Hybrid and electric car buyers are just better
Go ahead and hate me for being intelligent and responsible
What’s the cost of not taking action?
Sure, the buyers of hybrid and electric cars don’t always make the most cost-effective choices, but many times their choices are best, even financially. For example, many hybrid cars make the best city cars and they can be far more cost-effective than non-hybrids. But even if hybrids and plug-ins are not always cost-effective, at least hybrid and plug-in buyers are taking action, at least they’re taking responsibility.
The rest of America just talks about taking action. Blah, blah, blah. Some day I’m gonna go on a diet, stop smoking, start investing, be a better person — starting tomorrow. Always tomorrow. Sure, we can all talk a big game, but few of us even show up on game day. Thus, despite some arrogance and elitism, maybe even some ignorance, hybrid and electric car buyers are still better than most other Americans. Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence, Fuel Economy, Hybrid Cars, Plug-in Vehicles, electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars Tags: electric cars, Fuel economy, Hybrid Cars, plug-in hybrids
Pro-American? The Big 3 plan for US energy independence
Is this real American, Big 3 leadership?
Is the Big 3 really any better than Big oil?
We build what Americans want. That’s the mantra US automakers tout regarding their over-dependence upon gas-guzzling pickup trucks time and time again. So, what about the other 50 percent of America? LOL! We really are a divided country, but in so many convoluted ways.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Big 3 recently, especially since coming across a JD Power study regarding the importance of perception and how it affects US auto consumers — we’re pretty manipulable, even to our disadvantage. Then came the Super Bowl commercials, particularly Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler commercial and also GM’s Chevy Silverado apocalypse commercial.
All of it has me wondering, when it comes to being pro-American, are the Big 3 really any better than Big oil? Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence Tags: Energy Independence, foreign oil dependence
Lutz: Peak oil, global warming myths; electrification real
Is fracking inherently so much more dangerous than foreign oil dependence?
The new world order of energy?
If you attended the recent Deloitte & Touche oil and gas conference in Houston, you were left with one realization, according to Bob Lutz of BMW, Chrysler, Ford, and GM fame: US energy independence is now a potential reality. Thanks to an oil and natural gas boom, something even Lutz didn’t believe in until listening to the experts at the conference, OPEC independence could be achieved “in a period of a few years”.
Similarly, Lutz still believes man-caused global warming is just as much a myth as peak oil has become.
Nevertheless, despite a lack of CO2 or peak oil worries, Lutz still believes electrification is inevitable, and it won’t need to be supported by the government, at least not long term. Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence, Hybrid Cars, Plug-in Vehicles, electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars Tags: electric cars, Energy Independence, foreign, Hybrid Cars, plug-in hybrids
Plug-in car focus a cord around energy independence’s neck?
Leaving a lot of foreign oil fighting potential on the table
It’s time to get real about the costs of US foreign oil dependence
In my opinion, ending foreign oil dependence — at least achieving North American independence — is far easier than many might imagine. Ironically, today independence appears even significantly more within reach compared to just a few years ago.
But, it takes real vision to grasp this energy independence potential, but it’s not the seer-like kind of vision that can foresee the technological future some might expect. Rather it takes the vision to simply seize the opportunities available today. Carpe diem! Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence, Plug-in Vehicles, lithium batteries Tags: Energy Independence, foreign oil dependence
President Obama is missing the hybrid revolution
The hybrid revolution and unprecedented greatness
Time for the President to listen to his Job’s Council
One can only laugh, or perhaps cry, at the irony of today’s political world. This morning I learned that the President was rejecting the Keystone Pipeline, an outcome most closely following this story expected because of the political prowess of those against the pipeline and their importance to the 2012 election. Then oddly enough, came the release of the President’s Job’s Council’s Road Map to Renewal that strongly suggests that pipelines like Keystone, and the jobs such natural resource orientated endeavors will bring, are essential to American economic viability.
Just like cars, the hybrid approach to US energy policy” just can’t get no respect”. Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence, Hybrid Cars Tags: Energy Independence
Theoretically: Could advanced gas engines make electrication irrelevant?
Who needs a Volt when you can just Cruze?
Are plug-ins to follow the path of fuel cells?
I’ve made it clear that I don’t believe the hybrid and plug-in hype is fading into irrelevance because of advancements in gasoline engines, which undoubtedly have the capability to achieve much higher levels of efficiencies. Of course, those gasoline engines will never be as efficient as electrification.
Still, it is undeniable that costs are still a major hurdle limiting plug-in, and even hybrid, potential. Perhaps even for decades.
So, just for fun, could much more fuel efficient gasoline engines make hybrids and EVs forever unnecessary? Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence, Fuel Cell vehicles, Hybrid Cars, Plug-in Vehicles, electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars Tags: electric cars, Hybrid Cars, plug-in hybrids
Crashing a hybrid car into the American dream
Killing the American dream one drop of foreign oil at a time.
What does America stand for anymore?
America. The grand experiment of the Founding Fathers. Democracy. Freedom. Equality. Has it worked?
Does driving a gas guzzler that requires massive military protection and intervention of foreign oil supplies, puppet governments, and causes massive pollution prove that America succeeded? That Americans have the freedom to be as careless and irresponsible as we want? Our manifest destiny?
Perhaps more interesting, if cheap oil is so great for Americans, why has the income game gap between the rich and the poor expanded for decades, ironically, as has American foreign oil consumption? Is cheap oil really driving forward the American dream, or is it causing an American nightmare? Read more…
Categories: Buying Hybrids, Buying plug-ins, Energy Independence, Hybrid Cars, Plug-in Vehicles, Tax Incentives, gas prices Tags: foreign, gas prices, Hybrid Cars
Keystone: A pipeline through the heart of American ignorance
Good old American hypocrisy
“No blood for oil” all over again
Around the time of the 9/11 attacks I worked in Pasadena, California. And near my office on South Lake St. protesters showed up every Friday afternoon to protest the build up to Iraq. “No blood for oil” was the rallying cry.
At first, I was quite sympathetic with the cause. In fact, once the Metro Goldline subway line opened, I stopped driving to work to fight my personal foreign oil dependence. But, over time, as I noticed more and more SUVs with “no blood for oil” stickers attending these rallies, I could no longer stand the hypocrisy.
Protesting against “blood for oil” makes little sense when you guzzle blood oil. Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence, Plug-in Vehicles, gas prices Tags: foreign oil dependence, keystone pipeline, no blood for oil
Plug-in forecasts: Revenge of the hybrid car
The battery powered revolution goes through hybrid cars.
Too much hype and politics, but not enough honesty, in the battery-powered space
Over the years I’ve become plug-in cynical. It’s not that I hate plug-ins. On the contrary I love them, and I support plug-in purchases. Unfortunately, for years a number of automakers have used plug-ins as an excuse not to build conventional hybrid cars, often with the support and encouragement of many plug-in advocates, whom too often believe such vehicles are passe.
Yet, over and over and over the facts have continued to suggest and to demonstrate, in fact to almost guarantee, that such an idea isn’t just blatantly wrong, but possibly very dangerous and counter-productive to both a clean and secure energy future for America.
And the latest findings by the study California’s Energy Future – Transportation Energy Use in California, sponsored by the California Energy Future (CEF) project, are the final nail in that coffin. Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence, Hybrid Cars, Plug-in Vehicles, electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars Tags: electric cars, Energy Independence, Hybrid Cars, plug-in hybrids
Using GM as a metric for American clean energy independence
Can eAssist really challange Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive?
Can GM drive America to foreign oil independence?
I’m not sure what to think of GM’s Dan Akerson. His tele-mobile experience suggests great potential as telematics continue their conquest into the auto sector, possibly even rivaling sustainable energy as the next big thing in the auto segment. But his criticism of cars like the Toyota Prius demonstrates real automotive ignorance.
Nevertheless, for at least the next decade or so, the world will still have to linger in the days of caveman energy. Fortunately, some recent commentary by GM’s Dan Akerson helps shed some light on the path GM is taking towards an American clean energy independent future. Read more…
Categories: Energy Independence, Hybrid Cars, Plug-in Vehicles, electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars Tags: Chevy Volt, Energy Independence, gm, Toyota Prius
