Running up to 20 miles on a single battery and a maximum speed of 35 mph, Santa Barbara played host to the test drive of one of the automobile industry’s latest emission-free cars.

The Evolution Motor Company, which has offices in both the U.S. and UK and is committed to creating zero-emission vehicles, spent the better part of this week testing one of its newest vehicles, the Tersus. The battery-powered, emission-free car, which looks like a luxury car-pickup truck hybrid, is just one of an entire line of electric vehicles that the company plans to release later this year, specifically to a list of key cities like Santa Barbara.

According to company president and CEO Thomas Miller, Evolution Motor is seeking to increase the amount of emission-free cars on the road. He said the vehicle currently being tested surpasses all previous models of electric cars. Additionally, the company expects to come out with a consumer model of the car in the summer that will tout a maximum speed of 65 mph and the ability to run for 100 miles on a single charge.

The view from inside the electric car of the future is not very different from that of today’s average car. If it were not for the car’s silent startup – and the fact that it needs to be plugged in for six hours to fully charge – it could easily be mistaken for a fossil fuel-driven vehicle.

Currently, the Tersus comes at a price of $35,000. Miller said the models with better performance and battery life will cost considerably more, but will not exceed a $55,000 price tag.

Although the car may seem expensive, Miller said that by purchasing the vehicles, people are helping the technology advance so that it may one day become less costly.

“One of the things in our marketing and in our explanations of why buy a car that’s more expensive … is because somebody has to help bring that technology forward, somebody needs to help invest in supporting us to do that,” Miller said. “We are still competing with the major automobile companies. They don’t want us to succeed.”

Miller said he believes the reason electric cars have been so expensive in the past and why they have stayed off of the market for so long is in large part due to few advances in battery technology.

“The battery technology was not forced to progress because there wasn’t any demand to produce any large numbers by the major automobile companies or by independent automobile companies,” Miller said. “They took a very complacent position in developing batteries that were economically viable for electric vehicles and for other applications.”

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