SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Russian weapons manufacturer Kalashnikov has unveiled a sleek electric concept car that its creators say will compete with Elon Musk's market leader Tesla.
Based on the body of a Soviet hatchback Izh, Kalashnikov's CV-1 electric vehicle's 90 kilowatt hour battery gives it a range of 350 kilometers. The arms company says the car can accelerate from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 6 seconds.
The brand, best known for the AK-47 machine gun, on Thursday presented the retro-looking pale blue prototype, the CV-1 at a defence expo outside Moscow.
Earlier this week, online users ridiculed Kalashnikov's new bipedal combat robot. The golden-colour machine, reportedly named "Igoryok" in production stages, immediately became a subject of social media memes.
Is the car going to be a threat to troubled Tesla?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @11:39AM (6 children)
This "sleek" car may not look fancy, or be very luxurious, but it may be completely functional. Based on it's lack of digital ornaments it may actually be better on batter life than Tesla's, which is adorned with all sorts of futuristic technology.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by aim on Friday August 24 2018, @12:05PM (2 children)
Quite. I think this might be the GNU/Linux of cars, vs. Tesla and others as the Windows 10 with telemetry, self-driving etc. I.e. a car for tinkerers, where only the powertrain is really electrified, not everything digitized and DRM'ed etc.
Personally, I sort of like the retro look here - the basis is not of a sports car as is often the case here in the west (think the newly built Aston Martin DB5s), but an actually practical car. And, most of all, it's not yet another SUV.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:26PM (1 child)
Quite. I think this might be the GNU/Linux of cars,
Nice way to try and market to Free Software fans. Next you'll try to talk us all into buying old East German Trabis. Which might make sense, as we can always replace a dying motor with one from the push mower in the garage.
I'd take a Tesla over this bucket of bolts any day of the week, with the added bonus of not pumping money into Putin's kleptocracy.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday August 24 2018, @04:24PM
Teslas's cars, while containing some free software (which they persistently refuse to release the source code for in violation of the licenses under which they received said software), use that software to support their proprietary software stack that operates their DRM and forced-updates.
If that's what you want, you aren't a free software fan. You don't speak for us.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Friday August 24 2018, @02:46PM (2 children)
Really, laughing out loud here.
Parent post is marked as "insightful" for thinking a car that obviously has terrible aerodynamics might actually have better battery life [I assume poster really means range] than a Tesla.
Get a grip folks.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @04:04PM
Eh?, for 'normal' driving speeds in urban areas (and the typical stop-start-stop-start-stop-arrrgh! driving pattern) your 'terrible aerodynamics' become mostly irrelevant for fuel efficiency/battery life.
Having once navigated through London traffic for two hours in a car capable of doing over 168mph but at best hitting 30mph I can tell you it's aerodynamics didn't help fuel efficiency in that situation.
We don't all travel down super highways basking in the bright familiar sun..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @04:13PM
No sure aerodynamics matter too much at the speed this car reach. On the other hand they have a wide interior.
Nevertheless, I agree its aesthetics is horrible. I suppose, as someone said, in Russia such retro-look may look the top of style. If they have an efficient engine, it could be installed in other chassis.