Americans hoping for a long term solution to combat rising gas prices have few options, other than buying an old car and having it converted to run on electricity by a custom workshop. (See: EV Conversions).
So-called Plug-in Hybrids, which use lithium-ion batteries and can manage a daily commute between charges - thus eliminating the need for gas consumption - are still suffering development problems, with the much-hyped Chevy Volt not expected in showrooms until 2010. The Silicon Valley electric car-maker Tesla Motors - which uses Lotus body parts from the UK - recently opened its first dealership in Los Angeles, but has nothing to sell because so far only four production models of its much-anticipated 139 mph sports car have been built. The Tesla Roadster can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds and will allegedly go 220 miles on a single charge, but problems with the transmission have forced the company to delay mass production until December.
(Until the new transmission is ready, Tesla Roadsters will be built on a slowed-down schedule. Early-build cars will later have their transmissions replaced in a two-hour fix).
Demand for small and hybrid cars is soaring, with vehicles being sold for more than their advertised prices. A tank of gasoline now typically costs more than $100 to fill up a big SUV - compared with just $30 five years ago* - and dealers can barely give away the giant Ford Expeditions, Dodge Rams and Chevy Suburbans cluttering up their lots.
* Eight years ago a barrel of oil cost $27 but is now topping $128. (thanks in large part to the concentrated efforts of our 'fossil fools' at the top, some say).
Hybrid Electric Demand Rising in U.S.
With European-style diesel engines unavailable on most noncommercial vehicles in America** - they fail the crucial smog test in California, although newer technology might soon change that - Americans are showing the most interest in hybrid cars that combine electric and gas power. Hybrid cars account for only 3 per cent of US car sales but orders are increasing so dramatically - they were up by 58 per cent last month - that manufacturers can hardly keep up. Plug-in Hybrids share the characteristics of both conventional hybrid electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles, having an internal combustion engine and batteries for power. More about PHEVs at Village Energy
Waiting on a Hybrid in L.A.
There is a 30-day waiting list in Los Angeles for the Toyota Prius, which theoretically can do 48 mpg in the city. Every Prius that arrives at a Los Angeles dealership is sold within three days, according to a recent survey by the Los Angeles Times. As a result, dealers are adding mark-ups of as much as $3,000 a car. It is the same story with SUV hybrids. "It could be a month or two before we get one in," a salesman at Toyota's Santa Monica dealership said, when asked about a Highlander Hybrid SUV that does about 18 mpg in the city. "They sell before they even arrive." The hybrid Highlander costs $50,000, similar to the price of a far more prestigious but chronically oil-addicted Land Rover LR3 (called a Discovery in Britain). The so-called "sticker shock" is made worse for many motorists because the value of trade-in SUVs has fallen by 8 per cent since last year.
Says Stephen Joseph, director of the Campaign for Better Transport, "The figures show people are already changing their car-buying habits and that we should not believe the doom and gloom from car manufacturers about the impact of tough CO2 targets. The market will adapt."
*Gas prices continue to rise and may soon cost the earth if 'guzzling' continues as it now is. "The world's supply of recoverable oil is fast running out. An energy policy (or the lack of one) that leaves us with no alternative but swilling more oil is suicidally stupid." Glass Onion.
* Most PHEVs on the road today are passenger cars, but there are also PHEV versions of commercial passenger vans, utility trucks, school buses, motorcycles, scooters, and military vehicles. PHEVs are sometimes called grid-connected hybrids, gas-optional hybrids, or GO-HEVs. See Also: Electric Cars at Village Energy
VILLAGE ENERGY VIEW:
Plenty of contenders for the energy crown now held by fossil fuels are already at hand: wind, solar, to name a few. But many believe the successor will have to be a congress, not a king. We're going to need everything we can get from biomass (Is Hemp the only biomass resource capable of making America energy independent?), everything we can get from solar, everything we can get from wind, and still the question is can we get enough?. The answers are out there but they all require one more thing of us humans who huddle around the fossil fuel fire: We're going to have to make a big leap-toward a different kind of world.
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
