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That does look nice. But that's a proposed 2005 model. The *early* electric cars were by and large ugly. The picture I linked to is a Citicar circa 1970. It created a perception that electric = ugly in a lot of peoples minds. Many of the new models are not much better. For $14,000 I do not want something that looks like this. I don't get the whole "let's make a freaky body for our electric car" mentality.

You might if 90% of the gas stations were designed not to work for your car, but only for these ugly ones.

Most of the folks I know drive gasoline vehicles, but I do know someone who has a Sparrow and a couple folks who drive TDI's. Diesel isn't as easy to find as you'd think, and it is very hard here in Florida to find businesses that offer electrical hookups to recharge your car. Oddly, neither of them complain. Perhaps because it was a conscious, free-will choice to buy what they bought and they're apparently happy with whatever trade-offs they have to make. I guess they understand there will always be a majority and a minority side of things.

It seems I leave things out a lot.

It took three tries to get /. to accept the parent to this.

The $15,000 electric car is a Corbin Sparrow.

I think I saw one in Davis, CA.

Friend of mine has a Corbin Sparrow which he seems to enjoy.

The range makes it only suitable for in-town and short-range commuting though.

That's a great way to empower your side of the story, not. Declare anyone who suggests a list of methods that greater society could consider a 'Tree-hugger' only declares your personal bias.

Forcing everybody on a train with set schedules and set destinations is communist.

Again, you aren't really bolstering your side of the story by choosing one offered suggestion and then labeling the person a communist. There was a handful of offered options, that granted aren't necesarily something that everyone would be interested in. However, there were more options presented then just trains.

Personally, I don't know if I would go for the train thing so much myself. What I would love to look into would be those high mileage 'mini-cars' from Corbin. They have/had some models built around a motorcycle engine and offer up all the luxury of a regular automobile, minus the ability to cary 4 to 8 humans at one time. Unfortunately, they are so pricey as to elminate themselves from the marketplace, by virtue of costing over $10k to own one.

For more information check here

With viable, inexpensive options, such as 'commuter cars' like the Corbin vehicle, commuter trains among many other options of conveyence our nation really could save tremendous costs on fuel consumption as well as greatly lessen the environmental impact of everyone driving monstrous SUVs for one small person. (In my area I can't drive anywhere without seeing more SUVs then any other type of vehicle. It's just part of living in a relatively affluent area.)

SUVs could be relegated to weekend family trips or when the whole family goes out places. Yeah it's some utopian idea, so it probably won't happen, it's still just an idea I am not asking or telling anyone to do that. However, if those mini-cars were very affordable and I could be assured that there would be more people then just myself on the road in one, I would hop in one everyday for work.

As to throwing garbage on the ground, maybe we should look into improving and streamlining the process of getting it removed FROM THE GROUND before putting up a waste-basket every 200 feet or so or even making people take their garbage home.

It's funny you would say this. I live in Detroit and have had the opportunity to spend time across the Detroit River in Windsor. Now, in Detroit you undoubtably see garbage and filth tossed around everywhere, even in the mostly clean "New Downtown Center" with trash receptacles being a rare site. However, once you cross over into Canada you see clean streets with Trash Receptacles, not only at every street corner but also several additional locations between street corners and they aren't even bolted to the ground! (At least the last time I was there they weren't.)

Anyway, tossing away trash is a society/cultural upbringing thing. If you parents teach not to give a crap about how places look, then that's how you treat places. If everyone around you treats places like crap, that attitude only grows and festers like a cancer.

Japan is one of the worlds most space constrained countries and cities in the west will adopt japanese traffic solutions such as stacking multiple stories of roads on top of another or moving stores, amusements and even offices below the ground.

That's Japan. They do that because they have no choice. There simply isn't any room. This is the United Stats, we won't be out of room in the forseeable future.

Can you imagine what will happen to the first politician or two who suggests such a course of action? They will be laughed out of office and things will continue as usual.

In the US, people move farther from City Centers to get away from the congestion, only to create even more congestion in areas that were never prepared for such a mas influx people. The only thing that is a societal change, that won't likely happen in our lifetime.

Why is it that all the conversion kits, and home-built electric cars have terrible range?

The short-range cars you saw were another attempt at electric vehicles called the "city car". The theory is that you would have more than one car, but one would be cheap with limited speed and/or range, suitable only for driving in the city. There are a few companies that made/make them, including Citicar and the Sparrow. They seem to come and go, always on the verge of making a breakthrough or packing it all in. Conversion kits are also focused on making it cheap, so what you really need for a long-range vehicle (a pricey battery) is left out.

Yeah, I know it's been a long while since you left this post, but I figured I'd respond anyway since this is something of a pet peeve of mine. EV fans seem to always get caught up in the technical details and miss the business issues.

pre-note:
Yes, I know that moving to cars powered by electricity really only shifts the problem from the pump to the electricity-production facility, but I still think it would be progress.

Does anyone know anything about the Air Car? I read about them nearly a year ago, and haven't heard anything since. Are they dead? Any chance of them making it to mass production?

And while we're on the topic of alternative transportation, I know what happened to the Corbin Sparrow, but does anyone think that there's any chance of the company coming back from the dead? I really thought they had a promising product.

This isn't a breakthrough. It's just another lead-acid battery powered car. The limits of what you can do with that technology are well known.

There are no good alternatives in volume production. Even the Texaco/Ovonic joint venture seems be going nowhere:

• If you are looking for industrial NiMH batteries, your choices are limited. There is no distribution network for NiMH batteries above 10-Ampere Hours (Ah). Batteries above 10 Ah are manufactured for specialty uses only. Texaco Ovonic Battery Systems does manufacture batteries above 10 Ah; however, they are produced in a limited quantity.