Take THAT, Tesla fans!
Published October 27, 2008
We’re probably showing our age when we remember Fernwood 2 Night, the 1977 mock talk-show spinoff of classic 1970s comedy series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. But it wasn’t until we found one of the old clips that we realized: Good lord, the show’s writers anticipated the Tesla Roadster battery by at least 30 years!
The clip (which runs 3:40) has host Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) and his fractious sidekick Jerry Hubbard (Fred Willard) welcoming Fernwood’s local gas station owner Virgil Simms (played by a very young Jim Varney, of the “Ernest” movies). Virgil has invented an electric car, which seems to be based on an orange Volkswagen Fastback from 1971-73.
Once the battery is revealed—actually “about 4,000” of them, seemingly D-cells—we couldn’t help but think of the Tesla battery pack, with its 6,871 lithium ion cells. Guess those battery engineers must have been watching late-night reruns again…
The proto-Tesla, circa 1977.
(Our thanks to car fan Rick Feibusch of Venice, California, for the link.)
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hahahaha............................................................................
That brings me back... Thanks
Now if you could just post an episode of "soap"
Come on, the Tesla Roadster doesn't have 6,871 individual cells in it. That would be ridiculous.
It only has 6,831 cells.
good stuff I remeber watching that show all the time. 1977 energy crisis its sad how little we have done since then
@FactChecker: LOLOL ... "You are so busted!"
Sorry about that, clumsy fingers ... or neuron short-circuited ... or something. I knew that, I really did. I've written it a zillion times. Sigh. Nice to know we have such detail-oriented readers.
Does that mean I now owe you 40 commodity 18650 cobalt-based Li-ion cells ? ? ?
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