Audi e-tron
Taking the e-train

Elon Musk and Henrik Fisker -- impresarios of the electric Tesla Roadster and the soon-to-be, sort-of-electric Fisker Karma, respectively -- are running for their lives through a cave. Rolling behind them, gathering momentum, thundering ever closer, is an enormous boulder.

"Look out, Henrik!" "Save yourself, Elon!" Cue the John Williams soundtrack.

Can Elon get out of the cave in time? Will Henrik manage, Splat! Oh no! Look at the blood! There's rich guy everywhere!

I just spent a few minutes driving the boulder.

The Audi e-tron - a spectacularly cool and highly evolved prototype of an electric sports car due from the German giant at the end of 2011 -- may not be the car that crushes California's bold pioneers of electric mobility.

But what it represents could.

In the next couple of years, globe-striding automakers such as Nissan-Renault, Mercedes-Benz, VW Group, GM and Ford will begin cranking out tens of thousands of electric cars. Not just small electric city cars and mid-size family sedans (like GM's Volt and Nissan's Leaf) but powerful, dead-sexy sports cars.

The Audi e-tron, whose only shared component with the look-alike Audi R8 are the halfshafts, will at some point have company in the luxury electric sports car segment in the form of Mercedes' electric-version SLS gulling.

Read more @ Los Angeles Times - California, L.A., Entertainment and World news - latimes.com

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DILEEP