Who killed the electric car?

The electric car was killed by the hybrid. The hybrid was just more practical at the moment.

About hybrid mileage, they beat all four-wheel combustion engines easily, and the only reason they don't beat motorcycles is because motorcycles have far less load to carry. Also, it would have been nicer, upon discussing how hybrids get better mileage in town, to give the comparitive numbers. Hybrids do get better mileage in town, but not that much better. I beleive it was 55 on the highway and 60 in town. That crushes the competition.

Given gas prices, I honestly don't understand why more people don't buy them. Actually, I do. Only one American company (correct me if I'm wrong) has a hybrid at the moment, and a lot of people are really big on being patriotic by buying American goods. Poor reasoning, I'd say. Others actually have this misconception that hybrids are expensive, when they really aren't; a new one runs about $20K, just like most normal cars.

Hybrids FTW!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by daguuy

what i don't get is why people havn't hurried up with the water-powered cars yet. somebody made one but not much else is happening with it. think about it; water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. separate the two with electricity and you have an extremely flamable gas with the only exhaust being water. it's the perfect solution, there's water everywhere!

Problem is, wouldn't that require a nuclear reactor for an engine, or at least some kind of fission reactor? Unless there's another way to split molecules into individual atoms. Science isn't my bag, really, but that sounds like what we were taught in chemistry.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

What's pretentious about them? I don't see hybrids as a say to save the environment, I see them as a way to save money. The more expensive gas gets, the more money you save. Of course it depends on your driving habits. The people who save the most money by buying a hybrid are people who do mostly in-town driving, as that's where it shines the most. Plenty of economy cars can get decent to good mileage on the highway (as noted earlier in the threat), but only the hybrid can get you the beyond awesome mileage when talking about in-town driving.

As for not buying them yet because of mechanics and such, yeah, that is a big problem in the United States. I wish the government would divert some of the war funding to give incentives to mechanics to learn how to do maintenance on hybrids. Maybe in 2008 . . .

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Prosthetic

You don't think that a hybrid SUV is a bit pretentious?

Not at all. People who drive SUVs are arguably the ones who save the most money, as they're getting the biggest boost in mileage, assuming of course that the hybrids SUVs are just as good (or at least close).

Now if those soccer moms claim to have gotten the hybrids SUVs "in order to protect the environment", that would indeed be pretentious. Heck, I would call that an outright lie. Hybrids are about saving money. You aren't saving the environment, we already have plenty of vehicles with low enough emissions that the environment isn't in any real danger from emissions from cars. People who would make such claims, those are the pretentious ones.

Me, I'm gonna be honest. I only want a hybrid to save money on gas. Lower emissions, that's just a very very small bonus.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?