General Motors Green Revolution!!

[Zander]

What I'm getting from this thread, a day later, is that it's not acceptable that the federal government subsidized GM to develop the Volz as a startup venture, an alternative to burning gasoline, but it appears to be perfectly acceptable that the federal government has subsidized oil companies for decades, although extraction and production of oil has been a proven industry for well over a hundred years. Got it.

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

I don't know the answer to your question Maggie. But common sense tells me that "investing" hundreds of millions of dollars to create products that do not sell - is not going to get the USA back in the game.

 

[westwall]

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

Why is it you folks allways blame Big Oil? The oil companies are heavily invested in this tech too or hadn't you noticed. The oil companies aren't stupid. They realise that they need to work on alternatives. Oil and Natural gas are however vastly more efficient in production and application. Until that nut is cracked "green" alternatives are allways going to price themselves out of the realm of the average family. That's just simple reality.

Well..maybe because they effectively squashed the first iteration of the vehicle.

The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after relentless pressure and suits from automobile manufacturers, continual pressure from the oil industry, orchestrated hype over a future hydrogen car, and finally the George W. Bush administration.

A portion of the film details GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no consumer demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and destroy them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed. GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank before they were crushed). Several activists, including actresses Alexandra Paul and Colette Divine, are arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed.

Who Killed the Electric Car? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You need to read some better history pal. The electric car was killed off in the 1920's by a host of reasons.

The decline of the electric vehicle was brought about by several major developments:

•By the 1920s, America had a better system of roads that now connected cities, bringing with it the need for longer-range vehicles.
•The discovery of Texas crude oil reduced the price of gasoline so that it was affordable to the average consumer.
•The invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering in 1912 eliminated the need for the hand crank.
•The initiation of mass production of internal combustion engine vehicles by Henry Ford made these vehicles widely available and affordable in the $500 to $1,000 price range. By contrast, the price of the less efficiently produced electric vehicles continued to rise. In 1912, an electric roadster sold for $1,750, while a gasoline car sold for $650.


History of Electric Vehicles

 

[Sallow]

Why is it you folks allways blame Big Oil? The oil companies are heavily invested in this tech too or hadn't you noticed. The oil companies aren't stupid. They realise that they need to work on alternatives. Oil and Natural gas are however vastly more efficient in production and application. Until that nut is cracked "green" alternatives are allways going to price themselves out of the realm of the average family. That's just simple reality.

Well..maybe because they effectively squashed the first iteration of the vehicle.

The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after relentless pressure and suits from automobile manufacturers, continual pressure from the oil industry, orchestrated hype over a future hydrogen car, and finally the George W. Bush administration.

A portion of the film details GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no consumer demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and destroy them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed. GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank before they were crushed). Several activists, including actresses Alexandra Paul and Colette Divine, are arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed.

Who Killed the Electric Car? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You need to read some better history pal. The electric car was killed off in the 1920's by a host of reasons.

The decline of the electric vehicle was brought about by several major developments:

•By the 1920s, America had a better system of roads that now connected cities, bringing with it the need for longer-range vehicles.
•The discovery of Texas crude oil reduced the price of gasoline so that it was affordable to the average consumer.
•The invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering in 1912 eliminated the need for the hand crank.
•The initiation of mass production of internal combustion engine vehicles by Henry Ford made these vehicles widely available and affordable in the $500 to $1,000 price range. By contrast, the price of the less efficiently produced electric vehicles continued to rise. In 1912, an electric roadster sold for $1,750, while a gasoline car sold for $650.


History of Electric Vehicles

Um..okay..you basically explained why the internal combustion engine beat out the steam engine and locomotive..except you mapped it to the electric car...or your article did. But of course several decades later the first real electric car got crushed by the oil companies..

Good on you to toss in the "Electic Roadster". Pal.

 

[westwall]

Well..maybe because they effectively squashed the first iteration of the vehicle.

You need to read some better history pal. The electric car was killed off in the 1920's by a host of reasons.

The decline of the electric vehicle was brought about by several major developments:

•By the 1920s, America had a better system of roads that now connected cities, bringing with it the need for longer-range vehicles.
•The discovery of Texas crude oil reduced the price of gasoline so that it was affordable to the average consumer.
•The invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering in 1912 eliminated the need for the hand crank.
•The initiation of mass production of internal combustion engine vehicles by Henry Ford made these vehicles widely available and affordable in the $500 to $1,000 price range. By contrast, the price of the less efficiently produced electric vehicles continued to rise. In 1912, an electric roadster sold for $1,750, while a gasoline car sold for $650.


History of Electric Vehicles

Um..okay..you basically explained why the internal combustion engine beat out the steam engine and locomotive..except you mapped it to the electric car...or your article did. But of course several decades later the first real electric car got crushed by the oil companies..

Good on you to toss in the "Electic Roadster". Pal.

Uh yeah, right, you are so smart you can't figure out that 650 bucks with good range is going to be more desirable than 1750 dollars and a crappy range. In a pigs eye you make six figures.

 

[Zander]

You need to read some better history pal. The electric car was killed off in the 1920's by a host of reasons.

The decline of the electric vehicle was brought about by several major developments:

•By the 1920s, America had a better system of roads that now connected cities, bringing with it the need for longer-range vehicles.
•The discovery of Texas crude oil reduced the price of gasoline so that it was affordable to the average consumer.
•The invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering in 1912 eliminated the need for the hand crank.
•The initiation of mass production of internal combustion engine vehicles by Henry Ford made these vehicles widely available and affordable in the $500 to $1,000 price range. By contrast, the price of the less efficiently produced electric vehicles continued to rise. In 1912, an electric roadster sold for $1,750, while a gasoline car sold for $650.


History of Electric Vehicles

Um..okay..you basically explained why the internal combustion engine beat out the steam engine and locomotive..except you mapped it to the electric car...or your article did. But of course several decades later the first real electric car got crushed by the oil companies..

Good on you to toss in the "Electic Roadster". Pal.

Uh yeah, right, you are so smart you can't figure out that 650 bucks with good range is going to be more desirable than 1750 dollars and a crappy range. In a pigs eye you make six figures.

He does make six figures - when you count the ones to the right of the decimal too....

Sallow is not to bright - he still clings to the delusion that "linux" is red hat. Even though everyone in the entire world knows that they are two separate entities.

 

[Sallow]

Um..okay..you basically explained why the internal combustion engine beat out the steam engine and locomotive..except you mapped it to the electric car...or your article did. But of course several decades later the first real electric car got crushed by the oil companies..

Good on you to toss in the "Electic Roadster". Pal.

Uh yeah, right, you are so smart you can't figure out that 650 bucks with good range is going to be more desirable than 1750 dollars and a crappy range. In a pigs eye you make six figures.

He does make six figures - when you count the ones to the right of the decimal too....

Sallow is not to bright - he still clings to the delusion that "linux" is red hat. Even though everyone in the entire world knows that they are two separate entities.

Actually..

And this is going to put a bee in your bonnet...

Linux..is a "flavor" of UNIX...

But I digress..

Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation.[15] In 1999, both companies went public and Torvalds' net worth shot up to roughly $20 million.[16][17]

His personal mascot is a penguin nicknamed Tux,[18] which has been widely adopted by the Linux community as the mascot of the Linux kernel.[19]

Although Torvalds believes "open source is the only right way to do software", he also has said that he uses the "best tool for the job", even if that includes proprietary software.[20] He was criticized for his use and alleged advocacy of the proprietary BitKeeper software for version control in the Linux kernel. However, Torvalds subsequently wrote a free-software replacement for BitKeeper called Git. Torvalds has commented on official GNOME developmental mailing lists that, in terms of desktop environments, he encourages users to switch to KDE.[21][22] However, Torvalds thought KDE 4.0 was a "disaster" because of its lack of maturity, so he switched to GNOME.[23]
Linus Torvalds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maybe you should do a little reading..and stop with these assinine word games.

It's silly..really.

 

[Sallow]

You need to read some better history pal. The electric car was killed off in the 1920's by a host of reasons.

The decline of the electric vehicle was brought about by several major developments:

•By the 1920s, America had a better system of roads that now connected cities, bringing with it the need for longer-range vehicles.
•The discovery of Texas crude oil reduced the price of gasoline so that it was affordable to the average consumer.
•The invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering in 1912 eliminated the need for the hand crank.
•The initiation of mass production of internal combustion engine vehicles by Henry Ford made these vehicles widely available and affordable in the $500 to $1,000 price range. By contrast, the price of the less efficiently produced electric vehicles continued to rise. In 1912, an electric roadster sold for $1,750, while a gasoline car sold for $650.


History of Electric Vehicles

Um..okay..you basically explained why the internal combustion engine beat out the steam engine and locomotive..except you mapped it to the electric car...or your article did. But of course several decades later the first real electric car got crushed by the oil companies..

Good on you to toss in the "Electic Roadster". Pal.

Uh yeah, right, you are so smart you can't figure out that 650 bucks with good range is going to be more desirable than 1750 dollars and a crappy range. In a pigs eye you make six figures.

You think six figures is alot?

Really?

Seriously?



And maybe you should bother reading your own links..

While basic electric cars cost under $1,000, most early electric vehicles were ornate, massive carriages designed for the upper class. They had fancy interiors, with expensive materials, and averaged $3,000 by 1910. Electric vehicles enjoyed success into the 1920s with production peaking in 1912.

 

[westwall]

Um..okay..you basically explained why the internal combustion engine beat out the steam engine and locomotive..except you mapped it to the electric car...or your article did. But of course several decades later the first real electric car got crushed by the oil companies..

Good on you to toss in the "Electic Roadster". Pal.

Uh yeah, right, you are so smart you can't figure out that 650 bucks with good range is going to be more desirable than 1750 dollars and a crappy range. In a pigs eye you make six figures.

You think six figures is alot?

Really?

Seriously?



And maybe you should bother reading your own links..

While basic electric cars cost under $1,000, most early electric vehicles were ornate, massive carriages designed for the upper class. They had fancy interiors, with expensive materials, and averaged $3,000 by 1910. Electric vehicles enjoyed success into the 1920s with production peaking in 1912.

Now you're cutting and pasting like olfraud, this is the relevent portion that deals with the end of the electric car market, which was challenging the ICE market until the 1920's. Then the economics of the ICE got to be so much better that only a silly person would buy one. Someone like you perhaps?

And no 6 figures isn't a great deal of money, but those who mention how much they make often do think it's a lot, otherwise why mention it?

Oh yes here's that little information...please note the emphasis on efficiency.

By contrast, the price of the less efficiently produced electric vehicles continued to rise. In 1912, an electric roadster sold for $1,750, while a gasoline car sold for $650.

 

[KissMy]

What I'm getting from this thread, a day later, is that it's not acceptable that the federal government subsidized GM to develop the Volz as a startup venture, an alternative to burning gasoline, but it appears to be perfectly acceptable that the federal government has subsidized oil companies for decades, although extraction and production of oil has been a proven industry for well over a hundred years. Got it.

No you don't "Got It"

Government is paying other corporations to purchase Chevy Volts from GM to boost sales. This artificial demand will boost GM stock price so the Government can unload it's shares of GM onto the unsuspecting public that will certainly get hit with a heavy loss once the government stops creating artificial demand for GM Volts. This is the government acting against it's own citizens. The government is not acting in the best fiduciary interest of the investing citizens. The US Government has turned into Goldman Sachs intent on screwing the citizens to benefit itsself & its contributors.

 

[boedicca]

What a hoot. 281 cars! That was really worth bailing them out with billions and billions of taxpayer dollars.

This reminds me of how the ObamaCare program for the uninsured has enrollment rates far below projections.

And how millions of doses of swine flue vaccines for the Epidemic That Never Came To Be are wasting away towards their expiration dates.

I see a pattern....




of Faux Crises which have Led to Waste.

 

[boedicca]

we are and I am fully behind massively funding R&D into those very mechanisms that will make the elect. or hydrogen car a marketable reality. However, we are pursing it and any honest scientist in the know, will tell you, we are decades away.
When it becomes viable, you will see a massive influx of free market entrepreneurs and established co's moving to make it happen.

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

B'loney.


The Volt is far more expensive than a Prius, even after the government funded rebate.

The U.S. has billions, if not trillions invested in the infrastructure for oil based energy. We can't afford to dismantle and remodel it overnight. Switching to other forms of energy needs to evolve without trashing the economy, unless you really do want to see people suffer tremendous drops in their standards of living.

Well, given your world outlook, such a desire to see others suffer is quite plausible.

 

[MaggieMae]

if they can build a product, GM OR those foreign entitles that are marketable, I am all for it.

we don't get back in the game funding boutique automobiles, that's for sure.

and your post ala oil subsidies for exploration etc. is a strawman imho, in that the differences say the royalties etc. paid by the oil co's back to the gov. if they pull oil etc. don't exist in the automobile marketplace.

The royalties are now treated as taxes which can be written off dollar-for-dollar. Read this:

What Obama should know about ending oil subsidies | Grist

are you referring this?

All of this matters, because in the 1950's, the Saudi Arabian and other Persian Gulf governments wanted to increase their share of oil revenues from U.S. based oil companies, and were considering raising their royalty payments. Royalty payments are like licensing fees that oil companies pay to the countries they drill in for the right extract the oil. The IRS treats them as a deductible business expense.

The U.S. State Department, eager to keep the Saudi government happy and the oil in the hands of U.S. companies, negotiated a deal whereby the governments would raise their royalty payments the companies had to pay them, but to reclassify them as income taxes. In the end, these governments collected more money from the oil companies, but the oil companies got a dollar-for-dollar reduction in their U.S. tax liabilities, so that the net effect was a reduction in U.S. tax revenues -- to the tune of $15 billion total in just the years between 2002 and 2008 -- while the oil companies themselves came out no worse, or perhaps slightly better off.

Yes. Wouldn't that explain, at least partly, how Exxon-Mobil was able to reduce it's entire 2009 tax burden down to zero?

 

[MaggieMae]

The game is about efficiency. The company that builds the best car for the dollar will win.
EV's are horribly innefficient. They are toys for the rich if you havn't figured it out yet. A Tesla will set you back 100k right now, they hope to be able to sell one for 60k. I don't see your average family plunking down the cash for a BMW M class for a limited use vehicle, do you?

You can buy a real nice mid sized sedan for 17k that will do everything you need it to do for your average family and even if the price of gas rises to 5 bucks a gallon it will STILL be far cheaper than your average EV over a life of ten years. Do you not get that?

What makes you think the hybrid cars won't go through a number of improvements, the manufacturers will figure out cost saving measures, and eventually the cost will come down just as it does for any new invention? My first computer, a satellite desktop with bulky dual disk drives which tied into a mainframe cost just under $12,000 in 1977. Fast forward through 35 years of improvements, popularity and demand, resulting cost cutting at rocket speed because of competition, and you can now buy a laptop to carry under your arm that does a gazillion more functions for under $500. I expect the same thing will happen with electric cars.

Oh they will and i have no problem with hybrids. I have a huge problem with EV's. The grid would need to be rebuilt to support any significant number of them. That will cost a few billion, then you would have to build a couple dozen more power plants and the chances of the enviro crowd letting those through is slim. The problems with EV's are enormous.

Hybrids, though I don't have a problem with. I would like to see them use a better battery tech and that will come. Hydrogen vehicles (if the hydrogen seperation issues can be rectified) would be the bee's knee's however. Zero pollution at the pipe and hopefully very little in the making as well.

I agree that the grid is going to present a major problem in the future. We've known for seemingly ages that it needs to be upgraded, expanded, and otherwise modernized, but no one seems interested in investing in that either. We'll probably wait until there's another major blackout like what happened in, I believe 2004, with all of NYC and surrounding areas going dark because of the load placed on connecting grids in the midwest. (I may have that scenario wrong, but I think you get the point.)

 

[MaggieMae]

we are and I am fully behind massively funding R&D into those very mechanisms that will make the elect. or hydrogen car a marketable reality. However, we are pursing it and any honest scientist in the know, will tell you, we are decades away.
When it becomes viable, you will see a massive influx of free market entrepreneurs and established co's moving to make it happen.

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

Why is it you folks allways blame Big Oil? The oil companies are heavily invested in this tech too or hadn't you noticed. The oil companies aren't stupid. They realise that they need to work on alternatives. Oil and Natural gas are however vastly more efficient in production and application. Until that nut is cracked "green" alternatives are allways going to price themselves out of the realm of the average family. That's just simple reality.

Are the oil companies actively (energetically, pun intended) trying to extract natural gas with the same zeal as oil? After all, natural gas is the most environmentally friendly alternative to oil as well as being abundant, so it would seem all effort should be made to start moving in that direction which would please everyone. The question speaks to energy in general, not gasoline.

 

[MaggieMae]

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

I don't know the answer to your question Maggie. But common sense tells me that "investing" hundreds of millions of dollars to create products that do not sell - is not going to get the USA back in the game.

Well apparently even folks like Lamar Alexander don't agree.

Nissan turns over new Leaf to Sen. Lamar Alexander » Knoxville News Sentinel

Plugging in my new Leaf will give me the patriotic pleasure of not sending money overseas to people who are trying to blow us up," Alexander said.

If the United States can electrify half its vehicles within 20 years, it could reduce foreign oil consumption by about one third, from 20 million to 13 million barrels of oil per day, Alexander said, adding that the existing power infrastructure could support the goal if electric car users charged up at night while power demand is low, he said.

The fact that the Leaf will be produced in Tennessee starting in 2012 also was important to Alexander. The automobile industry has created great opportunities for jobs in the state going back to when he was governor, the senator said.

Alexander also discussed his plans for introducing legislation that would promote the sale and use of electric vehicles.

Based on the Electric Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010, the bill would direct the Secretary of Energy to support the nationwide deployment of electric vehicles and would offer technical assistance to state and communities to prepare for plug-in, electric-drive vehicles.

The act would include incentives such as tax credits in amounts up to $10,000 for electric-vehicle buyers, and it also would help build electric infrastructure such as charging stations eligible for a 50 percent tax credit. The Leaf, equipped with a lithium ion battery, can travel about 100 miles on a full charge.

As more people who can afford new ones, their old hybrids will be sold as used making those more affordable. That works the same as with any other brand.

 

[MaggieMae]

What I'm getting from this thread, a day later, is that it's not acceptable that the federal government subsidized GM to develop the Volz as a startup venture, an alternative to burning gasoline, but it appears to be perfectly acceptable that the federal government has subsidized oil companies for decades, although extraction and production of oil has been a proven industry for well over a hundred years. Got it.

No you don't "Got It"

Government is paying other corporations to purchase Chevy Volts from GM to boost sales. This artificial demand will boost GM stock price so the Government can unload it's shares of GM onto the unsuspecting public that will certainly get hit with a heavy loss once the government stops creating artificial demand for GM Volts. This is the government acting against it's own citizens. The government is not acting in the best fiduciary interest of the investing citizens. The US Government has turned into Goldman Sachs intent on screwing the citizens to benefit itsself & its contributors.

What corporations is the goverment "paying" to buy Volts? Got a link?

 

[MaggieMae]

What a hoot. 281 cars! That was really worth bailing them out with billions and billions of taxpayer dollars.

This reminds me of how the ObamaCare program for the uninsured has enrollment rates far below projections.

And how millions of doses of swine flue vaccines for the Epidemic That Never Came To Be are wasting away towards their expiration dates.

I see a pattern....




of Faux Crises which have Led to Waste.

Oh boo hoo. I'm sick of your constant whining over how "bad" Obama has made things. How many JOBS were saved by bailing out GM (for which we ARE being reimbursed, although obviously not as fast as YOU would like)? Those lost jobs would have meant thousands more added to the unemployment rolls, meaning more government welfare. Duh...

 

[MaggieMae]

we are and I am fully behind massively funding R&D into those very mechanisms that will make the elect. or hydrogen car a marketable reality. However, we are pursing it and any honest scientist in the know, will tell you, we are decades away.
When it becomes viable, you will see a massive influx of free market entrepreneurs and established co's moving to make it happen.

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

B'loney.


The Volt is far more expensive than a Prius, even after the government funded rebate.

The U.S. has billions, if not trillions invested in the infrastructure for oil based energy. We can't afford to dismantle and remodel it overnight. Switching to other forms of energy needs to evolve without trashing the economy, unless you really do want to see people suffer tremendous drops in their standards of living.

Well, given your world outlook, such a desire to see others suffer is quite plausible.

Nobody is proposing that oil production be dismantled, even into the next century, let alone overnight, so you can stop with your insane projections.

 

[westwall]

What makes you think the hybrid cars won't go through a number of improvements, the manufacturers will figure out cost saving measures, and eventually the cost will come down just as it does for any new invention? My first computer, a satellite desktop with bulky dual disk drives which tied into a mainframe cost just under $12,000 in 1977. Fast forward through 35 years of improvements, popularity and demand, resulting cost cutting at rocket speed because of competition, and you can now buy a laptop to carry under your arm that does a gazillion more functions for under $500. I expect the same thing will happen with electric cars.

Oh they will and i have no problem with hybrids. I have a huge problem with EV's. The grid would need to be rebuilt to support any significant number of them. That will cost a few billion, then you would have to build a couple dozen more power plants and the chances of the enviro crowd letting those through is slim. The problems with EV's are enormous.

Hybrids, though I don't have a problem with. I would like to see them use a better battery tech and that will come. Hydrogen vehicles (if the hydrogen seperation issues can be rectified) would be the bee's knee's however. Zero pollution at the pipe and hopefully very little in the making as well.

I agree that the grid is going to present a major problem in the future. We've known for seemingly ages that it needs to be upgraded, expanded, and otherwise modernized, but no one seems interested in investing in that either. We'll probably wait until there's another major blackout like what happened in, I believe 2004, with all of NYC and surrounding areas going dark because of the load placed on connecting grids in the midwest. (I may have that scenario wrong, but I think you get the point.)

The problem is to do a total rebuild will cost trillions of dollars. For some reason some folks seem to think that the money to do that will just magically appear. It won't. Things like that need to be planned for and initiated in a sequence so that service is not lost. Otherwise the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

 

[westwall]

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

Why is it you folks allways blame Big Oil? The oil companies are heavily invested in this tech too or hadn't you noticed. The oil companies aren't stupid. They realise that they need to work on alternatives. Oil and Natural gas are however vastly more efficient in production and application. Until that nut is cracked "green" alternatives are allways going to price themselves out of the realm of the average family. That's just simple reality.

Are the oil companies actively (energetically, pun intended) trying to extract natural gas with the same zeal as oil? After all, natural gas is the most environmentally friendly alternative to oil as well as being abundant, so it would seem all effort should be made to start moving in that direction which would please everyone. The question speaks to energy in general, not gasoline.

Yes they would love to exploit the gas fields more. You can thank environmental groups and those with vested interests in the Green tech for slowing and in some cases stopping that exploitation.