Thanks. That article is spreading across the net very quickly. I'm sure Honda's not too happy about that. Dan Neil was in Who Killed the Electric Car and spoke at our fundraiser in September.

 

Great article - the fill up routine reminds me of doing a natural gas vehicle. I drove a CNG van for a year or so and never felt comfortable filling it up. I think an electric plug-in would be much more user friendly.

 

It is more user-friendly, Ken. It's also cleaner cheaper, and often times faster than a CNG fillup!

 

That will be great so once the vehicle is reasonable - $30k to $40k for a 5 passenger equal to my Camry - and the fuel is readily available I will glady get in line to purchase one. Only catch is that I doubt this will happen in my lifetime, but the plug in hybrid can happen the next couple of years.

Maybe the plugin will be a good stepping stone to the fuel cell vehicles, but the important thing is that we are moving away from ICE and foreign oil.

 

Ken- I was talking about plugging in being cleaner, cheaper, and faster than CNG. Sorry, I wasn't clear. Maybe someday fuel cells will be ready, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. It just isn't practical for cars; just how battery power isn't practical for planes.

 

OK - makes more sence comparing CNG to plug-ins. Fueling up that CNG van kind of freaked me out - you could tell there was lots of pressure involved and that kind of let my imagination run amok.

 

I was once filling my car up and the guy next to me was filling his van with CNG. It was a very very old van and the van was creaking as it filled up. I thought the thing was going to explode!

 

You got it - it groaned and creaked like it was having trouble holding all the pressure.

It was a 12 passenger van back in the mid 90's - I'm glad that type of fuel didn't catch on!

 

OK, I'm generally good for such things, so I'll launch a "kettle o' worms" question on PHEVs.

I have a 2000 Saturn SW2. Love it. Only has 52K miles on it. Doesn't get driven much. These days, it mostly gets driven 2 miles back and forth to the train station during winter. Hoping I'll be able to resume riding my bike in April.

Anyhow, I'm contemplating replacing my SW2 with a Ford Fusion hybrid. However, my SW2 was my first new car, and I've now had it 8.5 years, so I'm not really the type that needs to upgrade their car every few years. In fact, if my SW2 were a hybrid of some sort, I'd probably drive it until the wheels came off--figuratively speaking of course.

I keep eyeing the Ford Escape hybrid and Ford's commitment to introduce an Escape PHEV to the consumer market in 2012. Whatever.

The Fusion hybrid is so nice, but I really want to wait for something that plugs in. Although, come 2012, will there be promises of mid sized sedan EVs with a 600 mile range from newly developed mithril sulfate batteries that then compel me to wait for those in 2015.

If I were to get a Fusion hybrid, I suspect it would not be until mid 2009 or maybe even early 2010.

 

Well if that Saturn will hang in there for a few more years I would keep on driving it. Your milage is very low and it would be hard to justify $23,000 for so few miles.EV sounds like the car for you!Hal