PurdueGuy

*nelson* Ha ha!

Exactly. Right now you can pay a company in Cali to put an extra big battery pack & a plug in a Prius, and ta-da, you have a plug-in hybrid. It still is able to run like a regular Prius, without being plugged in, and just has to carry extra weight of more batteries.

The concept looks good, so this should be a good product as long as everything else (interior, options, pricing) comes together well.

Depends on the battery type. I don't recall what types do what, or what type the Prius has, though.

The gap above the bar makes a bit of a difference, though. Those subtle details are generally what makes all the difference in styling cars.

had heard of the movie, hadn't seen the preview. Some neat pictures of the EV1 driving around, and I still like the idea of that paddle charger (inductive charging - no risk of shock)

Plus, we actually have the jobs. Those cars could be getting imported instead...

I'd hope it's production ready - they arrive in dealerships in like a month.

...does that bother you? I might kinda like the idea of a super-small car for just zipping around town... if the ForTwo weren't so ugly up front.

I don't see this happening - GM just largely got out of several partnerships (Subaru, Suzuki). I'm sure GM has plenty of technology & such that Nissan/Renault would like, but is the reverse true?

aftermarket systems for manuals are set up to detect if the car is in neutral. If it's not, they don't work. Rigging up a standard aftermarket start system without the neutral detection can result in causing the car to drive off.

Can't blame the state - other states were competing for it. Also, factories aren't where the money's made (though often a poorly run factory is where the money is lost). The product makes the profit.

The value of Pi is 3

See? a respectable arguement. That wasn't so tough. lol We'll have to wait & see what the costs & such are to see to what extent the technology pays for itselt (or doesn't). I'm not sure I'd call gas/electric hybrids a "pure & simple" fad. I'd agree it's a fad, but it's also technology which currently teeters on the line between worth it or not, and each gasoline price increase pushes it further toward being worthwhile. My last break-even analysis showed the upcoming Saturn Vue Green Line as the only hybrid likely to pay for itself early enough in it's life to justify itself financially. The trouble with analyzing whether the technology is "worth it", though, is putting a price on the value of burning less oil. To many americans, that's worth pretty much zero - if it doesn't touch their wallet directly, they don't care. Others have reasons to care, and that increases the value of the technology. I'd also love to see some more diesels, as well as diesel hybrids. Technology needs to be pushed in many directions...

Would you like to justify your opinion, or are we just supposed to assume that because you (whoever you are) said it, that it's true?

I've driven each of the Vue drivetrain arrangements, and each has its merits. The V6 is very potent, but the I4 is enough power for most people who want an A-to-B. Personally, I'd be split between the FWD V6 (I have no need for AWD - I'd take it if it were free, but it's not) and the manual 4 cyl. Very nice vehicles, many happy owners.

I thought of an idea for a future sketch competition, and figured it'd be more useful to have an overall thread for people to share ideas than to just share mine. I think there could be a number of competitions based on the GM fuel cell "skateboard" concept. For example, "Show us your ideas for a full size sedan based on the skateboard chassis, keeping in mind the extra freedom of no engine compartment, but the need for crashworthiness..." More could be done for other vehicle classes, as well. Probably do them spread out so it doesn't get too dull. So, what are your ideas for future sketch competitions?

Both phone/face-to-face and e-mail have strong advantages over the other. With e-mail, you can think out and type & edit your message, and you can get a higher volume of communication. You also can send/receive messages without having to directly reach the person. With verbal communication, it's easy to not state things correctly (not that you can't misstate things in e-mail, but you can read what you wrote and see if it makes sense, and think it through). Still, verbal communication does have voice inflection, and if in person, body language. Both have advantages, and I would agree that it's a disadvantage for someone to completely dismiss an avenue of communication.

It struck me while reading through all this... one major advantage to a retro styled vehicle is that IF it takes off, you can leave the looks pretty much alone for a long time. IIRC, the Beetle has had an extremely minor refresh, but is pretty much the exact same looking. Same with the PT. Where many cars look stale after 3-5 years, retro cars seem to either flop or last more like 10 years...

Any plan for a "hydrogen economy", where fuel cells for cars and/or grid electricity generation will have to include further hydrogen generation methods. There are a lot of options with this taken into consideration, including using algea farms that produce hydrogen in the right conditions, and the superheated water I mentioned, using nuclear. On a side note, fossil fuel plants would struggle to, if at all be able to superheat water to do this process. If we all used electric cars, yes, demand would increase dramatically, and yes, prices would probably increase. With electricity, however, you have: a) greatly increased efficiency b) fuel from many, many sources. With gasoline there is oil, and oil alternatives (ethanol, etc). With electricity, you have coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, tidal, waste combustion, and many others. With oil, we have multiple sources for a single resource. Middle east countries, south america, pacific islands, our own land, etc, etc. With electricity production, you have multiple sources for multiple resources. Through which method do you think it's easier to control the price? With electricity, cost increases would come from dispursing the cost for extra infrastructure (which we need anyway), and electric companies taking advantage. Still, the electric companies would be hard pressed to have the power that the oil companies currently have. I am not suggesting everyone drive all electric cars. I'm not really much of a tree hugger at all, and don't think that electric cars are up to snuff for anything beyond commuter cars, and even those would likely be too expensive for what they'd be. Still, the efficiency and economics should be fairly analyzed.

I was under the impression that most aircraft wheels were not powered, but that the engines provided the power, so the moving runway would just make the wheels spin faster and the plane would move pretty much as usual?

They aren't. None were sold, all were leased, and when GM pulled the plug on the program, they didn't allow the leases to be renewed. If you saw one, it was a GM owned one, and odd that it was out running about. Most were crushed.

Electricity costs are not so volitile as oil prices, since electricity can be produced by a large number of means using a number of resources. It's also far, far more efficient to produce electricity on a large scale than to burn gasoline to run an ICE on a small scale. The way to go is multiple ways, both for electricity and hydrogen production. It sounds like the hydrogen production method you're talking about is electrolysis, which is the absolute most stupid way to make hydrogen, especially if hydrogen is ever to be used to produce electricity for the power grid. Nuclear is likely to play a vital role in both electric and hydrogen production in the future. A nuclear plant can easily superheat water until it splits into hydrogen and oxygen naturally. It's cheap, and with the safety measures used in US plants, very safe.

less demand for oil = lowered production = balanced production & demand and price remains the same or less demand for oil = oil producers get scared & lower production below demand at current price, creating a shortage, raising the price, and balancing production & demand, but at the higher price In other words, ethanol production has absolutely no sure effect on oil product prices, except perhaps in the far, far distant future when oil would become very scare (or more realistically, the really convenient sources of oil become scarce).

See anything a bit different about this Astra? (this is the Vauxhall version, and the difference isn't that it's a Vauxhall) Look closely.... see it? Try this angle: I like it - make it a Saturn! Found it here: http://cars.ign.com/articles/712/712707p1.html BTW, one article I found on it said that it holds up as well as or better than a regular metal roof. Also good to note is that there is a shade that slides down to give cover over the extended part, and it looks like there are sun shades on it, so you wouldn't have to be blinded.