Yup, it’s true. The only bad part? Not many folks will get the opportunity. BMW is only planning to make 500 cars, and since the company is going to keep ten as showpieces, only 490 will be available to "the public." Something tells me that celebrities and big shots will snap them all up, but maybe some regular folks will luck out. Think they’ll be some EV1-styled backlash when Bimmer pulls them back?  Automotive News Europe via Wired

As loyal blog readers know, Rob, Jen and I went to dinner with Bob Lutz last Wednesday. To be honest, I was a little nervous—the man is a titan. While we were waiting in the bar, Rob pretty much summed up my feelings when he said, "Seriously, who’s bigger? Enzo Ferrari is dead." But titan or not, Bob was easy to talk to. Obviously, he’s stoked about the Chevy Volt, and one of the first questions I asked him was about whether near-silent electric cars posed dangers to the blind. It was pretty clear he thought that idea was ridiculous. Bob said modern vehicles are so quiet that people generally know a car is coming  because they hear "air and tire noise," and not because they hear the rumble of the engine. He added that once perfectly clean vehicles are common, the industry will probably start taking heat for all the dead bugs which wind up on their windshields. Yup, the rumors are true—Bob Lutz is a funny guy. However, he did seem resigned to the idea that we’d soon be seeing Federally-mandated vehicle sound minimums, because there is "one blind congressman."

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Scheduled to ship later this summer, the Electric Motorsport GPR-S will cost about eight grand, recharge in 90 minutes, and have a range of about 60 miles, which seems like plenty for an urban commuter. The picture below shows it sans faring, but there are plenty of good shots of it fully clothed over on the Electric Motorsport site, and I liked the looks of the Super Motard too. The idea of an electric motorcycle is pretty cool, and since EVs don’t have emissions, and bikes don’t have any safetyrequirements, it makes sense that companies could make just one model for anywhere in the world, so hopefully, we’ll start seeing lots of them on the roads.

via DVICE