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I wonder if they are applying discounts for their own repair work. Tesla cars are notoriously expensive to repair and not all accidents are your own fault and not all other drivers are insured or will own up to a parking lot incident.
This is what $30k of damage looks like.
http://gas2.org/2015/01/06/thi...

So Tesla doesn't count?
http://gas2.org/2014/10/09/tes...

Responding to myself to provide citations and additional details, since there's some (perfectly understandable) incredulity in response to my comment.

Regarding the weld, it's a variety of friction welding that SpaceX developed:
http://electrek.co/2015/05/24/...
http://gas2.org/2015/05/29/spa...

Regarding the crush test breaking the machine:
http://www.wired.com/2013/08/t...
http://www.roadandtrack.com/ne...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

It's also worth noting that Tesla claimed they had achieved a NHTSA safety rating score of 5.4, which was utter and complete nonsense since the scoring is capped at 5 stars. Tesla apparently arrived at that number by totaling up each of the subcategories and ignoring the fact that the total score is capped by design. The NHTSA rightly slapped Tesla for saying they had achieved a score beyond the max, and by no means should my previous comment be taken as an endorsement of Tesla or everything they've claimed regarding their safety record over the years. I was simply sharing a neat tidbit that seemed relevant. Nothing more.

http://gas2.org/2015/03/10/jee...

"According to AutoBlog, an anonymous source at FCA has confirmed that the next generation Jeep Wrangler will be available with a 3.0 liter V6 diesel engine coupled to an 8 speed automatic transmission. While the parent company offers this combination in the Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck and the Jeep Grand Cherokee, this is the first indication the powertrain will be offered in the Wrangler."

That 1,000 km range isn't an impressive once you understand he's manipulating the numbers. The current range on a model S is about 700km - if you drive on level ground at 22mph.

And I said, "20% of 18 billion is a lot more than you ever paid me, suckers!"

Not only is Uber's "on duty" insurance not available when a person isn't "on duty", but the driver still needs personal auto insurance. Uber encourages its drivers to only pay for regular personal insurance, and the insurance companies say that this is a violation of their policy terms. Only recently have insurance companies started offering products to fill in the gaps. They, of course, come with extra premiums.

And of course, sometimes one wonders whether Uber should refer to their "insurance policy" in quotation marks.

I'm pretty sure today's full-size trucks are usually close to 5000 pounds. Yes, the small pickups are lighter, but most people drive the full-size ones, at least where I live. Ford's new F150 does succeed in shaving some weight off with an aluminum body, but it still is about 4000 pounds for the lightest model.

http://gas2.org/2014/10/08/201...

As soon as an electric car drives a 1000 miles in a day, you'll move the bar to a 1005.

Besides, your 1000 miles has already repeatedly broken,

http://www.popsci.com/cars/art...
http://gas2.org/2012/06/14/ren...

Oh really?

If you buy for fuel efficiency, you can put a smug Prius driver to shame. At a very reasonable price. Simple physics explains why: bike+rider is about 700 pounds, car+driver is about 3500 pounds, so you need much less force to move the bike, which more than offsets the less efficient engines and aerodynamics possible on bikes.

Has Slashdot forgotten it has reported on Chrystler two years and a day ago? http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/01/25/0019220/how-chryslers-battery-less-hybrid-minivan-works The Chrysler minivan compressed air hybrid is supposed to be arriving this year in the US: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1053892_sergio-marchionne-hybrid-minivan-will-join-chrysler-300-hybrid-in-2013 And UPS has been running this for a while now (they started testing the vehicles 5 years ago!); it makes a lot of sense for heavy trucks. http://gas2.org/2008/10/28/ups-is-first-in-delivery-industry-to-test-hydraulic-hybrids/

What this air engine does is remove the electric engine component from hybrid vehicles. This eliminates the need for a large battery, which cuts down on cost, weight, and negative environmental impact. Plus, you will not get stranded looking for a charger on some back country road. While pure compressed air cars have been tried before, this is the first application of a gas-compressed air hybrid. The system will be able to be installed on any normal Peugeot car without altering its external shape, size or trunk space if the spare is removed. From the exterior the air powered Peugeot will look identical to a conventional Peugeot. Peugeot will be introducing the air powered engine in smaller models such as the model 208 to start.

http://gas2.org/2013/01/25/the-peugeot-air-powered-hybrid-car-could-hit-streets-by-2016/

Cheaper and simpler than exotic batteries, saves a ton of gas, and you don't need rare earths. http://gas2.org/2008/10/28/ups-is-first-in-delivery-industry-to-test-hydraulic-hybrids/

And it's really too bad because an individual has far more power to do something about global warming than any of those problems you listed.

Bullshit.

You want to know why conservatives push back on global warming? Because the alarmists are claiming just what you are saying, that I (a hard working taxpayer who doesn't have the money to buy a new Prius) needs to go completely out of my way to do something that will make practically ZERO change to the current situation.

Yet removing one container ship from the shipping industry would be the equivalent of removing 50 million automobiles.

I heard the other day that our oil exports now exceed our oil imports. My question: why aren't we just using the oil we have, instead of shipping it across the ocean? Economics aside for a minute... this is having a huge impact to global warming, yet I'm the one being blamed?

This would't have anything at all to do with GE would it? Would it? http://gas2.org/2012/02/20/ge-forcing-employees-into-chevy-volts/

On transmission I agree with you, there are minimal losses moving electrical energy. However, storing energy is a whole different issue. Storing electricity as a liquid fuel is a very attractive possibility.

We lack a good storage capability for electrical power, but I'm not convinced this would be the solution.

Not when you calculate the losses likely involved in liquid storage. I suspect the CO2-->Butanol-->Combustion-->Kenetic/heat would be much more lossy than simply pumping water up-hill, and releasing it thru generators, something like done at Grand Coulee where the pump generators are used to pump water uphill, and the exact same device us used to create electricity from the release of that water. Pumped hydro is the most efficient method in current use.

Ultimately, I suspect the storage problem will end up being ameliorated by battery powered Electric Vehicles. After all, once 256 million vehicles are converted to battery or hybrids there is a boatload of storage distributed across the grid. Most of it sitting idle most of the time.

You need to realize what happened with this company. Since I somehow inexplicably became the go-to gal for leaks, I would recommend what I've already written on the subject. The short of it: they *were* about to ship vehicles (I even have the vehicle integration schedule to back it up) when the board of directors forced a new CEO on them, a Detroit guy who ordered a redesign of almost everything in order to make it more mainstream.

Now that the company is dead, expect all of this and a lot more to start coming out of official circles.

You need to realize what happened with this company. Since I somehow inexplicably became the go-to gal for leaks, I would recommend what I've already written on the subject. The short of it: they *were* about to ship vehicles (I even have the vehicle integration schedule to back it up) when the board of directors forced a new CEO on them, a Detroit guy who ordered a redesign of almost everything in order to make it more mainstream.

Now that the company is dead, expect all of this and a lot more to start coming out of official circles.

More like the past; I'm not sure about 125mph, but I believe electric cars were doing over 100mph in the 19th century. But then people realised they sucked and switched to gasoline instead.

More like barely 20mph, but thanks for playing.

http://gas2.org/2009/04/19/9-electric-cars-100-years-old-or-more/

On top of that, one of the top results on google, http://gas2.org/2011/08/11/thorium-powered-car-could-drive-a-million-miles-before-refueling/#comment-123908, is fishy as hell. The DNS records for gas2.org were last updated early this month, and it just links to some article written, probably by the guy he paid off, here - >http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/.
Domain Name:GAS2.ORG
Created On:11-Dec-2007 18:55:56 UTC
Last Updated On:06-Aug-2011 21:45:53 UTC
Expiration Date:11-Dec-2011 18:55:56 UTC
On top of that, it doesn't appear possible to actually post to gas2.org - it might not even be a real forum.

It's not just import tariffs; Mercedes has an ultra-efficient gasoline engine that they won't import to the US because our gas (not Diesel) has too much sulfur. (link)

And then we have the massive resistance of USians towards Diesels in cars. Part of that is the cash-grab that the States go for by taxing the hell out of Diesel fuel, intending to get a piece of the interstate trucking money. Part of it is probably backlash from the horrible gas-to-Diesel conversions from US automakers in the 1980s.

I don't know why there aren't more Diesel-electric hybrids--Diesels are great at turning gensets, and the people who buy hybrids are certainly more likely to accept a Diesel.

Who is building all the new power generating plants we'll need when millions of drivers have electric cars? Now is the time to start. You can't build those plants overnight.

No one is, because no one needs to. Four big EV denier myths:

More electricity needed - debunked. Here's the link to the original Oak Ridge Nation Laboratory Report (currently down).

More global warming - not true. DOE estimates average of 1.3 lbs CO2 per kWh. Coal (the worst CO2 emitter) emits 2.1 lbs CO2 per kWh. Electric cars get between 4 and 10 miles per kWh. Worst case, that means 0.5 pounds of CO2 per mile. 1 gallon = 19.4 lbs of CO2. So, that's around 38 mpg CO2 emissions equivalent in the absolute worst case scenario. In the average case, we are looking at around 59.7 MPG. Diesel emits more CO2 than gasoline, by a factor of about 1.15. So, worst case is 43.7 MPG diesel, and average is 68.7 MPG diesel. These numbers are EPA testing of Tesla roadster and Rav4EV.

Rare lithium - peak lithium is a Li.

Toxic batteries - lithium-ion is largely non-toxic. Tesla was working on recycling before the cars even hit the streets. Lead acid (which is toxic) is 97% recycled.

Not going to happen.

How about 800kW?

50kW barely even qualifies to be called rapid charging.

For those wondering what rapid chargers look like -- a couple hundred kW rapid charger is usually a box about the size of 1-2 small soda machines with a cable about the size of a gas hose (but heavier) coming off it. The aforementioned 800kW charger is the size of four large soda machines pushed back to back.

It proves there are lots of people/companies willing to give students money for doing stuff that's rather useless from a scientific and practical viewpoint.

I'd like to see how they handle practical stuff like "air conditioning". If they think that's not important, then that's yet another reason why their car is not important. A college student might put up with 35C or higher temperatures on that "cool trip", most car buyers won't. A 3-4 kilowatt car air conditioner is going to hurt an EV's range a lot more than a fossil fuel powered one.

I'm sure you'd be able to get a "normal car" to travel the same journey for cheaper, faster and in better comfort.

Anyway if the battery costs drop and capacities increase, we'd see more electric cars. To me, Nissan is the one that's doing useful stuff - apparently they've got battery costs down to USD375 per kWh: http://gas2.org/2010/05/05/report-nissan-leafs-battery-costs-a-staggeringly-cheap-375kwh-to-produce/

What Nissan is doing is far more useful than a bunch of students going from Alaska to Argentina. Computer analogy (instead of car analogy ;): the former are like Intel/AMD - actually pushing the tech, the latter are just a bunch of case modders.

A tragic end to an amazing vehicle.

Here's an article (and it's part II) on the Aptera management crisis. Basically, a standard issue Wall Street scammer got in a destroyed everything. She previously planned one of the "one of the largest accounting frauds in US history" according to the SEC.

How about the opposite approach? How about a huge all-American SUV filled with literally a ton of batteries. For example, imagine a Hummer H3 filled with 1 ton of nickel-iron batteries. It would go about 150 miles on a charge at 65 mph. If we could apply modern techniques to making the battery, we could get it for a very low price. This would bust down the primary obstacles to the adoption of electric vehicles: cost and battery durability.

A tragic end to an amazing vehicle.

Here's an article (and it's part II) on the Aptera management crisis. Basically, a standard issue Wall Street scammer got in a destroyed everything. She previously planned one of the "one of the largest accounting frauds in US history" according to the SEC.

How about the opposite approach? How about a huge all-American SUV filled with literally a ton of batteries. For example, imagine a Hummer H3 filled with 1 ton of nickel-iron batteries. It would go about 150 miles on a charge at 65 mph. If we could apply modern techniques to making the battery, we could get it for a very low price. This would bust down the primary obstacles to the adoption of electric vehicles: cost and battery durability.

there is a limited supply of Lithium and other elements used in these batteries.

No, there isn't. Not in a practical sense.

There is also the issue of having an electrical grid that can handle that. Charging a battery in minutes with enough power to get you hundreds of miles takes a non-trivial amount of power, no matter how good your battery is.

You don't draw it from the grid. You draw it from a battery bank. The battery bank is in turn trickle-charged from the grid.

And in case anyone's curious, yes, they do make extremely high power chargers. TARDEC got one last year that does 800kW. I don't know how much that one cost, but ones in the ~250kW range are typically ~$125k-ish (and about the size of a vending machine). That may sound like a lot, but then again, a gas station generally costs $1-2m to build, and you have to pay for tear-down at end of life (tearing down a charger is a net gain, from scrap). Plus, expect prices to fall over time.

Chargers that big generally require that their connectors or even their cables be cooled. Which makes me wonder when we'll see the next logical step in that evolution -- having the charger provide coolant for the battery pack instead of the EV providing it. After all, why make the EV haul around a powerful cooling system when your charger already has one and is already bringing coolant all the way to the vehicle? All the vehicle should need is a connector for the coolant and ducting for it to travel through. If you use something like supercritical CO2 as a coolant, you won't even have to worry about coolant contamination or residual coolant being left over in the system.

The current fast-charging pseudo-standard, TESCO, doesn't do that, though. But in the future, I expect we'll ultimately see it.

Lithium can be extracted from sea water, and even using current known methods, it would only raise the cost of lithium batteries by about 8%.
http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-for-electric-cars/

The killer problem for battery powered cars isn't weight, or energy density, it's cost.
The battery pack in the Tesla model S is an estimated $30,000 of it $55,000 price.

-- Should you believe authority without question?

Well, the $109,000 car costs Colorado residents a mere $65,000 with their substantial tax break for hybrid and electric vehicles. That's downright affordable! Makes me wonder how much the rebate is for a Prius, both there and in my home state...

Can't that "non-fossil-fuel-based electric power" alone propel the car? Why do we need to make more fuel, resulting in more emissions, and poor energy conversion efficiency?

What part of "works with existing cars and existing refueling stations" is confusing you hippes?

There's only recently been an announcement of a standard plug for electric cars. Note that an "announcement" is not manufacturing, or even a commitment to manufacturing. We've still got the inevitable patent wrangles, the embrace-extend debacles, breakaway standards, and the litigation and class action suits to go before we'll have a standard plug, and then we have to build the charging infrastructure, on top of a creaking already over-strained electrical grid.

Sorry, I put far too much thought into that. Try to read it really slowly.

... begging for money that comes up with these "revolutionary" breakthroughs. Did we not learn anything from the tech boom/bust?

Whenever there is a lot of government money flowing into an industry, there is never a shortage of snake-oil salesmen lining up to grab a piece of it. There really isn't a limit to what they will say they can do.

You may want to inform Exxon Mobil that their recent six hundred million dollar investment is snake oil.

Big oil's investing in this, I wouldn't write it off as snake oil:

• ExxonMobil - Venter, Synthetic Genomics
• BP - just announced a partnership with DuPont to develop butanol; Qteros, Verenium, Synthetic Genomics
• Valero - purchased seven VeraSun plants out of bankruptcy earlier this year; Qteros, ZeaChem, Solix
• Marathon - Mascoma (also backed by GM)
• Shell - Iogen
• Total - Gevo

... begging for money that comes up with these "revolutionary" breakthroughs. Did we not learn anything from the tech boom/bust?

Whenever there is a lot of government money flowing into an industry, there is never a shortage of snake-oil salesmen lining up to grab a piece of it. There really isn't a limit to what they will say they can do.

You may want to inform Exxon Mobil that their recent six hundred million dollar investment is snake oil.

Big oil's investing in this, I wouldn't write it off as snake oil:

• ExxonMobil - Venter, Synthetic Genomics
• BP - just announced a partnership with DuPont to develop butanol; Qteros, Verenium, Synthetic Genomics
• Valero - purchased seven VeraSun plants out of bankruptcy earlier this year; Qteros, ZeaChem, Solix
• Marathon - Mascoma (also backed by GM)
• Shell - Iogen
• Total - Gevo

... begging for money that comes up with these "revolutionary" breakthroughs. Did we not learn anything from the tech boom/bust?

Whenever there is a lot of government money flowing into an industry, there is never a shortage of snake-oil salesmen lining up to grab a piece of it. There really isn't a limit to what they will say they can do.

You may want to inform Exxon Mobil that their recent six hundred million dollar investment is snake oil.

Big oil's investing in this, I wouldn't write it off as snake oil:

• ExxonMobil - Venter, Synthetic Genomics
• BP - just announced a partnership with DuPont to develop butanol; Qteros, Verenium, Synthetic Genomics
• Valero - purchased seven VeraSun plants out of bankruptcy earlier this year; Qteros, ZeaChem, Solix
• Marathon - Mascoma (also backed by GM)
• Shell - Iogen
• Total - Gevo

... begging for money that comes up with these "revolutionary" breakthroughs. Did we not learn anything from the tech boom/bust?

Whenever there is a lot of government money flowing into an industry, there is never a shortage of snake-oil salesmen lining up to grab a piece of it. There really isn't a limit to what they will say they can do.

You may want to inform Exxon Mobil that their recent six hundred million dollar investment is snake oil.

Big oil's investing in this, I wouldn't write it off as snake oil:

• ExxonMobil - Venter, Synthetic Genomics
• BP - just announced a partnership with DuPont to develop butanol; Qteros, Verenium, Synthetic Genomics
• Valero - purchased seven VeraSun plants out of bankruptcy earlier this year; Qteros, ZeaChem, Solix
• Marathon - Mascoma (also backed by GM)
• Shell - Iogen
• Total - Gevo

no. There are tons of lithium everywhere (lithium is the 11th most common element in the ocean) in recoverable amounts (including the u.s.). As the price goes up, more and more supplies come on line. Not only that, lithium is not the primary cost of li-x batteries.

read: http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-for-electric-cars/

However, the big catch is that we can't really produce enough Lithium to make all those batteries.

God, that myth just won't die, will it?

But there's probably no practical way to extract it.

Of course there is. There are dozens of ways. Here's one -- $22-$32/kg. Given that 1kWh of automotive li-ion batteries takes 1-2kg of lithium carbonate and costs about $500, that's a pretty minor cost. More expensive than the surface-mined stuff, mind you (which runs $5-8/kg), but eminently affordable.

Say the hydrogen economy is a pipe dream and we should be making better Lithium batteries instead? Well, you've only just moved the problem around. Lithium production is unlikely to meet future demands for electric vehicles, even though it has an atomic number of 3 and is therefore fairly abundant in the universe at large.

Nonsense.

Except that as it has already been pointed out, the governator wants to return his Tesla roadster and get back in his hummer.

not that long

"First Algae Biodiesel Plant Goes Online: April 1, 2008"

I'm not saying biodiesel is bad, but realize that it won't be carbon neutral. This is because we basically eat natural gas, NG being the main feedstock for ammonia, which of course becomes fertilizer. Because our food isn't carbon neutral, it won't make carbon neutral fuel.

This objection does not apply to biodiesel from algae, the only viable feedstock. Fuels based on topsoils are idiotic not for the reason you describe, which is not a requirement for growing these crops; they're stupid because they deplete the soil. You can grow them in guilds but then they're hard to harvest, especially efficiently enough for feedstocks. Algae does not need to be purchased (it comes free with the air) and is easy to harvest, and a plant is coming online shortly. This technology was developed by the US DOE in the seventies and eighties.

Perhaps someday fueling stations will sell diesel, biodiesel, and organic-biodiesel for successively greater prices.

You can already purchase waste-biodiesel (for a higher price) if you look around. Or you can spend $1500 on a processor which will make 20 gallons in 48 hours (you can make one for less, but this is more realistic) and a $500 pump (get a good one!) so that you can transfer free oil. You'll come out under $1/gal for a more closely carbon-neutral fuel. I'm currently looking into solar stills to produce ethanol for making biodiesel.

not that long

No, it isn't. And electrolytically producing minerals from brine is about as mild of an environmental impact as you can get for mass-producing a mineral on land.

Where's the big win?

The big win is there are fewer toxic by products when using a plasma furnace. By use of the plasma ultra high temperatures (e.g. 30,000 deg F) everything ionizes and breaks down to their atomic levels and then recombine as much smaller and less toxic molecules. If you wanted to get rid of the US's stockpiles of chemical weapons this is the way to do it. Too bad it doesn't work for radioactive wastes as well.

http://gas2.org/2008/02/03/more-on-plasma-gasification-technology/

don't need to get all huffy. here is a ford car that gets 73mpg. http://gas2.org/2008/09/09/new-fiesta-gets-73-mpg-but-ford-says-its-not-for-the-us/ just cannot get it in the states. also seem to recall that volvo in 2010 is coming out with a 60+ diesel , but not over here in the states. so current tech ( well 2010 anyway) there is 2 examples of 60+ mpg cars that are in production. so why can;t chevy, toyota, hona or the others do it and bring it to the states?

If I understand it correctly the $25 billion fund is for advanced technologies not a bailout. It would be hard to argue that Tesla isn't using some rather advanced technologies. And when a technology is new it's expensive, however with enough research and mass production prices drop and the technology becomes a viable alternative.

I find this interesting after there was a story on Digg yesterday about Tesla complaining that the car companies wanted this $25 billion to bail them out rather than use it for what it was intended for. I think it's pretty shifty since this fund was set up last year and in no way was meant to be a bailout.

Here's the link to that story:

http://gas2.org/2008/11/28/tesla-says-money-shouldnt-be-diverted-to-bailout-car-makers/

Ok, I just finished reading up a little. The problems you mention are there, but seem to be minor, short term ones. And here's a "for instance" that might put to rest any question of its efficiency. Take a look at their google map and zoom out a bit to see how little real estate they need. Of course there's also a wiki thing. Algae really looks like a win-win. It seems like the farmers who are trying to sell their corn for this purpose could be working on this instead, and go back to being subsidized for growing nothing on the rest of their land. Makes the whole "food or fuel" debate sound even sillier than it already is. I consider the problem solved. Little more than politics stand in the way. It's almost funny that blue-green algae is the most productive of all of them. Up to 25,000 gallons per acre.

"But let's say that a carbon tax is applied."

Why apply a carbon tax, when most coal fired power plants are located in locations where an algae based carbon recovery system (and combo pollution scrubbing system) can create not only vast amounts of vegetable oil, but even larger quantities of vegetable matter that can be feed to livestock, or combusted for energy, or converted to ethanol.

If you required all coal fired plants to use an algae based carbon recovery system, you would instantly create a massive system capable of producing enough biofuel to permanently kill our oil addiction.

I mean permanently. In order to sequester the carbon completely then the same quantity of fuel as burned in the coal plants is created, mostly from the energy of sunlight. while the bulk of this is as vegetable mass, and only about 20-25% of it is recoverable vegetable oil, it's still vastly more than we use.

no need to even convert it to biodiesel if we mandate that every coal fired plant sequester it's CO emissions with algae, because it will be cheaper to kit existing diesel engined to SVO compatible parts, and change the specs on all new diesel engines to be SVO engines. and a SVO engine, can still burn diesel, but not as efficiently. but if we're producing enough SVO to switch every diesel vehicle in America to a SVO vehicle, well, it's worth it.

True, this switches the burden of cost to electric companies, but electricity is way cheap, and forcing them by law to create a fuel stream of 'cheap bioenergy' to kill off the oil and gas markets, well, that doesn't strike me as bad.

Although market forces for oil prices are now sufficiently high that biofuel from algae has suddenly become a realistic enterprise that could be profitable for an energy company, or at least one oil and gas company in texas thinks they're going to make money creating biofuel from algae.

http://gas2.org/2008/03/29/first-algae-biodiesel-plant-goes-online-april-1-2008/

so it is entirely possible that coal power plants might want to create algae based CO sequestering even without pressure from the government, to create an alternative energy revenue stream to boost their bottom lines.

At least, if diesel stays above $4 a gallon, and gasoline stays above $3.50 a gallon, they will..

if the prices trend higher then energy companies would have to be crazy not to consider algae production as an alternative to oil and gas.

Lots of people are asking about the problems of energy storage. The way forward is really very simple.

There are two fundamental assumptions, one is long term - any non-renewable energy source will eventually run out. The other is immediate - nobody wants to rebuild the massive infrastructure that already exists.

In terms of our expected spcies life cycle on this planet, solar is an obvious candidate. But what do we do when the sun is obscured (by the earth/clouds/smog etc.)? The answer lies in the other energy infrastructure that we already have, OIL! Make oil while the sun shines. We don't have to retool an enormous energy delivery infrastructure, we don't have to develop radical new concepts in energy use. We capitalize on the already existing infrastructure and we tap into the long term energy resource that is solar.

If new technologies come along that makes the internal combustion engine obsolete and negate the necessity of oil pipe lines and electric transmission lines then, cool. But, until then we use the investment we have already made in the energy infrastructure by delivering sustainable solar energy in the form of an already functional an usefull energy commodity.