if people think electric cars are the panecea to our energy problems....wake up!
Burn coal from Kentucky or Wyoming, or burn oil from Saudi Arabia? Uhm hard choice isn't it?
If ANYONE thinks any ONE thing is the answer they need to wake up!
The thing about electric and hybrids is all about the battery technology. It has improved significantly in the past 10yrs.
PURE electric cars are good particularly for people who really don't drive a lot, and just drive around on side streets, city boulevards. Or you want that $100k all electric sports car cuz you have more money than brains. The EV1, I believe was made by GM, was ahead of it's time mostly because the battery capacity wasn't good enough. The Prius (please stop eyerolling :smile

has NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries. In the 10? years that the Prius has been available in Japan they have yet to replace a FULL battery pack. Individual cells yes, but not the full battery pack. The engineering keeps the battery pack between something like 20%-80% full. It doesn't do the hard core and damanging full cycle 0-100% charge, which is why it lasts so long.
In Europe there is a funky little button that said EV on it, but the US version of the car didn't. They discovered that it could go for a short burst just on battery power. I think it was like 3 miles. With some tinkering the guys at
California Cars Initiative for Plug-In Hybrids put in a Lithium-Ion battery (just like the ones in cellphones and laptops) and have achieved amazing results. The widely touted 100+MPG Hybrid. The Toyota and Ford hybrids (Ford is licensing the technology from Toyota) are "full" hybrids. The car can go on battery power alone, not far but it can. I think the Prius can go 34 or 42MPH on pure battery power. The Honda hybrids can't run on pure battery power and are "mild" hybrids. Only the full hybrids can be converted to the eye popping mileage. At a current cost of 10-15k

It is estimated that it could be added at the factory for 5k more due to the mass production factor. Toyota is intrigued with the idea and WILL begin producing/licensing Plug-In Hybrids for fleets later this year or next year. In 2009/2010 the highly anticipated Chevy Volt will come onto the market. Chevy would achieve as much marketing appeal as the Toyota Prius if they can say "we are the first to bring a plug-in hybrid to the market."
The goal of plug in hybrids it is to get 40+miles at highway speed on battery power alone. MOST people do not drive more than 40miles a day. Your particular situation probably will vary. Would you plug in a car that you'd be able to say truely I'm NOT spending one DIME on foreign oil?
Most of the baseload electricity produced in the USA is from Coal (over 50%), Nuclear (20%), or Hydro (I think around 10%). Regulations require power companies to have X percentage constantly available even if nobody uses it. Spinning reserve is a term that comes to mind. It's not efficient or very profitable for the companies to do that. The key to the plug-in concept is to charge your lil electric vehicle using offpeak power. It's there for the taking. Or possibly even sell your electricity, stored in the battery, back to the electric company at prime rates...
It's much easier to control ONE source of pollution instead of ONE MILLION tailpipes. The first few minutes when you run an engine is the dirtiest. The catalytic converter hasn't warmed up enough to absorb/breakdown those particles. If you have one powerplant running at the most efficient speed it's easier to control. We'll use more electricity but if done RIGHT (har har har) it has the potential to substantially change the amount of gasoline/diesel used. It is probably much more inefficient to refine gasoline and transport it by tanker to your corner store than just shoot power thru the lines to your garage.
{How we get the electricity is a whole other subject. There are currently about 300 coal fired plants on the drawing board and at least 1 NEW nuclear reactors put forth for licensing, possibly as many as 40 in the near future}
I saw that Kathmandu, Nepal, has one of the largest percentages of electric vehicles in the world. I think I saw it on Yahoo Video News courtesy of CNN or the BBC. It's cheaper there to go electric than go for gasoline. Something like 7 vs 9cents per mile.
Hypermiling can contribute significantly to the mileage. With a regular gasoline powered car some people have DOUBLED their gas mileage. Uhm I'll pass on PUSHING my car to get a rolling start, but some of it just makes sense. Stop speeding to a stoplight, just coast some. This is also what helps in an electric or hybrid. You use energy going UP a hill and then coast DOWN a hill and recapture 2/3rds of that energy.
I'm waiting for the Plug-In Electric FlexFuel vehicle to be available. E85 has problems in itself but you'd only be using 15% gasoline, when using the engine itself.
(darn turned into a rant... didn't mean it to be :frown1: )