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Low Emission Cars Continue to Gain Popularity
Rio writes "A company may soon offer American motorists a new option to save on high gas prices -- vehicles powered by lithium batteries. From the article: 'Just plug in these cars for about five hours or so and you'll get about 300 miles on a single charge.' The vehicles cost about $35,000 or about double what buyers would pay for a gas-powered model." Relatedly acidrain writes to tell us The BBC is reporting that a prototype of the new "Clever car" (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) is starting to make the rounds on European test tracks. The car is one meter wide and less polluting than normal vehicles. It has a top speed of 100 km/h (60mph) and uses a novel tilting chassis to make it safe and maneuverable.
The BMW C-1 looks way more comfortable than the reclining Clever car. It didn't require a helmet (in Germany, France, and Spain) but they only made 2000 then discontinued it due to poor sales. Despite the fact that this article is just a PR piece, I can't see it helping sales much.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
This soooo reminds me of the Sinclair C5 "urban" low emissions car.
http://www.sinclairc5.com.nyud.net:8080/
I'd be terrified of being smushed by a truck while driving one.
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
How much will the power cost me?
What is this going to do to the power grid which has been known to collapse, famously with the northeast blackout and the rolling blackouts in California?
How about the transmission line waste? What if I let my car sit for a week or two?
Aren't these the batteries that tend to explode if you look at them funny?
Just what does battery production do to the environment? How about leaks and recycling?
They may have their niche, who knows. Considering kits to convert PHEVs can be added now such that the price for the whole prius + PHEV is about what those cars go for, they'll have to keep their shoulders to the wheel to stay competitive. The PHEV kits are only going to get cheaper, so they better keep as good track of the latest battery tech as EnergyCS and the other PHEV folks do.
Someone had to do it.
People keep saying all this "what about the waste when the batteries are disposed of" stuff. Are they on to something? Are there any battery experts here who can tell me if that's a valid concern?
Is it just me, or does it look more like a souped up go-kart than a car...
Judging from the photos, doesn't look like this thing has ANY trunk/passenger/leg/head space. Other than that, it looks great and I can't wait to buy one[/sarcasm]
E = m * c^(Hammer)
It's nice to have the smaller cars, but the immediate reality is you're going to have to match feature-for-feature (outside of the high-emission, low-efficiency parts) in performance and otherwise without ending up in the Lexus or BMW range, and doing so without the driver noticing. That includes similar size and performance without having to take any notice as to driving a low-emission car, with the down-the-road option of converting existing cars over to low emissions parts that do the same but retain the body and performance of the previous engine/drivetrain as close as possible (again, without the price being beyond a conventional swap of such kind).
Not all of us care to drive something that would result in a guaranteed pre-packaged closed casket burial in the event of the Absolutely Unavoidable Collision- especially if such vehicle performs in a manner that would predispose it to being a 5'x8'x5' object with relative ease in ordinary operation.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Not unlike Star Trak era Lithium Crystals, I suspect that
crim's will go after such vehicles for their energy banks.
More value also pushes up the cost of insurance for them.
How do fuel-cell technologies work in this app'n domain?
What do Toyota Priams run on, Lithium Cells or Fuel Cells?
Would you buy a car that would only last you 150 days before very costly repairs? QED
Horsepower isn't really an issue. Electric motors are capable of generating large amounts of torque - enough to rip the motor loose of the mounting if you're willing to give it enough amperage (do a google search on EV drag racing - no shortage of smoking tires there.) The issue is battery life. You load the motor that heavily, and you will lose a lot of energy through resistance losses, thereby depleting your driving range.
So to answer your question, haul away, but be prepared to sacrifice range for pulling capacity.
Who's laughin now bitches !? **puts clown nose back on & gets in the car**
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
>It has a top speed of 100 km/h (60mph) I want to save money on gas, but not at the expense of doubling the time it takes to drive home.
Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport
Is that part of the name or an instruction for fellow drivers on what to do to a low-emissions vehicle?
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
TFA is actually two TFAs merged into one. The 100mph electric car is vapourware, while the 60mph CLEVER car is a prototype that runs on gas (real gas, not gasoline).
The CLEVER looks like fun but is not really a car, more a 3 wheel motorcycle with a suspension which leans into corners. It might appeal to commuters who would be nervous about a real bike or who want a bit more dry storage than a traditional scooter or motorcycle would allow. Sort of like a motorbike for Volvo drivers...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
It must have been designed by NASA. I see stuff like this all the time in their specs for craft to be sent to Mars.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
Grrrr... "relatedly" is not a word, and it should never be one. Dict.org doesn't have an entry, and the built-in Mac OS X dictionary doesn't have an entry. Arggh! I hate made-up words.
</language nazi>
Submission says: "It has a top speed of 100 km/h (60mph)" Article says: "The cars can travel up to 100 mph, according to the report." ?
This would be perfectly fabulous if there were federal regulations on vehicle sizes permitted in urban or other zones, but it sounds like a logistic nightmare for lawmakers to get a gradual migration to this going at any level that would prove effective. It's not really a phased migration thing. You can't put such a small car on roads with normal compact and larger cars. It's a safety nightmare. You can't really build a whole additional set of roads for these things other since municipalities like mine are already looking at $700 million dollar annual deficits.
Time to visit Europe!
It really needs noting exactly how poorly researched the BBC News article on that car is.
. You really would expect that a BBC Journalist reporting on automobiles would have some knowledge of them. Or, at the very least, have watched Top Gear for a couple of years.
Drivetrain asside, the vehicle is effectively a clone the dutch-designed Carver http://www.carver-europe.com/.
So, why am I accusing that BBC journalist of being lazy? Well, the Carver has appeared on the BBC excellent flagship car show Top Gear http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/prog19/carver.shtml>
To do my part in saving the Earth, I will replace my current vehicle with an electric or hybrid car, because they grow naturally from sunflower fields. I know they grow in sunflower fields because if they didn't, the energy saved by the increase in MPG wouldn't be enough to compensate for the energy used to create these heavy industrial products. If so, I would feel bad, and I don't want to feel bad, and I want to feel good when I buy things.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
You get yourself a backup diesel generator.
I don't think these special vehicles like TFA car will achieve any real commercial success. Most people want a safe, comfortable and practical car. And you most certainly don't want anybody to laugh at you while riding it...
No, I believe the future (until fuel cells are available) lays in hybrids, like the Toyota Prius, even though they're still not completely environmental friendly - fuel consumption is not better than most diesel powered cars. But battery powered only cars have their problems as well, darn expensive, well you have to plan your trips carefully, batteries have a limited life span and probably more important batteries are not environmental friendly.
Here is an interesting hybrid from Saab, running on 100% ethanol and batteries. It's a good looking convertible, and runs 0-100 km/h in just 6.9 seconds, not very bad from a fossil fuel-free car. Only problem is that 1) you can't buy the car yet 2) you can't buy 100% ethanol (and producing large amounts of ethanol is also a problem).
Low-speed acceleration is the one really good thing about electric.
Properly done, with 4 fully independant wheels, there would be some traction and handling advantages as well. Differentials are sloppy. Steering on ice would be lots easier if the rear wheels could help out via Segway-style computer-controlled speed differences.
Right you are (and I'm not even a trekkie, er, trekker). Lithium Crystals is an instant drink mix for people with bipolar disorder.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
The pollution is generated wherever the power plant is, rather than inside a city. That only moves the problem, but in the LA basin it's useful to move the problem from the great bowl of people over to Nevada.
The pollution from a power plant, about half the time in the US, is coal smoke. It's CO2 with nasty contaminants. Gasoline smoke would be better, except that the smog controls on a power plant are easier to engineer. They can be big, they can be heavy, and they can require on-site technicians to keep them working well. None of those are possible on a car.
The fixed power plant can be more efficient, but some of that efficiency is stolen by transmission line losses.
Having spent most of last year living carless in the big city, I'm here to tell you that personal cargo capacity is very important factor in designing an efficient and useful low-emissions vehicle for urban transport, a factor that the 'clever' car designers seem to have ignored. Where am I going to store my groceries in this thing? I suppose the passenger seat might do the trick, but with that kind of limited space, why am I driving a car anyway? I can take a taxi just as easily, or even a bus. Hell -- maybe I could even buy a bike, which might help reduce both my fat ass and be good for the environment. What's the use in owning a car that costs twice as much as a regular car, but which has no room to transport me and the occasional junk I buy at the store?
As I see it, no urban vehicle is going to catch on with buyers unless it has some, even if limited, cargo carrying capacity. Small size is great -- especially when you consider the parking situation in most cities -- and fuel efficiency is wonderful, but if it doesn't move both me *and* my stuff, what good is it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive#Diesel-ele ctric
Electric motors rock (vs. internal combustion engines) because they have no torque curve. They have instant-on full-blown torque.
For a technology to mature, the way is paved with suboptimal experimental designs and "proofs of concept". The thing is, something may be bitched about and downgraded untill there is immediate, burning problem that needs to be addressed, such as oil shortage which is looming in not so distant future. Every problem addressed here can and will be solved when pressing needs arise. Right now, it seems like a solution for distant, someone else's problem (GHG emissions->melting polar caps->oceans rise, but no worries for some of us as we are on high enaugh ground) while, on the other hand, designers are obviously 'not meaning it seriously', or in other words they pity wackos with money to burn who will pay for these toys.
... railroads!). Today's performance is result of competition inside the same category. That is why their initial quirks where tolerated - they had no substitute.
... ?).
n smission). That would create enormous advantage for invasion forces, especially if chain of satellite relays is used to beam energy from homeland power grid up to the first satelite, then from satelite to satelite, then down to any arbitrary point on the surface of the Earth. Aside from military uses, a nation in possesion of such system could allow own electric power companies to export, sell energy to any other nation, or even make other nations totally dependent ("a hand on a switch" instead of "hand on a oil tap")to this nation, create advantage for national civil engineering corporations to win any bid anywhere because of the low logistics costs... I believe there is a lot of goodies involved in it for serious, resourceful powerseekers.
It should be noted that first gas cars where also hobists' toys, inefficient, unreliable, short radius authonomy and explosion-prone, but all the problems where gradually solved, one step a time. OTOH, internal combustion engine cars had no viable competition at the time (if we exclude trains, which were constrained to
Now, it is all like a sumo match - if you press hard enaugh, you will get what you want. If we are determined to press the electric cars, people will find it worthwile to spend some effort inventing solutions for its' present problems. You have noticed that Lithium batteries are response to problem of heaviweightness and bulkiness of acid-lead batteries, but instantly there comes the next problem - endurance of these new batteries. There is a number of other problems, such as recharging time, authonomy, scaleability (you cannot go to nearest battery station and buy just a little "juice" to get car there, or carry small canister in luggage compartment), that may need complete change of viewing point (micro or nano capsulled batteries,
Perhaps new cars will have modular engines, that would allow us to reconfigure and equip them differently for different uses, i.e. when commuting between work and home, use electric subsystem, but when you go on intercity trip, swap it with internal combustion module. Or, even better, make complete powertrain electrical and just swap main battery block with electric generator(, or fuel cell), depending on intended use or personal preference. Of course, there is downside: this would require you to own a garage, or else pay for changing services and rent-a-module.
Like every time before in tech history, military will be judge of what goes and what s(t)inks. When there is mil-grade electric vehicle in comission, there will be cheaper, less robust, fancier versions for civilian use. But, why would military do such thing? Well, for one, transport of energy supplies could potentially be cheaper, faster and more reliable then transport of fuel supplies. I mean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_power_tra
Instead of buying this, you could buy a regular car and take the $18,000 you saved and buy carbon credits. $18,000 of carbon credits in the USA, which has an underpriced market because laws don't create demand, would offset the burning of, I kid you not, close to one MILLION gallons of gasoline. Yup, enough to take an 8mpg hummer and drive it around the Earth over 300 times!
So buying one of these is like driving a Hummer almost 8 million miles. Doesn't seem so good.
At the more expensive price for European credits ($13 per metric tonne CO2) it's still like driving the Hummer for a million miles.
How can it be that dramatic? The genius of pollution credits is they move the money spent on emissions reduction to where it can be done most efficiently. You can cut emissions by buying an expensive electric car, sure, but somebody else can do it far more cheaply by improving the output of a factory, or putting up a wind farm, or planting a grove of trees -- which are all things that allow people to sell these credits.
Now you may not like the credits, or think the numbers should be different, but the numbers in this case are so off the scale that there's no way that you will do a better job of helping the environment, at least today, with this sort of tech. At best you can feel good while being a gross polluter, and hope you're encouraging a market so that they eventually become cheaper and a thus more efficient way to reduce emissions.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
"It's pretty cool, but I'd rather have a bike, personally."
I have a bike. My argument was that if I was going to blow the thousands on a so-called green car (which really only just moves the pollution back to the generating facility, most likely meaning you're burning dead dinosaurs anyway), which is almost as expensive as the Ariel, I'd take the Ariel and the horsepower of a 4 banger Honda engine. TYVM.
I do have a bicycle, btw. Cannondale 800 Flat Bar. Egg beaters. Ksyrium Elite wheels. Brooks Pro saddle. Zoom Zoom. I'd probably be dead without it.
--
BMO
In a lot of cases the issue is whether governments should be co-ordinating transport to cut down on pollution or whether it should be left to private individuals to use vehicles that pollute less or consume less resources. A decent train service can keep thousands of cars off the road for most of the week. An electric train, LPG bus or other forms of mass transit are often a better answer.
Greenhouse gasses have nothing to do with the issue unless you get all your electricity from hydro, geothermal or whatever - so currently in no city anywhere. The nuclear lobby is pushing nuclear generated hydrogen and nuclear supplied electricity to power cars for greenhouse reasons but whatever your feelings that can be considered irrelevant to the issue for the next decade as far as a car purchase is considered (it takes a long time to build a big thermal plant of any kind, much longer for a cutting edge nuclear design).
If they put a decent sports bike engine in the Clever Car it
would sell by the bucket load as a recreational vehicle for those
who don't want the risks of a motorbike.
But as an everyday enviromental commuting vehicle? Hmm. Not so sure.
Ok , it might have good mileage but having gas cylinders right at
the back of the car where they're a prime target to be hit and crushed?
Not to mention the vehicle itself doesn't exactly look volvo-esque in
its ability to protect its occupants plus its got very little storage
space.
Also at one metre wide its hardly going to be able to squeeze
between traffic like a bike can especially when it leans over hard.
Seems to me its got all the disadvantages of a bike (dangerous, little
storage space) and a car (slow, stuck in traffic) , and none of the
advantages of either.
Its ONLY selling point is its mpg and novelty value. Well sorry, but in
a competitive market you need more than that to sell a vehicle.
new "Clever car" (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport)
Sure, but it's not such a clevut acronym.
broke it. They will not meet their targets, and frankly, the only reason they are within a country mile is the annexation of East Germany by West, and the fact that Britain turned out to be sitting on a zillion cubic feet of natural gas. Most European nations are performing terribly, many even worse than the US (in relative terms to 1990 baseline). Also, Europe has had very little population growth, while the US has.
Europeans like to play "holier than thou", but in reality, their lower emissions are largely due to population density and mild climate. Not surprisingly, low-density, harsh-climate nations such as US, Canada, and Australia all have similar emissions profiles.
You were doing well until you repeated that old hybrid-EMT scare. Any first responders that were afraid to approach a hybrid weren't well informed in their profession. I can't speak for Honda, but not only did Toyota work with national first-responder organizations to get their comments on the design of the US model, it made presentations on its design at their national conventions, made publications about it in the trade press, and distributed literature about the car freely and widely. The locations of the high-voltage elements of the car have been available on the web since time immemorial, and Toyota, at least, spent a lot of time repeating over and over that there's no high voltage in the roof pillars (how do these rumors get started?!?).
Both Toyota and Honda were and are exquisitely well-aware of accident procedures involving their cars; that's why the high-voltage lines in the Prius are armored International Orange cables isolated from the ground of the chassis, surrounded by identified conduit, and centered under the car floor, where the jaws of life and other EMT tools are least likely to be used. The battery itself is placed in the statistically safest place in the car (just over the rear axle), and protects first responders by an accelerometer-based circuit breaker, a Ground Fault Interrupter, and interlocks. Criminy, what do you want?
Why do people and specially americans always think that "bigger" always means "more secure" ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Civics get around 40mpg highway, which really isn't all that bad. If people just dropped their SUV's for smaller cars, that would go a very long way in reducing carbon output. Being in my 20s, I want something fun and semi-sporty to drive but practical in terms of initial cost, maintainence, and gas mileage. I don't really trust hybrid technology to be as reliable and inexpensive to maintain as simpler models over the long term. I think many of those in my age group and budget range (~$16,000 new) have similar requirements and while there are some cars that mostly fit the bill, what I'd really like is something that fits these critera and is RWD.
8 7883460710&q=oversteer&pl=true
I currently drive a Civic, which is nice, but it's not RWD. Why look for RWD? RWD kind of has gotten bad rap over the years, because it can oversteer in wet/icy conditions, or when gassed too hard - the steering becomes so sensitive that the rear end of the car can slip towards the outside of the turning circle. When done in a controlled manner, this can a lot of fun, the rear end of the car literally steers around you, and you feel the car pivoting around from behind. Steering FWD is boring in comparison, the rear end always follows the front end, up by the hood. Now oversteer does not mean that RWD cars handle poorly, just that they become acutely sensitive to steering when on slippery roads or when gassed hard. A good driver understands that he can use this to his advantage, as the same overly sensitive steering that can throw the car off path can be used to correct it.
Here is a google video demonstrating oversteer -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-25708751
Search for oversteer or drift and you will find lots more.
Modern tech could also make such a car more practical. On cars equipped with ABS, which is most models these days, stability control can be added to selectively enable/disable oversteer prevention at the push of a button. Software within the car's computer detects oversteer and cuts engine spark/power and/or hits the brakes on individual wheels (using the ABS hardware) to largely cut out out oversteer. Car review magazines refer to stability control as the "nanny," for good reason. This sort of tech would help make a compact RWD car attractive to a wider range of buyers, who might not want to be so conscientious of their driving all the time, but want to have some fun once in a while.
Another thing that could widen the appeal of such a car would be to make it tweakable, say through adding a USB engine computer interface, or offering an MP3 capable stereo option that has USB inputs for external drives and takes customizable firmware. While this would most definitely appeal to the \. crowd, I think over time the appeal could carry over to a wider audience, as youth today are much more tech saavy and a lot of customizations could be made by third parties. Neither of these options would cost a ton, and could translate into some serious sales.
I hope Honda will eventually make such a car, perhaps in the same class as it's new budget Fit model, but that doesn't seem likely. If anyone takes the leap I think it will be Nissan, they have been doing more unconvential designs lately, being the underdog. They still don't match the quality of the big two Japanese auto makers, but I would serisouly consider it if such a model arrived.
Just imagine, go to work - unplug the battery unit briefcase.
;-)
All 250 Lbs of it.
Check out the size and weight of this briefcase. Also look online for EV recharging stations. Your computer power strip may not be up to the task.
Oh I get it.. imagine..
The truth shall set you free!
Secondly, this car is recumbent which puts your eyeline very close to the ground which is a total disaster in a complicated driving environment, whereas on a motorcycle you have excellent visibility at a height comparable to the majority of vehicles. In other words, on a motorcycle you are not effectively blinded by every vehicle in front of you, or in any other direction.
Some of the responses to this were flip: "Hey, we call that a motorcycle," but in reality this vehicle and a motorcycle are radically different in many of the ways that really matter in an urban driving environment. And since I am a rider, I won't make the "Yeah, well motorcycles are deathtraps, too," argument that could also be brought up here, :-). But in any case. This thing is not a motorcycle. It has huge disadvantages relative to normal sized cars and none of the advantages of a motorcycle.
Electricity is like an abstraction layer.
Currently, most of the power (where you live) might be generated by burning coal, but large scale power generation is:
- vastly more efficient at turning chemical energy into something usable compared to small scale (small scale being a car engine)
- vastly easier to make clean via scrubbing 'bad stuff' out the exhaust than small scale catalytic converters on cars
An electric car can also get better efficiencies by using things like regenerative braking - instead of just turning kinetic energy into heat when you want to slow down, you turn the KE back into electricity which you put back into the car's battery instead. Electric cars also don't use energy while stopped at a traffic light or stuck in a traffic jam unlike an idling car engine.
The other thing about electric cars is if you start migrating your power generation to nuclear, wind, solar (etc). no one has to go and buy a new car. No infrastructure has to be changed. However, to move from (say) gasoline cars to hydrogen cars, everyone has to buy new cars and all the infrastructure has to be changed.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
My 1987 Geo Metro/Sprint got 50 mpg highway. It was also cool to be able to make a U-turn on a narrow road without having to back up..
Clear, Dark Skies
The car companies are finally smarting up and offering hybrids that are not toy eco cars. If you look at the latest models from Accord and Toyota, both have 6 cyclinder engines and both out perform in fuel economy and performance of the standard models.
There's a company called Hybrid technologies that's launching this car, which also run on Lithium-based batteries.
Here's a business week story on them. It looks a bit like vaporware though, so a grain of salt is recommended.
I've recently been introduced to a wonderful Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle, which usually secretes only a small amount of a sodium chloride / urea solution. Through imaginative manufacturing, the costs of these vehicles have been reduced greatly. I believe they are mostly used in European and Asian countries, as they are a bit small for Americans, outside of an interested hobbyist. They run on kinetic power, and the fuel cell takes any kind of organic matter to be powered: scientists are still discussing the proper blends of ingredients, but most will work.
On top of that, throughout the transportation process there's been shown some health benefits. Since it is a bit unconventional, specialty equipment is recommended or required depending on local statutes, although this being a new technology most commuters and local governments seem to be unaware of it.
I can't find too much more information about this online, but a gentleman at a university was able to provide me with a schema of this vehicle, which you can find here.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
You got repeatedly modded up for supporting RWD, with absolutely no reasons as to WHY it could possibly be better than FWD, other than "fun". That's definately not what fuel-effecient vehicles need for wide public acceptance right now.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Considering that the vast majority of our electricity comes from oil-fueled and coal-fueled generators which burn thousands of pounds/gallons of fuel per hour each, there is a huge power loss due to resistance of the conductors between your house and the generator (not to mention losses in the various transformers along the way) and battery charge cycles are at best 20% efficient, this is NOT a low-emission solution; you are merely displacing the emissions to another location (the NIMBY syndrome), and not only that, you've generated a lot more toxic waste that companies show little interest in recycling (the lithium-ion batteries) which need to be replaced every 50,000 to 75,000 miles.
;)) - and it should be getting even better mileage this summer now that I just had brand-new RC fuel injectors and a Corsa exhaust installed (the nice quiet stock exhaust finally rusted to the point where I can't have it repaired :( An exhaust lasting 179K miles on a '91 car is not bad), replacing the stock GM crap. Not only that, it burns amazingly clean such that one time the techs running the dyno remarked he doesn't usually see economy cars burn that cleanly, let alone a sportscar. But then again, I keep it tuned and have the alignment checked regularly. My business partner's car with a six-cylinder burns dirty and every inspection costs him a few hundred, because he doesn't keep up with maintenance (he changes his oil every other year whether it needs it or not). If you keep your car maintained, run good oil (I run Mobil 1 or Castrol Syntec in my vehicles - I hate ExxonMobil but still buy their synthetic oil, I usually cannot find RedLine oil), and use detergent-based fuel injector cleaners every now and then, your car will run very cleanly. Let maintenance go, run the crappiest, cheapest engine oil you can, you will wear out the engine far more quickly and will have problems with emissions after a few years.
I'll stick with my current car, thank you. It gets better fuel mileage than almost everyone who criticises me for driving a "gas guzzler" (I get 26-27mpg combined, I've gotten 32-33mpg on long trips - when driving like a sane person anyhow, 180mph+ runs on I-70 get crappy mileage
The idea of a hybrid intrigues me, but I'd feel far more guilty about the production costs and toxic waste generated from the battery packs which need to be replaced far too often than I do about driving a conventional car. What would convince me to buy a hybrid is using the hybrid technology in combination with a V8 to enhance performance - there is no reason one can't get 35+mpg normal driving and sub-4.1 second 0-60 times in the same car (obviously you wouldn't get good mileage driving like a bat out of hell). The upcoming Lexus is interesting (and out of my price range right now) but I'd like to see what its specs will be. If the specs are comparable to my car and I can afford it at the time (no way in Hell I can afford it at the moment unless I sell my car which "ain't gonna happen" in my liftime), I might buy it.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Yes, but isn't it the case that, since it requires a fair bit more fuel to start an engine than simply run it, that you need to be stopped for a reasonable period of time before this technology becomes more efficient over a standard car?