Polaris Electric Bicycle equipped with EVantage electric assist system.

2012 Kia Optima Hybrid stickers at a base price of $26,450.

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PHOTO CAPTION: SRZero drove from Alaska to Argentina

EV Races and Distance Challenges Helping Reduce Range Anxiety

Electric cars like the SRZero are proving that the technology is up to the challenge of providing greener transportation alternatives to petroleum.

Electric cars still have something of an image problem. Aside from questions about whether they are as green as their manufacturers claim, for many motorists there is a more basic problem - they're just not cool.

The SRZero is one of several initiatives designed to improve electric vehicles' image. It's an all-electric, 400bhp "supercar" with a top speed of 200kph, a range of 400km, and can accelerate from 0 to 100kph in seven seconds. The SRZero is, in essence, a modified version of Radical Sportscars' SR8. It retains that vehicle's chassis and bodywork, but instead of a combustion engine it has two Evo Electrics motors – and some serious battery power.

It also looks pretty eye-catching. Designed and built over nine months by a team of engineering students at Imperial College London who call themselves Racing Green Endurance, the stated aim was to prove that electric cars could be sexy, while competing with combustion engines on their own turf (or should that be "tarmac"?). During road-testing in South Kensington, the team say they liked nothing better than pulling away from Ferraris at traffic lights.

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