My Clean Break column today is a bit of an update on ZENN Motor, the potential of EEStor’s EESU, and an interesting comment about EEStor from Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, who before becoming an entrepreneur had plans to enroll in engineering graduate studies and focus on ultracapacitors for vehicles. I also mention some interesting work on ultracapacitor materials being done at Queen’s University in Kingston, and talk about a new ultracapacitor bus operating in Shanghai that will be demonstrated Wednesday in Washington, D.C. (for another more detailed article on the ultracap bus check out this Technology Review article).

I had a chance to chat with Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk late last month about Tesla’s plans in Canada and to probe him on his own early days in Canada after arriving as a 17-year-old from South Africa. Musk, before making his way to Silicon Valley and striking it big, spent three years travelling across the Canadian west visiting relatives (his mom was born in Regina, Saskatchewan) and attending undergraduate studies in Kingston, Ontario, at Queen’s University. It was at Queen’s where he hitched up with his wife-to-be before heading off on a scholarship to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. Of course, from there he went to California and founded Zip2, PayPal, Space X and finally Tesla Motors. The electric car maker recently opened a sales office in Toronto and Musk says Canada is an important market for the company, partly because the majority of the electricity comes from emission-free sources, but also because he believes electric cars appeal to Canadian sensibilities. If you’re interested in learning more, read my just published Toronto Star feature on Musk and Tesla Motors.

For those of you with $120,000 to spare and a desire to drive the coolest looking emission-free vehicle on the market, Tesla Motors announced today that it has started taking orders from Canadian consumers interested in coughing up the $60,000 deposit. Personally, I hope somebody I know buys one so I can go for a spin. Open invitation to my rich Toronto readers, assuming there are any out there – if you buy a Roadster you must tell me and offer a ride!

Read the story here in the Toronto Star. I love the symbolism of the Roadster and profile it has given to electric cars, and I love the name Telsa Motors. Nikola Tesla, in my mind, is one of the world’s greatest yet underappreciated inventors. An appropriate name for a 21st-century electric car company.