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It seems now they don't do that.

I just watched a commercial for the 2011 Ford Fiesta... and lo and behold it talked about Sync, Powered By Microsoft.

I guess that kind of debunks that myth.

By the way, you can also see it on their website here.

Bill

Are you serious? You're proving his point.

First it was " Microsoft SYNC."

Then it was "SYNC, powered by Microsoft."

Now it's just "SYNC." Go look for yourself. Seriously, follow your link, or go to the Ford Sync Page and look for the name "Microsoft" anywhere. In fact, the "About SYNC" sub-page has no mention of Microsoft that I can find, though it specifically mentions "Google(R) (no, not Bing) Maps in two places.

Is this the tv ad you saw? Where does it say "Microsoft" in that ad? Certainly not where it's talking about "Hands-free SYNC."

Ford is trying desperately to distance the Blue Oval from the Blue Screen of Death in the minds of consumers

It seems now they don't do that.

I just watched a commercial for the 2011 Ford Fiesta... and lo and behold it talked about Sync, Powered By Microsoft.

I guess that kind of debunks that myth.

By the way, you can also see it on their website here.

Bill

Are you serious? You're proving his point.

First it was " Microsoft SYNC."

Then it was "SYNC, powered by Microsoft."

Now it's just "SYNC." Go look for yourself. Seriously, follow your link, or go to the Ford Sync Page and look for the name "Microsoft" anywhere. In fact, the "About SYNC" sub-page has no mention of Microsoft that I can find, though it specifically mentions "Google(R) (no, not Bing) Maps in two places.

Is this the tv ad you saw? Where does it say "Microsoft" in that ad? Certainly not where it's talking about "Hands-free SYNC."

Ford is trying desperately to distance the Blue Oval from the Blue Screen of Death in the minds of consumers

It seems now they don't do that.

I just watched a commercial for the 2011 Ford Fiesta... and lo and behold it talked about Sync, Powered By Microsoft.

I guess that kind of debunks that myth.

By the way, you can also see it on their website here.

Bill

I already gave in to buying an iPod because it's the only device that works nicely with my car stereo. USB drives work too but it takes ages to read the filing system every time you switch the car on.

See, this is because your car stereo doesn't have Microsoft software.

Seriously, Microsoft Sync works great with USB drives. It does take a few seconds to read the drive (about a second per 1000 files), but not much. But, the iPhone is one of the more problematic to use with Sync, because Apple chose to implement only the part of the Bluetooth spec that they felt their users would need.

Actually, there are millions of people who really do need a larger vehicle.

Right. However what they need is not a 4x4 or a pickup truck. What they need is something like this (or a smaller version thereof).

OT, but I love how a Ford Focus , for example, is considered a "luxury car" under the tax code.

The Audi 5000S was never defective...

That's right it wasn't. It was people blaming the equipment for their own failures.

As for the Toyota Camry, is it defective? The probability of it being defective is higher than the probability of the Audi 5000S being defective.

Umm, please show your calculations. You already admitted that the Audi 5000S was not defective so this should be interesting.

Consumer-safety standards in Japan are lower than the standards in the European Union.

Even if true (and you've provided no evidence that it is true) that has precisely nothing to do with a car sold in the United States where US consumer safety standards apply. Never mind that the Toytoa Camry is produced right here in the US (also in Japan, Russia, China and Australia).

Even from an engineering perspective, the Toyota Camry is a dangerous design. For example, the transmission is mechanically separated from the automatic-transmission lever (that the driver uses to change gears). The lever is connected to an electronic box that sends some electrical signals -- along copper wires -- to the tranmission to control it: the process is drive-by-wire.

Drive by wire does not make it a more dangerous design. It has DIFFERENT failure modes but different is not the same as dangerous. Fly by wire has become state of the art in airplanes where they have much stricter reliability standards so the technology clearly CAN be safe. While it is certainly possible Toyota has a defective system, I want to see some actual evidence of a fault beyond a few anecdotes of customers.

Do not trust the fault tolerance in mass-merchandise products

You do that every day whether you are aware of it or not. There is a reason we have product safety and liability laws. You trust your life to mass merchandise products every single day of your life.

If you own a Toyota Camry, I suggest that you sell it as quickly as possible and get an old-fashioned-technology vehicle without the drive-by-wire.

Good luck with that. Lots of cars are already drive by wire and within a few years nearly all will be. Enjoy driving unsafe older cars.

Fault tolerance is expensive and is meant to be expensive.

Actually it doesn't have to be expensive at all. A pipe wrench is a great example highly fault tolerant engineering but it isn't expensive. Fault tolerance CAN be expensive but it doesn't have to be. With an appropriate design it can even be cheaper.

The fact that only a handful of people have been affected by the freak accelerations matches a distribution of a low-probability electrical glitch.

It also matches the distribution of a handful of people standing on their accelerator pedal and being too embarrassed to admit they weren't using the brake. Remember the Audi? It's entirely reasonable to believe this is people trying to get money via our legal system instead of an actual engineering fault.

The Ford Fusion exceeds the quality of the Toyota Camry, does not use drive-by-wire, and costs much less than the Toyota deathtrap. Think about it.

The Ford Fusion DOES use drive by wire. Every hybrid car is drive by wire and soon enough so will (nearly) every non hybrid. Drive by Wire has FAR too many advantages in both cost and features to not be used.

Regarding quality, JD Power thinks you are full of crap and I tend to believe them more than you. 2010 Ford Fusion vs 2010 Toyota Camry

The US EPA changed to more accurate MPG measures two model years ago.

The article is almost certainly using UK gallons, since Ford's website for the Taurus lists fuel economy as 18 mpg city and 28 mpg highway.

Diesels still don't put down a ton of horsepower...

What's a ton? My daily driver is cranking out about 400 HP. It came from the factory at around 325.

and driving... haven't see good work like this since their soldier related Mustang commercials

http://www.fordvehicles.com/the2010mustang/?id=/

Warning, it is broken into multiple episodes but overall it is well done. It also is a great kick to see this guy and other members of the community getting to drive one of these cars.

Ford Did.

I wonder if the test vehicle is a Mustang...

Ford says no.

Are you kidding me? Here are a few "Video Players" and and "Webpages Menus"

http://www.fordvehicles.com/the2010mustang/
http://www.007thevideogame.com/
http://www.splashup.com/
http://kuler.adobe.com/

I'm sorry, its 41, not 42. Click on the "Green" tab. There are a few different engines, the numbers you have are for the 2.5 liter 4 cylinder. There is a hybrid engine and a six cylinder engine too. Just scroll down a bit. There is actually a lot of info on the website, but it's silly because you have to click through a ton of menus to get to it. Completely unrelated, but it says that the hybrid system for the 2010 Fusion is an "Atkinson Cycle". Does anyone know what this is? http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/fusion/ http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/9712/72418797.jpg

BS:

http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/fusion/index.asp

Even the hybrid version only gets 34 mpg highway.

Only in Europe!

The USA doesn't get a decent Focus because Ford doesn't want small cars to eat into sales of their low-quality-but-Humongous SUVs (which have much higher profit margins than well-built, small cars do).

If you go to the USA Ford Focus page you'll see buttons with labels like "towing guide" (which basically says "don't!!!") instead of buttons for things like "handling" and "performance".

USA: http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/focussedan/

UK: http://www.ford.co.uk/ns7/focmca/foc0108_tech/foc_model_st/-/-/-

The differences between USA/Rest of world versions of the Focus are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Focus

I want looks, style, performance...and if they throw in the mileage, I'm interested.

You mean why can't we have hybrids that look like this http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/mustang/ ?

Ford does make a hybrid SUV. It's the Escape, which is their "small" model. While soccer moms may like it, I'm pretty sure Hummer owners won't be beating a path to the Ford dealer for one.

http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/escapehybrid/index.asp

Two words: Tata masher

I suppose "pretty" is this abomination? http://www.chrysler.com/shared/2008/300/gallery/enlarged/gall_01.jpg or this lovely? http://www.fordvehicles.com/assets/images/vehicle/pg/trs08_pg_ext_010_enl.jpg US Automakers decided that a big, flat front end was aerodynamic, that's OK, we'll just up the horsepower! oh wait, that means more weight so we'll just up the horsepower! oh wait, that means more weight so we'll just up the horsepower....

Ford Escape Hybrid: 34/30 FWD, 29/27

It's a standard SUV that gets 20/26mpg (automatic FWD)

A Ford fusion specifies 20/28 if you get the five speed automatic transmission.

Yes, I'm picking on ford. Average the two milages together, you only lose 1 mpg going to the non-hybrid escape, vs gaining 8 mpg going from the car to the SUV hybrid.

Ford Escape Hybrid: 34/30 FWD, 29/27

It's a standard SUV that gets 20/26mpg (automatic FWD)

A Ford fusion specifies 20/28 if you get the five speed automatic transmission.

Yes, I'm picking on ford. Average the two milages together, you only lose 1 mpg going to the non-hybrid escape, vs gaining 8 mpg going from the car to the SUV hybrid.

Ford Escape Hybrid: 34/30 FWD, 29/27

It's a standard SUV that gets 20/26mpg (automatic FWD)

A Ford fusion specifies 20/28 if you get the five speed automatic transmission.

Yes, I'm picking on ford. Average the two milages together, you only lose 1 mpg going to the non-hybrid escape, vs gaining 8 mpg going from the car to the SUV hybrid.

So, the fuel economy would go up with less fuel in the tank?

Hollywood really has done a poor job of preparing us all to survive after the coming apocalypse. They should be making more movies in that genre to warn us about the life skills we will need. And they have to update the technology since it's so old. Because let's face it: a person from the future would be too desperate for gas to be driving around in a 73 Ford.

Directors need to focus on high mpg cars like hybrids. Imagine a Prius version of the black police Interceptor- that would be totally cool especially if you can sneak up on people and run them over. Meanwhile the evil gangs can drive around in Ford Escape hybrids which have that rack on the top for attaching spikes, chains, harnesses, guns, prisoners, and feathers- everything you need. Plus think about it. After an apocalypse, you have to be more practical. If you have a gang of five or six henchmen, you're going to want a nice big vehicle to get around in as you travel across the desert and post-suburban wastelands. You don't want to waste gas on separate cars and motorcycles for everybody. The main character can do with a sedan, since he still needs to be cool and he travels alone except for his dog. He can't trust anyone else. As for the guy in the ornithopter, that's going to be salvaged carbon fiber if it exists at all, and it might have pedals. The Feral Kid needs no modification at all. He was already up to date since he already used very efficient and sustainable technology with that boomerang of his.

The "Lord Humongous" character- the ultimate nemesis of the good guys- drives around in a huge vehicle outfitted with old tractor tires and a big scary steam engine powered by a small salvaged nuclear reactor that notoriously leaks neutrons and fission products- but he's a mutant anyway and he wears a cadmium faceplate and armor to shield himself from his vehicle's neutron emissions so he's OK. Everyone stays far away from him for this reason so he uses a nuclear powered megaphone to issue orders to the Mohawk-sporting Wez and his other lieutenants: "Bring me the blood of my enemies- my reactor needs coolant!" I would totally go see that.

Then everyone can fight a little bit less for the gasoline, and we can see even more desperate fighting for all kinds of stuff like fresh water, solar cells, and "the precious nickel hydride". Maybe they can fight over "the precious hydrogen" in a sequel. Although the chase scenes won't be as exciting at 35 mph.

Ford has come out with some nice mp3 capability over the years...

mp3 capable cd players avail on most models http://www.fordvehicles.com/util/uad/index.asp?nPo pupID=11938&iWinType=1
triptunes for enhanced mp3 player capability http://www.fordaccessoriesstore.com/fas/b2c/featur ed_accessories.asp?id=25
audio input jacks on most new models http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm ?release=23959
And now Sync http://www.syncmyride.com/

http://www86.forddirect.fordvehicles.com/

Base $35,365
Options $7,450
Manuf. Delv, Proc & Hndlg $735
Subtotal $43,550
Dealer Fees $500 EST
Total $44,050

Ok, I wouldn't normally respond, but I own a Prius and I do rock climbing, biking, hiking camping. I also live very close to work, fill up my tank once a month (11 galons), and use alternative means of transportation with frequency. Heck, I'm moving next month to an apartment where I can walk to groceries, movies etc and bus to work. I regularly drive on dirt and gravel and can easily fit my extra large bicycle (I'm 6'3") in the back of the Prius without even taking the wheels off (hatchback + the back seats folded down). I'm trying to imagine the length of kayak oars and can't imagine they wouldn't fit with the back seats down.

I guess I can see your point about requiring an SUV if you regularly travel severely rutted and rained out roads or have to do some fording (the last time I've had to do that was in the Missouri Breaks in Montana and would never want to try that in a Prius). However, size wise unless you're packing 4 people, you can easily fit climbing and backpacking gear inside. If you are bringing 4, or need to bring the kayak and canoe and bicycles, just buy a roofrack.

I don't really have an issue with your driving an SUV (although if "downtown" is the downtown of a city that sounds incredibly impractical), nor do I think you should feel obligated or be forced to obtain a fuel efficient vehicle. I also admire your efforts to maintain a low impact by living close to work.

However, I think you're kidding yourself if you pretend that your life requires you not have a hybrid. Even if you really do require more space than the Prius offers, you're setting up a straw man by attacking the Prius in terms of space and aesthetics considering there are many hybrid options. While the SUVs have a lower mpg than a compact like the Prius, they do increase fuel efficiency while maintaining a large size. There are also many "car sized" options aside from the Prius including the Civic, the Camry and many more coming down the pipes. Basically, you just end up paying the price premium for the hybrid tech (which I've heard estimated at about $3k for a new car) which, as gas prices approach (and will probably surpass) $4 a gallon, is going to start seeming like a wiser and wiser investment.

Either useless ones that don't really save anyone any gas, or ones with technology licensed from Toyota.

Executives of American car companies live in Detroit suburbs where it's perfectly normal to drive a 17-foot 10-MPG vehicle. Thus American car companies won't adapt until they are forced to by legislation. The market has been trying to tell them to downsize for about three years and their only response is 4000-pound 260-hp "crossovers" like the Edge and Acadia.

Me either. I have seen them chillin around town and driving down the interstate - without a spec of dirt on them. Where I'm from anyone needing a 4x4 goes for something a little more ... realistic. I live in a rural state where Hummers could be useful, but it appears as though the Hummer is a total flop since it has been canceled as a civilian option. It has created a brand name which I suppose allows GM to think it has succeeded - but both the H2 and H3 are pathetic offerings on many levels. At least the Texans can have F450s!! which can tow 24,000 lbs! Heh.

Actually, you're on the right track for what we really need to be doing.

Look at any technological advances. The first generation (1st model) is rough and inefficient. Each subsequent model gets better and faster.

We'll take your 70 year example


1938 Ford 2 door standard
versus
2007 Ford Mustang GT

Both have 4 tires, 4 seats, and 2 doors.

The '07 Mustang will get you there and back a lot faster and more comfortably.

How about.

1951 - Univac 1

vs ... well, we all read Slashdot. Multicore, multighz, multiprocessor. Anything we may be reading Slashdot with, including our cell phones, will be faster than anything even 58 years ago.

How about something related to the topic. Aircraft.

The Hughes H-1 7 hours, 28 minutes, at 332 mph. Oohh.

versus

Well, book a ticket on the airline of your choice. You'll be exceeding 500mph, at over 40,000 feet.

The running theme here is that they were all built. They weren't the final finished product. They were earlier attempts, which were built on in the future.

If we sit back and theorize about "the Ark", then it'll never get built. If we build the first one, regardless if it will take 70 or 150 years to reach it's destination, at least it was built.

In 10 years, improvements or a better craft can be sent to take them farther on their journey.

In 30 years, an even better one can be sent.

In 60 years, commuter service will already be established to their final destination, with round trips in 10 days.

On the 70th year, that 10 day trip will take 1 day (mostly waiting in line, and filling out paperwork, I'm sure). At the destination, they can celebrate the arrival of the original craft, as it would signify what 70 years of advancements have brought.

We are really slacking at our advancements. We, as a society, are more interested in personal wealth and taking it from others, than advancement of humanity. No? really? But you have your job, so you can get a better car, a nicer house, a hotter chick, better vacations, better benefits, and of course, you're looking for the better job because your job just isn't enough. You'll accept the fact that your country is at war with someone else over their natural resources, because you aren't getting shot at every day. Blah, blah, blah......

We're never going to get off this rock, because humanity will NEVER get it's act together. Even if we play nice (ISS), we'll make it so expensive, and keep it tied up in red tape so long, that it will be an impractical exercise in futility. We will live here, and we will die here. In who knows how many years, another race will evolve and find our ruins, and just wonder who we were.

In the last 30-some years, the only better spacecraft have been kept under wraps by "national security", or cut because of costs (or so we're told). (see Blackstar). But hey, they did finally put color displays in the space shuttle. :)

We have much better things to spend our money on, dammit. The war in Iraq has cost over $400,000,000,000 (yes, I got the zero's right). The entire cost of the shuttle program (STS) has been $145 billion, but don't forget that cost includes several huge complexes, staff (besides the astronauts), a couple Boeing 747's specially rigged to carry the shuttle around, a BIG tractor to drag it around KSC, etc, etc, etc.. You get the idea. Lots of overhead. Even still, we could have done the space program 4 times over, each generation being better than the last, for what the Iraq war has cost

how many people can you fit in a Prius?

More than in the cab of an F-150.

You're right. The F-150 is kind of like a teenage truck (still immature, not yet fully grown). For the carpool commute you really need to start with nothing less than the F-250 superduty with supercab or crewcab.

You'll want the 6.8L triton V-10 with automatic transmission for the stop and go commute, but if you get open-road time then the 6.0L powerstroke turbo-diesel is a better choice.

Pick the F-350 if you have to haul the B.S. coming from greenie fascists like those posting under this article. Sounds like a buncha smurfs with food poisoning...

mutter, grumble...

The one crankshaft cycle in a piston engine (4-stroke) is half the combustion cycle, while in a rotary, it's 1/3 of the cycle. In a rotary engine, the rotors in spin at three times the shaft speed, while a piston engine, the pistons move at the same speed as the crankshaft. When all this is added up, the piston engine gets two crankshaft rotations per cylinder per combustion cycle while the rotary gets three combustion cycles per rotor face per shaft rotation.

If engine rotation == shaft rotation, then in a piston engine, cylinders/2 == combustions per rotation because at all times each cylinder is directly opposite the cycle from another cylinder (3- or 5-cylinder engines excluded). If engine rotation == piston rotation (point A in cycle to point A in next cycle), then cylinders == combustions per rotation.

In a 13B rotary engine, it's completely different. If engine rotation == rotor rotation (point A in cycle to point A in next cycle), then rotor faces == combustions per cycle. This is very similar to the piston engine. But if engine speed == shaft speed, things get interesting: three rotor faces x two chambers is six faces @ three combustions per face per shaft rotation gives us 18 combustions per shaft rotation. For any Wankel rotary engine and engine speed == shaft speed, it is chambers x 3 faces per chamber x 3 combustions per face per shaft rotation.

All this makes it very difficult to get an exact piston equivalent for rotary displacement. Even people in the automotive industry have troubles with this: Mazda rotaries are (or were at one point) banned from most professional racing because of this very problem.

As long as you're willing to spend the money, this should be able to easily hold all of your equipment. That plus it self powered, too!

Cheapest Ford: $11,000
Cheapest Porsche: $45,000

That's $34,000. Go away.

Don't spout numbers without comparing Specs.

I think everyone needs to have a play in a V8 Expedition, or a leather-lined Lincoln Towncar.

I rent on business and both these ended up costing about $280 for five days, or about $55/day (30 GBP).

Mmmm, V8 waftiness.

"all the hybrids are being created by Japanese manufacturers,"

You must not be familiar with the FORD Escape Hybrid http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/escapehybrid/

The price difference depends on the vehicle.

The Ford Escape Hybrid is about par with the Excape XLT. The XLT's base price for FWD is 24,800 and the Hybrid is like 27,500, so the cost difference is only like 10%.

More like debating Ford versus Mack.

http://www.fordvehicles.com/

http://www.macktrucks.com/

Oh, and you may want to go read MySQL-AB's partner news page to get a better understanding of what SCO "bought".

http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/news/article_ 948.html

burnin

Talk about fantasy land. You really think most SUV's in the last three years average about 30mpg? Let's see, according to your example, the Explorer should be at least mid-20's if they've been improving every year for the last seven - and yet, I'm confused. According to Ford (http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/explorer/feature s/specs/) the v6 gets 15/21 and the v8 gets 15/19 city/highway. How can that be??

And not trying to show you're a complete moron, but... staying with Ford, their Freestyle minivan gets 18/23 or 16/23 depending on the engine. Definitely not great, but certainly better than all but the mini-SUV's.

Maybe next time you should have a clue before telling someone they are wrong.

We're going to start importing the Smart Car this year, I believe -- but I'm pretty sure our version has more than 0.8L and gets surprisingly bad gas milage. Also, the Focus is a compact car, not a midsize one. A midsize car is the Ford Taurus.

I'm not even going to get into the fact that there's a whole bunch of things like this around being driven by drunken hicks, and lots of SUVs being driven by distracted soccer moms...

I very much like the graphic design in the first link: http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/index.asp.

However, there were five shortcomings:

On my high-speed DSL connection, I got only the word "loading..." for only a few seconds, but it seemed like a long time. Ford must be very arrogant indeed to believe that this does not annoy people with dial-up connections.

Second, you get the option "Low Speed Non-Flash" only after you have loaded the Flash page. That makes me realize why I don't like the average Flash enthusiasts web designer. They aren't very intelligent, and they assume I'm not very intelligent.

Third, Flash breaks tabbled browsers!!! When I right click on a Flash ad, I don't get the normal menu. My normal way of shopping is to load several pages and flip between them on demand. Macromedia thinks I should not be able to do this.

Fourth, the site uses blind links. I don't know what will happen until I click.

Fifth, after something is clicked on the main page, the connection is kept alive, as is shown by the message "Transferring data from www.fordvehicles.com..." which remains there forever and can't be made to go away by hitting the Escape key.

If there is something that cannot be done in standard HTML, standard HTML should be improved. Flash has had perhaps 38 serious security vulnerabilities. It is not good to introduce an entirely new, essentially proprietary technology.

Good flash sites always give reasonable defaults for killing the flash unless it's critical (see link #2) - the others below all have HTML equivalents for those who don't want, or don't need Flash.
http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/index.asp? bhcp=1
Logoyes.com - 'Click here to get started'
http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/mustang/launch/
http://www.kbhome.com/

Good flash sites always give reasonable defaults for killing the flash unless it's critical (see link #2) - the others below all have HTML equivalents for those who don't want, or don't need Flash.
http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/index.asp? bhcp=1
Logoyes.com - 'Click here to get started'
http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/mustang/launch/
http://www.kbhome.com/

That's close to what I was going to say (but simpler). You beat me to it; That'll teach me to wander off and actually do work.

Unfortunately, taxing by mile does not take into acount that some vehicles inherently put more wear on the road than others. It'd be quite unfair to assign the same road maintenance cost/mile to a user of a Honda Nighthawk or Geo Metro as a Ford Super Duty.

In a hybridless all fossil-fuel powered economy, fuel consumption is an acceptable proxy for road wear. Unfortunately, this goes out the window when hybrid and non-fossil fuel powered vehicles are introduced. One way to get around this might be to scale the mileage tax by the mass of the vehicle. Unfortunately this doesn't distinguish between those who use their Ford Super Duty to commute and those who use it to haul rocks around. Both pay the same amount for "road wear" despite the fact that the rock hauler is doing a lot more wear than the commuter.

Then again, it may serve as a dis-encentive to using a vehicle like the Super Duty to commute, which would be a good thing.

It also doesn't distinguish between mileage used in the taxable jurisdiction, and that used in other jurisdictions.... long-haul truckers are unfairly punished.

Don't forget this other hybrid SUV.

Lexus hybrid SUV

Toyota hybrid SUV

Hybrid trucks and SUVs from other manufactures

Attributing attributes? You been out of the States too long. And I said "living" abroad, not "traveling." In my experience, people who up and leave the US generally do so because they're fed up with it. As in, not bible-clutching homophobes whose idea of nirvana involves lots of white people, a swimming pool filled with Skoal, and the entire product line of the Ford Motor Company (sans the metrosexual stuff.) It must take a lot to spurn the Greatest Nation in the History of Civilization, no?

You paid the equivalent of $32,000 for what amounts to a beer can on wheels, with an engine that would be considered undersized on a motorcycle and generates less power than the lowest-horsepower non-hybrid car available in the US?

Do you realize that for that kind of money, we in the US can get a Honda S2000 - a two-seater with well over twice the horsepower, nearly twice the torque, actually looks like a car, and doesn't have a turbocharger to decrease engine life?

Or, for $2000 less, we can get a brand new Mustang GT with all the options, three times the horsepower, over three times the torque, and twice the seating.

Either of these will run circles around the "Smart Roadster-Coupe Brabus." Hell, even my "other car", a 1991 Nissan Sentra, with baseline 1.6L engine and automatic transmission, will do 120mph - with 250,000 miles on the odometer. Yes, I've verified this; the rev limiter kicks in at about 122mph. And its book value is somewhere around $1500. 120mph ability may be something to brag about elsewhere, but at least in this part of the US it's generally considered a bare minimum, though acceleration is more important. Get on I-285 in Atlanta sometime - you have about 100 meters of ramp, and then you'd better be doing at least 70mph or you're a greasy spot on the guardrail.

I agree that the voice of a crowd tends to the most common opinion, no matter how wacky the one side is or how reasonable the other side is. The "easy to understand" way, whether right or wrong, tends to become the norm.

Power plants in general have dangers. Nuclear power is arguably more or less safe, depending on where you stand in the crowd. The bad that can happen is terribly bad, but the safety put in place is much more robust to help avoid the bad.

Undeniably, nuclear power is not oil. If the people could understand the risks and benefits without falling into mob mentality, unless the mob gets with the program, then we can begin moving forward.

Put the power plants far enough away from the people to make them comfortable. Heck, surround them with military bases to make them safer. Put 'em in the deserts or far out in the fields, away from the cities, if that's what it takes.

Chuck the waste into space. Launch it toward the sun 'cause I'm sure it wouldn't mind, or into deep space if there's fear of something bad inside the solar system. Use the space elevator if there's fear of a rocket explosion...

An aside, since I realize the article is about nuclear power, is what about other renewable sources? How about putting wind generation in every cloverleaf on the freeway to power the nearby street lights? How about putting more than one dam on a river for hydro-electric, or just more dams in general? Why not replace those massive refineries with huge farms of wind and solar power generators?

Why not make hybrid cars the norm? Subsidise consumers for buying them, or companies to help make them inexpensive. And why not make them so they can use ethanol? Less than 1/3 the oil consumed per gallon, and lots more miles-per-gallon on top. Even if they have to be the size of SUVs to make Americans happy, the bulk of commuters don't use the power in the gasoline engines anyway; as long as they can be modified to still provide exciting car chases...

I think once we start moving in that direction, dependency will drop, and the rising market will, like elsewhere, reduce prices and increase productivity.