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Tesla wins IDEA award

Electric sports car, which can go 250 miles on a single charge, admired for its body as well as brains.

Candace Lombardi
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET.
Candace Lombardi
Tesla Roadster
Tesla Roadster Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com

Nikola Tesla may not have gotten proper due for his alternating-current system, but his namesake is still garnering attention for being alternative.

The Tesla just won an IDEA (International Design Excellence Award) in the category of Ecodesign. The electric sports car that can go 250 miles on a single charge and do zero to 60 in four seconds was praised by the committee for being attractive, as well as efficient.

It praised Tesla's designers for avoiding the temptation to make the revolutionary car look futuristic. Instead, said the team, the car invokes a nostalgia and beauty that puts people at ease with the technology and proves "that electric vehicles do not have to be slow, boring or ugly."