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In the real world, you can drive coast to coast on Tesla's supercharger network. And if a Tesla is too rich for you, the Chevy Volt can be had for under $30k. Yes, that's a list price more than a Civic or an Accord, but you'll more than make that up in TCO. There are still a metric fuckton of charging stations. Sure, if you are planning to drive out in the badlands, you're not going to find a lot of charging stations. But if you're not, you're going to be fine.

If a Honda Civic is too expensive for you, than I guess an EV will be too expensive for you. Doesn't have anything to do with the power source, however. And it definitely doesn't have anything to do with a lack of charge stations.

You keep shouting at those clouds!

The US is not like Europe. Here's some math with a real world example to put it in context:

On average, lets say you work about 22 days per month. (4 weeks * 5 days plus a couple extra days)

Lets suppose this is a particularly bad commute of 90 miles (145km) one way. (I work with a couple people who do this, actually. No, I don't understand why either.) That's 180 miles per day, times 22 days, gives you about 4000 miles per month commuting. Assuming a 20mpg gas hog, (the US loves their giant SUVs) that's 200 gallons per month, and at $3 that's $600, and that doesn't count weekend driving.

The rationale for driving 90 miles each way is that it "only" takes about an hour and a half, the cost of living is about 30% less that far from the city, it's mostly easy highway driving at speed, and they can listen to podcasts and books on tape. As I noted, I don't get this at all. It seems utterly insane to me. But I've worked with a few people now who do this.

Oh, and that's all in-state driving, not even covering half the width of the state.

You want a Tesla, know about the existence of the Leaf... yet you managed to overlook Chevy Bolt? http://www.chevrolet.com/elect...

Are you kidding? Or are you just trying to make it seem like the Tesla is the ONLY decent e-car out there?

The Chevy Bolt EV has a stopping distance of 128 feet. Has a range of 238 miles (Tesla Model 3 range is 220 miles), normal controls just like in any other car, comes with cruise control (Tesla Model 3 only does if you include autopilot), and does not restrict your right to repair like Tesla does. You can buy it right now for $37k (Tesla Model 3 starts at $35k) with no waiting period. Most importantly, you will never have to deal with that weasel Elon Musk.

It's a hard problem. There is a direct relationship between car height and fuel economy (extra height makes the car less aerodynamic and thus decreases mileage) so car makers want to keep their cars short for efficiency. If you're tall, and especially if most of your height is in the torso rather than the legs, you're going to find it impossible to sit upright in most cars.

Same deal with the back windows that are difficult to see out of. In the Olden Daisies sedans had nearly vertical back windows, but the aerodynamics of those are terrible. More recent ones have gone to a more gradual dropoff in back, but unless you use a very large rear window (and you can only go so far with that if you want a trunk that is concealed from view) that gives you a higher window.

Look at the difference in the body shape of the Chevrolet Impala, a representative full size sedan, over time. Here is the current 2018 Impala: http://www.chevrolet.com/conte... And here is the 1985 Impala: http://testdrivejunkie.com/wp-... The older version has a long flat hood (needed to accommodate the large engines available at the time); the new one has a shorter hood, reflecting the fact that improvements in engine technology have eliminated the need for 300+ cubic inch engines. (The biggest engine available in the 2018 version is a 3.6 liter V6, which converts to 220 cubic inches. The biggest engine in the 80s was a 5.7 liter V8, or 350 cubic inches, though in some model years the 305 cubic inch version was the largest one offered. Note that the 3.6 liter engine in the 2018 model produces more power than the larger 5.7 liter engine did!) The new one also has a slowly sloping rear windows, while the older one had a nearly vertical rear window.

That’s why I drive a crossover SUV, about the size of a Ford Escape. It’s bigger than I need 95% of the time, but at least I can sit upright and do not have to slouch to see outside. I just wish it had better fuel economy. In the case of my vehicle, that is partly to do with the transmission and partly to do with the height / wind resistance. If I could have gotten a manual, I would have. That would increase fuel efficiency but they only offered that in the lowest trim package. It only has a 4 speed tranmission and highway speeds have you at about 4k RPMs when an extra gear could lower that down to about 3200, which would also improve gas mileage.

It's a hard problem. There is a direct relationship between car height and fuel economy (extra height makes the car less aerodynamic and thus decreases mileage) so car makers want to keep their cars short for efficiency. If you're tall, and especially if most of your height is in the torso rather than the legs, you're going to find it impossible to sit upright in most cars.

Same deal with the back windows that are difficult to see out of. In the Olden Daisies sedans had nearly vertical back windows, but the aerodynamics of those are terrible. More recent ones have gone to a more gradual dropoff in back, but unless you use a very large rear window (and you can only go so far with that if you want a trunk that is concealed from view) that gives you a higher window.

Look at the difference in the body shape of the Chevrolet Impala, a representative full size sedan, over time. Here is the current 2018 Impala: http://www.chevrolet.com/conte... And here is the 1985 Impala: http://testdrivejunkie.com/wp-... The older version has a long flat hood (needed to accommodate the large engines available at the time); the new one has a shorter hood, reflecting the fact that improvements in engine technology have eliminated the need for 300+ cubic inch engines. (The biggest engine available in the 2018 version is a 3.6 liter V6, which converts to 220 cubic inches. The biggest engine in the 80s was a 5.7 liter V8, or 350 cubic inches, though in some model years the 305 cubic inch version was the largest one offered. Note that the 3.6 liter engine in the 2018 model produces more power than the larger 5.7 liter engine did!) The new one also has a slowly sloping rear windows, while the older one had a nearly vertical rear window.

The Chevy Bolt starts at $37,495 (vs the Model 3's $36,200)

MSRP on Chevy Bolt is indeed $37495, but on Model 3 it's $35k. In fact, I'm struggling to see where $36200 came from. Doc and delivery (which you have to pay for on Bolt too) is $1k, not $1,2k.

Beyond that, Model 3 is easily superior on a stat-by-stat and feature-by-feature comparison, and has a much more interesting options list. Heck, even DC charging is an optional extra on Bolt, and it's a third the power with a much worse network.

Don't get me wrong, Bolt would be a good choice if Model 3 didn't exist. But it's just not competitive versus it.

Both of my figures included MSRP plus the mandatory destination charge. The Bolt Is $36,620 MSRP plus $875 destination charge ( http://www.chevrolet.com/desti... ). It was originally reported that the Tesla's destination charge was $1200. If it actually ended up being $1000 then thanks for the correction.

Beyond that, as I said...feel free to debate which is better, but it's wrong to say that Chevy (or Detroit, as it was stated) can't compete for that price range. In fact, if anything it's the opposite. As another poster reminded me (I had read it before but forgot), Tesla hasnt actually shipped a single Model 3 at anywhere near the base price configuration, and won't for quite some time. They are shipping only higher priced models initially, which makes me wonder if they could even profitably deliver a base model now, or are they limiting manufacturing to the higher priced model to pad up the price into the profitable range while they try to reduce costs into making the base model profitable too.

Whatever the reason, the sub $40k Bolt is currently infinitely superior to the sub $40k Model 3, because the sub $40k Model 3 does not currently exist.

Would we have the same discussion about any particular hardware part that comes with the product? Is anybody complaining that a car company is selling cars only as "complete bundle" instead of each part individually?

No, we would not have that discussion -- but not for the reason you seem to expect. With cars or any other product, there's nothing stopping the owner from disassembling the thing and selling off the parts. Unlike a Windows install, the ECU from car A won't contain DRM that makes it refuse to run when installed in car B. (It may or may not actually work correctly, but the point is that you're not disallowed by encryption and DMCA anti-circumvention law from attempting it.)

Sony doesn't want to sell naked hardware, just as a car company isn't interested in only selling you the engine.

You might want to pick a different example next time.

You know they've designed cars that do exactly that (really quite well) already, right?

Well, actually, a Spark with an electric drivetrain is a Spark EV

http://www.chevrolet.com/spark...

The Chevy Spark is $18,495.

http://www.chevrolet.com/spark...

It takes a lot to build one, and I can't envision a world where cars can be easily home built from standard parts.

I take it you have never heard of kit cars and crate motors

Full of shit? In every case, I typed the model into Google, and took the lowest number. The rest of the weight are for options, so they are not relevant.

The ones I mentioned were because the Volt and CRV had already been discussed. I have an F-150, and it the best selling vehicle in the US for the past 32 years. (source: wikipedia) I chose the Tesla because some people cream their pants green whenever they hear that word.

Tough shit that Ford is making an aluminum F-150. Good for them. The Tesla is also aluminum, so it is an apples-vs-apples comparison.

That said, here are the numbers right from the manufacturers:

Ford F-150 4x2 = 4,050 LBS source: http://www.ford.com/trucks/f15...
(Note that even their tiny engine has 325 HP and 375 ft-lbs of torque, which is necessary for a truck)
-vs-
Tesla S = 4,647 LBS source: http://www.teslamotors.com/sup...
(If the Tesla has higher horsepower, it is only useful for making the owner's dick get hard.)

Honda CRV = 3358 lbs source: http://automobiles.honda.com/c...
-vs-
Chevy Volt Base Curb Weight = 3786 lbs source: http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-...

Despite what you want to believe, the numbers are what they are. And I just wasted a half-hour looking them up for you.

I get that you love your PS3 for what you use it for. Anytime I turn mine on (and I'll be damned if I leave it in standby heating the room for months on end just so it can auto-update), I've got a ton of update hassle to wait through.

Defending the OtherOS thing is just hillarious, do you work for Sony legal? It was an arrogant, obnoxious move that took a single piece of hardware in my living room, that I bought and paid for and presumed I had some semblance of ownership of that used to do two things and told me, sorry Buzz Lightyear, you must choose.... What if you bought a car to go to work during the week and to do personal errands on weekends - how would you feel if a TOS agreement changed about the personal errands thing, telling you that if you ever want to drive your car to work again, you can no longer use it for personal errands without doing 6 hours of reconfiguration work to switch the "use mode"?

As for the media thing, we have a collection of DVDs, mostly kids stuff that they watch over and over. Being kids, if we watched from the discs, we'd have to buy the discs over and over, not to mention buying the player over and over - my 2nd PS3 (first one YLOD'ed after about 18 months, didn't really feel like doing the toaster oven reflow repair to get its 300W power draw back online since units 50% more power efficient had been released), 2nd PS3 lost its disc drive capability about 60 days after we got it - sure it was covered by warranty, but I had just gone through 12 months of warranty repair hell on the Vaio (4 months of downtime, bad screen, wait for onsite repair, onsite repair tries 3 times and fails, had to mail to factory for a month to get it done, then overheating at the 11 month mark, again mailed to factory for a month to have them declare that the fans were full of dust, a year later - being very careful to run the notebook only in the most dust free locations possible, the fans are packed out again, requiring disassembly to address or the thing will overheat after a few minutes of any processor load - f-ing joke.) So, no, not interested in sending the new PS3 back for warranty work with a chance that the kids stuck a postcard in the slot or something - open it myself, no, it's not the kids, it's defective mechanicals, but now I've voided the warranty by looking. Matters not, we mostly use games from the hard drive and movies from the server anyway... so, about that movie format thing, backing up our own owned videos from DVD to a file server - only specific types of DLNA servers were recognized (maybe that has improved with later software updates, wouldn't know, don't care), and after carefully selecting and ordering and installing a compatible media server, only specific MP4 encodings were recognized, had hunt down the specifics on the internet, because the first three formats I tried didn't work, so now the bulk of those backed up DVDs are encoded in the PS3 specific MP4 encoding format - once you know what that is, you can replicate it all day long, but if you had a previously made collection of videos, too bad, so sad.

So, sure, if you spend your life on the PS3, you can work around the pain and get some enjoyment out of it. Obviously, they can't be completely useless to everybody or they wouldn't still have 500 square feet of space in every Target and WalMart. But, ask yourself, how many hours a week do you spend on your PS3? How many hours cumulative since 2007? If, instead of playing PS3 all that time, you had been spending that time at a cash register, asking: "you want fries with that?" for $7.50 an hour and banking all that money, could you now afford one of these: http://www.chevrolet.com/2014-... ? For the lazy, that costs a little over 7000 hours at $7.50 an hour, or about 17 hours a week since 2007.

Mr. PS3 defender, do you spend less than 2.5 hours a day playing video games?

The problem with diesel cars in the USA is that they're more expensive than current hybrids (particularly the Prius)

The hell they are:

2014 Jetta TDI Value Edition: $21,295

2014 Beetle TDI: $24,595

2014 Chevy Cruze Diesel (no options): $24,310

2014 Prius Base Model: $24,200

Seems to be just about the same to me, save the Jetta; mine was a bit more (~$28,000), but that's because I sprung for every option except satnav. Seems the real problem is lack of options, unless you're a VW or Chevy fan.

diesel fuel is on average more expensive at the pump than 87 octane gasoline.

Yea, but you get almost-if-not-more-than twice the miles out of the same amount of fuel, so it ends up being a net win. I will concede that the sticker shock of diesel fuel does cause a lot of people's brains to shut off, and thus, not see the benefit.

Those are anything BUT small trucks and damn look at the first pictures GM shows of the 2015 Colorado, same old school GM dash and that really nice elaborate infotainment system. One of their major selling points is that "system", You already have one of those in your hands now and you can buy another one $0 and a two year phone contract.

http://www.chevrolet.com/2015-...

About the same as an $18K Chevrolet Cruz Eco, which claims 46 MPG in the diesel variant...

No Camaro is over 5000lbs, http://www.chevrolet.com/camar... They're all under 4000 for 2014. Even the 500HP monster is finally under 4000 thanks to weight reductions. Don't get me wrong, still way too heavy for a 'sports' car but not 5000 lbs. While I don't disagree that the old CRX gets amazing fuel economy, they certainly do. Fuel economy isn't everything though. The CRX probably puts more pollutants into the air than the heavy Camaro. While that may not effect your pocketbook, it certainly matters to our breathing air if everyone takes the same approach.

2014 1LS Camaro Base Curb Weight 3719 lbs http://www.chevrolet.com/camar... That's a lot of rounding up. Also MPG != emissions. Not saying a disagree on lighter cars being needed. Just use correct numbers.

Dynacorn Classic Bodies

'55 & '57 Chevy bodies

Aftermarket frames to put those bodies on

Modern drive trains

Everything else to finish that '55-'57

Everything else to finish that Camaro/Firebird

Everything else to finish that Chevy pickup

It is really shameful that Tesla is misleading customers with deceptive advertising about its electric cars. Here is a part of the complaint:

"... the Association says that purchase prices on Tesla's website routinely include a $7,500 federal TAX CREDIT, despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office states that only 20 percent of shoppers qualify for the alternative vehicle credit."

None of the members of the California New Car Dealer's Association would ever stoop so low. Especially GENERAL MOTORS dealers. Especially since, according to this report: http://cncda.org/resources/10-20-08_CNCDA_Ltr-GMAC_CEO_Alvaro_deMolina.pdf GENERAL MOTORS dealers represent over 25% of CDCDA's members. Surely none of them would ...

Oh wait.

http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car.html

"Chevrolet 2014 Volt"
"Net price shown includes the FULL $7,500 TAX CREDIT"

Never mind, move along, nothing to see.

I'd love a full-electric car, with about 50-80 mile range, which could tow a trailer or hook up a hitch mounted rack with a generator in/on it for longer trips.

That would be GM Volt. The generator is inside, no need to tow it. The MSRP is $32K, which is also lower than most EVs. Volt is a true EV; the inbuilt ICE only runs a generator. Buy one today.

a car with an all electric drive-train, batteries for short trips, and a multifuel small generator in the car.

So... a Chevy Volt, then.

Admittedly, it's not "multifuel", but that seems a minor quibble.

Posting anonymously so as not to undo a deserved mod:

You mean like THIS brand new Corvette?
A luxury sports car carved of power, performance and prestige, ZR1 boasts a handcrafted LS9 638-horsepower supercharged V8 with titanium connecting rods and intake valves and a test track top speed of 205 mph. Experience 0-60 mph in only 3.4 seconds and 1.05g skid pad, or over 1.13g with available ZR1 High Performance Package (PDE), while nestled in a refined and luxurious interior. All while maintaining a fuel efficiency of 21 MPG highway.

Even the base Corvette:
The standard 6.2-liter LS3 aluminum-block V8 engine powering coupe produces 430 horsepower and 424 lb.-ft. of torque (436 horsepower and 428 lb.-ft of torque with available dual-mode exhaust). And with its favorable power-to-weight ratio, coupe performs like a thoroughbred, reaching a top speed of 190 mph and a 0 to 60 time of 4.2 seconds on the test track.

Not many beater Oldsmobiles are going to out perform that, unless it is in a straight line with a JATO welded on.

Posting anonymously so as not to undo a deserved mod:

You mean like THIS brand new Corvette?
A luxury sports car carved of power, performance and prestige, ZR1 boasts a handcrafted LS9 638-horsepower supercharged V8 with titanium connecting rods and intake valves and a test track top speed of 205 mph. Experience 0-60 mph in only 3.4 seconds and 1.05g skid pad, or over 1.13g with available ZR1 High Performance Package (PDE), while nestled in a refined and luxurious interior. All while maintaining a fuel efficiency of 21 MPG highway.

Even the base Corvette:
The standard 6.2-liter LS3 aluminum-block V8 engine powering coupe produces 430 horsepower and 424 lb.-ft. of torque (436 horsepower and 428 lb.-ft of torque with available dual-mode exhaust). And with its favorable power-to-weight ratio, coupe performs like a thoroughbred, reaching a top speed of 190 mph and a 0 to 60 time of 4.2 seconds on the test track.

Not many beater Oldsmobiles are going to out perform that, unless it is in a straight line with a JATO welded on.

Good news, then -- the MSRP is $31,645
Source: http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car/

MSRP: $31,645
Source: http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car/

So what you are saying is that there is too much of a price difference between a Tesla and a slightly slowing Corvette?

http://www.chevrolet.com/corvette-zr1-sports-car/

An F150 has more 90 degree angles, the Silverado has more curve to the hood and truck bed.

http://www.chevrolet.com/silverado-pickups/
http://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/

The Tundra has more front end fender flare.
Rams have more open grills and try to look more like a tractor rig than a pickup.
The Titan has much more arc to the cab and windshield.

Thats how to tell the five full sized trucks apart.

I've been driving full sized Chevys since '85, I can identify pretty much every Chevy or Ford model since '71 by year.

Nissan GTR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_GT-R
90k-ish
0-60 in 3.8, 3.2 with "launch control", and wikipedia cites a 2.9 time. Quarter mile in 11.8.

Chevy Corvette:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvette
Available in many trims. The top trim is the ZR1, linked here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvette_C6_ZR1
3.8 seconds 0-60, quarter mile in 11.2
The ZR1 costs around 110, listed here:
http://www.chevrolet.com/corvette-zr1/

The Dodge Viper I think isn't made this year and you would have to get used? Though a new one is in the works. It has a 3.9 second 0-60 according to wikipedia, and is available in the 90s.

All of these cars are faster than the Tesla, and cost less- except the Vette, which costs just the same.

Sure, planes may be right out, perhaps shipping too, but trucking? No way. I don't know how much more efficient it would be, but what about a system like they use in diesel locomotives, and in ships (engine turns generator, electricity from generator turns wheels). IIRC someone in Oklahoma started refitting cars with a similar system, Neil Young was one of his first customers (classic Lincoln, I think), claimed it got 100 miles to the gallon. Can't be arsed with a link right now, but this is slashdot, I'm sure someone can find it.

This is the system the Chevy Volt uses. It doesn't get anywhere near 100 mpg when running on gas instead of its battery. However, if you drive less than 40 miles on most days it doesn't use much gas either.

The lawsuit was for laptops that broke because of heat damage. I have one of the busted laptops in my house. The thing powers on for 10 minutes before overheating and losing video.

You already DONT have a working laptop in that case, and given that most laptops crap out after 3 years ANYWAYS, getting a completely free replacement outside of the warranty period is a great deal.

Yes, the real winners are the lawyers, but what do you really expect with a class action suit? nVidia still had to pay for a large number of laptops, THEY certainly werent the winners no matter how you look at it.

Car analogy time: You own a new Porsche 911. One year later the engine craps out. You join a class action lawsuit because it's happening to a lot of people. After waiting two more years judge decides to give everyone brand new Chevy Aveos (fair comparison, since they are giving them $250 laptops). Sure, Porsche's paying, so they didn't "win", but you still got screwed out of 10+ yrs of driving a beautiful Porsche, instead you're stuck with a cheap compact car.

You would have been better off suing on your own, at least you could get the value of the car minus depreciation or a comparable car (Boxster, perhaps?), and trust me most of those laptops that broke had much faster processors than that $250 laptop since remember, this was a high-end GPU that broke, they don't pair good GPUs with slow CPUs.

Suburbans (do they even still make those?)

Yup... http://www.chevrolet.com/suburban-suv/

Okay, ya got me on the Hummer...kinda. The sale to the Chinese fell through, and GM had some other offers for it.

You might not have noticed, but the price of used SUVs has skyrocketed during the last year. There's a reason for that too, and it's not the great gas mileage.

GM called it a hybrid the whole time.

Bollocks. From GM: The Chevrolet Volt is not a hybrid. GM has never to my knowledge called the Volt a hybrid and resisted anyone calling it a plug-in hybrid. Go visit the Chevy site and read their electric and hybrid pages, I'll wait.

You have the engineering basically right, but this is all about marketing. The Volt has two on-board sources of power (battery and gasoline engine) and can plug in to recharge the batteries. By everyone else's definition, that makes it a plug-in hybrid. But for whatever reason GM wanted to come up with their own car category with all the goodness of "electric" but with something new to forget the bitter pill of the EV1, yet without competing with Toyota "hybrids". GM tried the terms "extended-range electric vehicle" and "range-extended electric vehicle" but seem to have given up on establishing them. Their strategy has utterly backfired because once the car sites got hold of the car they determined the gas-only-after-battery-depleted MPG in the 30s which lets anti-environment car nuts immediately blather about existing hybrids and their 1992 Civic doing better. So now GM has to go back and promote the plug. Along with Sirius Cybernetic Corporation, GM's marketing department are truly "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes."

GM's site currently says Volt is an electric car that uses gas to create its own electricity. Plug it in, let it charge overnight, and it's ready to run on a pure electric charge for up to 40 miles(2) - gas and emissions free. After that, Volt keeps going, even if you can't plug it in. Nope, an electric car is one powered by batteries only. The problem with GM's neologisms and hair-splitting over the definition of "only" is if the Volt is an electric car, then any car maker with a crappy mild hybrid that can travel 0.5 miles up to 17 mph from its electric motor "only" can split different hairs and call theirs "The next electric car", some of these jokes even have an "EV mode" button!

The sad thing about this marketing clusterfuck is the Volt will be the world's first plug-in hybrid vehicle for sale, and it it undeniably an impressive engineering achievement. Instead of USA! Chevrolet! USA number one! America F*** YEAH! we're pouring thousands of words into this boring non-argument. /EndThread

The fueling station has a web site. They offer hydrogen, compressed natural gas, bio-diesel, and ethanol options.

Only one (1) vehicle used hydrogen from that station - a fuel cell powered 2008 Chevy Equinox from GM's now-concluded "Project Driveway".

After the subsidy, the Chevy Volt is something like $35,000. That's within reach of the upper middle class at least. And it's quite affordable if leased ($350/mo).

(Source)

Here is another thing, I believe the engine will NOT run on e85. I cant find anywhere any info on e85 compatibility of the Volt.other than wild speculation from blogs that dont have any real info.

I know that e85 is a joke, but I am saving money on it right now as it's cost per mile (to me) is less than gasoline at the moment.

Hmmm, obviously you did not look very hard, Chevy's site for the Volt says that it is capable of running on E85.

http://www.chevrolet.com/corvette-zr1/

Isn't this the whole idea behind the Chevrolet Volt?

Thus the logic behind the Volt. (Finally an electric car that doesn't look like ass, and doesn't cost 100k!)

Also pretty stupid to have an electrical configuration for a car so complex that managing the data and specifications is a nightmare.

Ditto for a manufacturer to have 27 different models of carwith almost no interchangeable parts and "stone age" hardware.

I think there's plenty of stupid to go around.

I will admit that legislation has played a role in the increased complexity of cars, and the manufacturers have probably made a decent effort to comply, but it seems like more and more systems keep getting tacked on; how did we ever survive without real-time tire pressure monitoring? Side-cushion air bags? Multi-zone air conditioning with HEPA filtration? A "Check engine" light that comes on when the gas cap door is left open? Simply making something more complex does not make it better.

The Volt is not a BEV, it is an EREV. That is, the Volt is a plug-in series hybrid that uses a small gas engine to drive the electrical system (somewhat like a diesel-electric locomotive except with gasoline). The goal is to run all-electric for 40 miles (covering 75% of commuters) and kick in the gas engine when the battery gets low enough.

And it appears to be on schedule for 2010. More info here and here.

The 2010 model year Camaro is the currently shipping model.
http://www.chevrolet.com/camaro/

Chevrolet Volt (has a gas engine that works as a range-extender after the first 40 miles)
http://www.chevrolet.com/experience/fuel-solutions/electric/

Aptera (fully electric)
http://www.aptera.com/

I'm personally considering an Aptera as soon as they are available for sale near me.

The Volt can't come soon enough.
An electric car with a range extender (internal combustion engine for backup).
http://www.chevrolet.com/experience/fuel-solutions/electric/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevy_Volt
And it will be built close to my birthplace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamtramck,_Michigan

Gm needs to defend their position on the Volt.. not because of the cost of the tech, but because they took a progressive looking concept car... and made it look like the bastard child of a prius and an aveo. link.. requires flash.. click photo gallery

Oh, please! GM doesn't make a gas-sipper.

Oh, please! Meet the Aveo, 27 city / 34 highway, just as economical as anyone else's compact. In fact, only three cars sold in America get better mileage on regular unleaded (not including hybrids). Base price $12,625, and available with all the fancy amenities you so desire.

Oh, please! GM doesn't make a gas-sipper.

Oh, please! Meet the Aveo, 27 city / 34 highway, just as economical as anyone else's compact. In fact, only three cars sold in America get better mileage on regular unleaded (not including hybrids). Base price $12,625, and available with all the fancy amenities you so desire.

Well...I guess maybe I'm just waiting for the Tesla to come down to Vette pricing...

The Tesla is at 'Vette pricing, for sufficiently high-end values of "'Vette."

Speaking of competition, what discussion is complete without mentioning the Chevy Volt? Still the gold standard for the emerging industry, it will be anyone's guess if it lives up to the hype.

While i agree with most of your post, this statement is a bit of a contradiction. For something to be a "gold standard" it has to first be released and in proven use AFAIC. Otherwise, it's not really anything other than a standard that may or may not work well.