This is good news and nice to see the technology advancing into a product ready to use. On the flip side however, yet again, American car companies fail to step up and take the lead. Here's an area where they could have restablished themselves and yet they wait for the Japanese companies to trump them again. Do we manufacture anything of value anymore? From clothes, to energy, to cars to beer we are becoming nothing more than a consumer and falling into obscurity of being a manufacturer of our own quality goods. It's a shame and is only going to hurt our economy more.
You are preaching to the choir with me. i try my damndest to buy American and it's damn near impossible to find anything made here anymore.
California had an electric car experiment a few years ago also with leased cars....you cant own one .....to reflect the new emissions standards at that time. After the emissions standards were relaxed they were all called back and destroyed. They would not sell them for any reason .Tom Hanks tried everything he could to buy the one he had but to no avail. This again is a lease program in California .They could be easily recalled too but at least the culture is in place . Sooner or later it will catch on .I have more faith in Honda than our american car manufacturers .If anyone can pull this off its them . The problem is the infrastructure and the prohibitive costs at this time . The oil speculators or american car industry with its oil connections will probably try to kill it off in some way as before .
Hydrogen fuel sounds sexy, but three things will continue to concern me about it. One is the low gas mileage. I believe it takes a lot more hydrogen to get 20 miles than it does gasoline. The other is the energy-intensive process of creating and storing the hydrogen. The third is the energy-intensive process of creating hydrogen cars, enough to replace our fleet of gasoline cars. It would be tough to convince me that we're seeing a net gain in petroleum...for a product that won't eventually be made obsolete by a different advancement in fuel dynamics.
here is the chevy volt: http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/ The extended-range electric vehicle is no longer just a rumor. We have put tremendous design and engineering resources in place to make this vehicle a reality. The Concept Chevy Volt, with its revolutionary E-Flex Propulsion System will be different than any previous electric vehicle because it will use a lithium-ion battery with a variety of range-extending onboard power sources, including gas and, in some vehicles, E85 ethanol(1) to recharge the battery while driving. When it comes to plugging in, the Volt will be designed to use a common 110–volt household plug. For someone who drives less than 40 miles a day, Chevy Volt will use zero gasoline and produce zero emissions.(2) For longer trips, Chevy Volt's range-extending power source kicks in to recharge the lithium-ion battery pack as required. We expect a driving range of an estimated 640 miles.(3)
Can't wait to see this stuff in action. The companies need to get this out in 09 to keep a jump on the competition and to try and win over a desperate market . I'm crossing my fingers for us Americans.
