I seriously want the electric car to take off and was very hopeful, but it's not starting well. I mean where are all the geenies and liberal cities out there. I mean you guys don't let us drill in ANWR, Colorado, offshore and deepsea in order to be truly oil independent. Yet you don't buy the "green" cars that you say will solve our problems. Why is that?
Looks like a case where the consumer market is the final deciding factor. Why the heck should I buy a Volt or even a hybrid Prius when back in 2009, I paid $12,500 cash for a new Yaris. At that time a base Prius was $26,000. I get almost 40 m/p/g with the Yaris and have the same engine as the Prius without the hybrid technology, as the Yaris engine was the base engine for the Prius. It's been a damned good car.
Wife brought up trading in the Jeep for a Leaf and using it around town and local environs. Great mileage and low-zero emissions. I reminded her that most our electricity comes from coal, many miles away. The Jeep stays.
My wife bought a Yaris in 2007 and just loves it. All electric cars are still years away from being practical (I'm not sure they ever will be) but Hybrid technology is a great idea that actually works. I hope a crate hybrid motor will be available someday so I can drop one in my 2004 Dodge Ram!
Hey, $60.00 worth of crap for $10.00, plus shipping and handling. What a deal! Satisfies peoples illusion that they still have spending power and that all is well with the world.
In Europe, you can buy a Polo, a VW about the size of the old Rabbit, that gets 70+ on diesel, and has 75 HP. There are Jetta wagons here in the states that are doing better than 50 mpg. The electric is not ready for the big time yet for two reasons. That is the capacity of the battery and charge time. Here in Portland there are two companies with engineering units working on bringing an economically affordable and long range auto battery to the manufacturing stage. One is working with Zinc-air, I don't know what the other one is working on. One point here. When a practical battery is brought to market, say the Zinc-air, the range of the leaf can be extended to 300 mi. That electric motorcycle manufactured here in Oregon goes from 60 mile range to 180. Both are threshold numbers for pratical electric vehicles.
