My primary care physician bought one just to park out front of her office.
It's making her patients sick.
She's cleaning up.

At some point in the not to distant future most of us will be driving hybrids and then full electric cars daily.

Keeping this thought in the back of my mind I'm shopping around for a "newer" daily right now.
What that means is that I probably won't be keeping the next one as long as my current 1994 VR6 Golf. (13 years)

I just hope there will be something decent available then. This car may be ugly to some here but to younger drivers this would be something funky and different.
Surely someone will introduce something desirable and affordable soon. Hopefully VW.

I dread the thought of going expensive for daily regardless of what energy it may use. It's just not worth it IMO.

Not without a quantum leap forward in battery or fuel cell technology. If people bothered to do the math, the premium charged for most hybrids doesn't pay back when compared to a similar non hybrid economy car (many of which do better than 40 MPG). Electric cars are well suited for daily commuting in heavy urban areas, but make zero sense in much of the USA.

sc_rufctr.......I've been driving a Honda Civic Hybrid since January, i love this car, i stop to buy 10 gallons of gas about every 8-9 days and i drive a lot. However, I seem to get tailgated a ton though.

1973 911 T MFI Coupe, Aubergine

Steve

+1 EV and hybrid still need close to 100K miles to pencil out. Now if CA keeps increasing the gas tax that might drop 50K in a couple years.

Hell I am getting up there in years. I don't give a crap about fuel economy. My generation was raised burning fossil fuels and I'm not going to throw in the towel just yet. :)

Oh, come on, that's a statement. Nobody wanted to make a good looking car. Rather than "look at me!" in a bad way. The 2nd gen Prius wasn't much different when it came out IMHO. People just got used to its ugliness and the effect is gone. That kink in the door line is outrageous. And the color scheme? I just passed one on the interstate today and could not get over it.

But speaking of ugly cars that don't try to be, another thing I passed was a CLA Mercedes. WTF!?

G

I think I'm getting 12 MPG in my C63, and I can't remember the last time I had so much fun with a car.:cool:

In January, with the new Carbon Taxes, Gasoline will go up at least $0.40 per gallon.

California wants to be first again on high tax.

On styling - I've seen better looking golf carts.

I'm guessing that the stylist/industrial designer(s) on that BMW PBA got paid a LOT more for that than did every golf cart designer who ever lived.

So, you know, if you don't like it then it's because you are wrong, and know nothing about high design. ;)

Nationwide?
I would guess so. :confused:

You'll start seeing "hybrids" that go after the low-hanging fruit of stop/start, regenerative braking, and electric motor assist where they can use smaller primary gas motor, and benefit from the instant torque of electric motors to get moving from a standstill. This "mild-hybrid" formula uses a relatively small battery pack so it skips the expense and isn't constrained so much by current battery capacity limitations. It really does make a big difference in overall fuel economy.

There are a couple of different flavors and they all have strengths and weaknesses. As was said above, for dense urban environments that have infrastructure, electric makes sense. For other places, less so. The driving experience with my X1 is different than the i3, which is different from other hybrids (technically the i3 Rex is a hybrid).

Technically, the i3 Rex is NOT a hybrid, as the "range extender" (generator) is not physically able to power the wheels (unless you use the old outdated terminology of "serial-hybrid", which no longer describes automobiles).

Hybrid means that the ICE can power the wheels all on its own, or with the help of the electric motor, or visa versa.

CA DMV disagrees with you :p

http://nostatic.com/photos/stickers.png

Yes, the state of CA is the foremost expert

This product is known to the state of California to cause cancer.;)

Well, the state probably has more alternative fuel vehicles than anywhere else. And as far as me getting stickers for the car, yes, they are the judge, jury, and executioner.

In the end it is semantics, but the designation only really counts when it comes to legislation and financial impacts. You can call it anything you want - until you have to get the govt to do something.

I'm just saying that the state of CA *has* to categorize it somehow, they want it to fit one of their designations -- square peg / round hole. They decided it best fit as a Transitional Zero Electric Vehicle (TZEV) and Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) because it can burn gas..... to them, how that gas is burned is immaterial to their classification.

But in the real world it's a huge difference

California only.

The party in charge in DC tried very, very hard to push through cap and trade, they wanted it almost as badly as you-know-who-care. But thankfully they failed.

But the people's republik of Kalifornia said hey that's a really stupid idea that a few of us can get stinking rich on, let's do it!
And they did and it is costing consumers hundreds of millions a year and they don't even know it, and next year it'll start getting really obvious. By design it gets worse and more painful every year.

An additional 40 cents/gallon will get tacked on at the pump at first, but there will eventually be at least $1.40 a gallon added to California gas because of AB 23.
it will also more than double the already sky-high cost of electricity in this state. HA HA smug loosers hafta pay more to plug in too!!!!


A few years ago there was a prop 32 that tried to kill this stupidity. I railed on and on about it, saying that we really needed to pass prop 32. Many of you argued against me, including one genius with half a dozen different log-on IDs.

But the left-leaning idiots who inhabit most of this state drank the kool-aid and believed it was just a chance to stick it to the big bad oil companies.
They did not possess the IQ to understand they were sticking it to themselves.
The consumers are the loosers in this whole deal, the crooks brokering the carbon credits are the winners.
They are self-regulating and are getting so stinking rich they spend all their time trying to hide it. Gee, I wonder who they are and who they are related to?????
how could they not see this coming? We WARNED you!!!


I bet a few years from not they'll all sit up and say .......HEY, what the heck????????
The stupid deserve their own punishment. Unfortunately the rest of us have to pay for their stupidity.

To those in other states sitting back and laughing at Kalifornia's stupidity, I do not blame you a bit.
But I do warn you.

The people in charge of this nation still want to pass cap and trade. They will not give up. they want to double or triple the amount the consumer pays for energy. That means ALL of us.

Not the other guy, not the guy with all the money, not the guy making over $200k a year, ALL OF US.

Even the smug who make a living off the gubmint and OPM.