TVS Motor Company. When push comes to shove for electric traction as the model way forward for the motor car and, perhaps, India’s ubiquitous two-wheelers, the transformation will take place quicker than imagined.Research is proving that pure electric cars are cheaper to own and run than petrol and diesel cars in the UK, US and Japan. “When the change comes, it will come rapidly,” he predicts.

It appears the world is sold on electric locomotion as a concept that has been seen to work and forces are already at it to ensure things speed up. What seems a long journey has begun already with the first competitive steps in mainstream EV manufacture in India where the Mahindras have led the way till now. The attention he garners might seem monumental compared to the number of EVs his plant has produced so far — just 600 — but it is the quick transformation in technology that the Roadster — driven by the likes of George Clooney, Matt Damon and Leonardo diCaprio among Hollywood A-listers, and several tech chieftains like the Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page — promises, that is significant. Hero and Lohia make them now and other majors, including Bajaj and TVS Motor, are eyeing the segment