Those cars have a range between 58 miles and 125.

How about we stick to the claim at hand instead of trying to spin the topic into more favorable avenues. The quote was:

> > Tesla has accomplished something no other automaker can claim: It's made a relatively affordable electric car.

Nobody is arguing that Tesla's vehicles have no merit, we're picking apart that absurd claim.

Wasn't that goal already met by the EV1 back in the 80s? If you're willing to live with compromises (short range and long recharge times), affordable electric cars are a long since solved problem.

> Wasn't that goal already met by the EV1 back in the 80s?

The EV1 wasn't for sale at any price, so it also wasn't relatively affordable. It was leased at a loss to meet a state law while GM lobbied against the law. (Same with its contemporaries the Toyota RAV4EV and the Honda EVplus.)

Pretty sure the RAV4EV was sold in limited quantities, there's at least two different ones I have seen in downtown Los Altos over the past 10 years, so Toyota didn't try to destroy them all like GM did with the EV1.

That's right, I had some RAV4 EVs were sold after the leases when the line was discontinued (though you may have also seen the newer RAV4 EV, as it was resurrected in 2012.)