Originally Posted by chesterakl

Aha - whew, I thought I was losing it for a minute there looking for that and that I missed it somehow.



You know, I think I would tend to disagree with that somewhat. I think market forces would get it done - if gas prices would push up high enough to change the thinking (and the government wouldn't try to intervene with politics and try to "look out for the consumer"). If gas would get up to $5 or $6 per gallon (and stay there) - I think THAT would create enough of a paradigm shift to start changing the minds of a lot more people. Right now there still isn't enough pain at the pump to change the majority of the public's mind. I seriously don't think anything will happen until the price of gas gets to a point where everyone will have to change their way of life - and we aren't there yet. I don't think even $4 gas will really do it, but it'd be close.

If gas were to get to that point, everyone would be demanding the products that were more efficient and that would fuel (no pun intended) a dynamic expansion of money and effort into the research and development of these technologies. Right now they're saying "eh, it's nice and if the price is relatively close to what I can get for something similar I'll consider it, but it's not a necessity". It's all still going to be driven by supply and demand, and the real demand just isn't there yet. I think we're just starting to see a little bit of it show up, but not the multi-fold increase in demand that would be needed to change people's minds.

Obviously that would throw the whole economy into a tizzy, but I don't think we can get that paradigm shift that's needed without it.