I would buy one, just not now if they became instantly available in Aus.
Give it a few years I reckon for better battery efficiency to be developed.

Yes! If I could ever afford it

I have an old Mercedes 450 SEL and a Fiat Spider and only take them out for long hauls. To get around the city I use my BMW ( bus, Metro, walk ) I`ll use my bike when I go over to a friend`s house or somewhere where I can keep an eye on it. Montréal is notorious for bike and car thefts. We`ve got a bunch of these small hybrid cars here but I wouldn`t want to drive one of these things on the autoroute near a semi. Probably get sucked under. Guess they`re good for the city but that`s it. I wouldn`t bother.

Slartibartfast wrote: And electric cars would be a lot cheaper now if certain special interests hadn't gotten in the way...

y'mean like the fact that hardly anyone buys them?

Maybe after I get laid, decide a major, get out of college, pay off my loans, get a house/apartment, buy all the sh*t that goes in the house, and replace all the CDs I "borrowed" during college.

Slartibartfast wrote:   The electrical for the power can come from other sources than polluting ones like nuclear (want some waste in your backyard?)

C'mon, don't be one of those enviro-freaks that rules out nuclear.  The plants can be operated very safely and cleanly and don't have the emission/pollutant problems of coal-fired plants.  They're a more proven technology than solar and wind right now, now that said, I have no problem with and would actually love to see those technologies deployed heavily over the coming decades.

What Nuclear Renaissance?

By Christian Parenti

" "Wall street doesn't like nuclear power," says Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. The fundamental fact is that nuclear power is too expensive and risky to attract the necessary commercial investors. Even with vast government subsidies, it is difficult or almost impossible to get proper financing and insurance. The massive federal subsidies on offer will cover up to 80 percent of construction costs of several nuclear power plants in addition to generous production tax credits, as well as risk insurance. But consider this: the average two-reactor nuclear power plant is estimated to cost $10 billion to $18 billion to build. That's before cost overruns, and no US nuclear power plant has ever been delivered on time or on budget."

" The notion that nukes make sense and are the version of green preferred by grown-ups is being conjured by a slick PR campaign. The Nuclear Energy Institute--the industry's main trade group--has retained Hill and Knowlton to run a greenwashing campaign."

" Activists like Sidebotham say the real issue is not how to build more nukes but how to handle the old, decrepit plants and their huge stockpiles of radioactive waste. Most of the atomic plants in this country are reaching the end of their life span; seventeen have been decommissioned. And increasingly the question is what to do with the accumulated waste--the extremely radioactive spent fuel rods. This is dangerous stuff. If exposed to air for more than six hours, spent fuel rods spontaneously combust, spewing highly poisonous radioactive isotopes far and wide. This spent fuel will be hot for 10,000 years."

" This much seems clear: a handful of firms might soak up huge federal subsidies and build one or two overpriced plants. While a new administration might tighten regulations, public safety will continue to be menaced by problems at new as well as older plants. But there will be no massive nuclear renaissance. Talk of such a renaissance, however, helps keep people distracted, their minds off the real project of developing wind, solar, geothermal and tidal kinetics to build a green power grid."

Edited by Slartibartfast - August 08 2008 at 20:12

Those who voted yes should consider where the energy for car comes from, and whether that's really a better alternative to gas.

Electric Cars are not the solution, IMHO.

In other words, I vote public transportation, carpooling, riding a bike/walking, and alternative fuels that aren't ethanol (hydrogen hopefully if it works and doesn't compromise limited water resources - I haven't researched the issue enough to know).

Pnoom! wrote: In other words, I vote public transportation, carpooling, riding a bike/walking, and alternative fuels that aren't ethanol (hydrogen hopefully if it works and doesn't compromise limited water resources - I haven't researched the issue enough to know).

Hydrogen doesn't seem much better than electric - you still have to produce it, so you still require a primary energy source.

What's wrong with electric cars if the primary electric generation source is green (solar/wind/etc.), and if the storage capacity can be made to support reasonable single charge mileage?