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Dennis,

Internal combustion engines are extremely inefficient at making energy. You’re constantly burning fuel, even when you’re sitting at the stop light. Electricity, no matter how it’s made, can be stored and only needs to be used when the car needs to start, speed up and maintain speed. That being said, the electric motor is superior in efficiency over an internal combustion engine. As for braking, electric cars do create and store energy while braking. as for making energy from spinning tires, you’ll never produce more energy then it takes to spin the tires. That would be a perpetual motion machine. If that existed, all our energy problems would be solved over night. As for solar, it’s just way to costly and inefficient to be used in cars. Plus what do you do at night or on a cloudy day?

Susan,

3 words, much stricter emissions.

As for hydrogen cars, infrastructure for hydrogen is almost impossible to build. Plus currently it takes more energy to create hydrogen then the end product produces.

Solar is not nearly up so speed for cars unless you want to drive around in a 3 wheel pancake looking car that is barely big enough to hold a driver let alone bag of groceries.

Electric cars (not hybrid) are the most efficient. You only use stored energy from the battery when you need it. Plus it’s even more efficient use of carbon energy if you plug in on non peak hours like night time.

Diesel is the way to go if you must use an internal combustion engine. It gets much better mileage then hybrids and with new Tier 4 engines, they are the cleanest internal combustion cars on the road (yes, cleaner then hybrids…). Plus you don’t get fleeced at the dealer like you do with hybrids.

Here is a link to the new BMW development:

http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Uniquely/FutureTechnologies/Hydrogen.aspx

An electric car that "plugs in" to our current electrical grid IS not a car that doesn't rely on fossil fuels! Very nearly all of our electricity at this stage of the game is generated by burnig fossil fuels. How about a car that regenerates its electrical supply through the spinning of its own wheels and its own solar panels?

I don't understand why the mileage on regular sedans that seat 4-5 people is not better. Our 1997 Saturn SL, 4-door, manual transmission, (OK not high powered or sexy) but could cruise at high speeds on the highway got 40 mpg. What happened in the interim? Please explain. Thanks.

What's so wrong about hydrogen cars?

What is he talking about?
BMW is putting out a Hydrogen powered car in it's 7-series, it's highest-end luxury vehicles!

If we move to a fleet of plug-in electric cars where will all the electricity come from? Is there already a strain on the grid?

What about solar hybrids? Have these been explored? Most people leave their cars out all day in sunny parking lots??

Please ask about diesel and recycled vegetable oil as fuels - low emissions, 50+ MPG, exisitng infrastructure and uses a FREE resource (discarded cooking oils)

Doesn't an electric car just transfer the point of air pollution away from the car to the power plant. Also, how do we discard of all the batteries from electric cars and/or hybrids?

Just using electric cars is not "no carbon"
until he generate our electricity in a way that doesn't generate carbon.

The Aptera is a cutting edge vehicle that gets 300 mpg - looks pretty cool.

http://www.aptera.com/

Killing insects to make oil. What does the environmentalist have to say about this?

2 birds, 1 stone: Could this technology make oil out of kudzu?

Hi,

If these animals escaped into the wild, wouldn't their droppings pollute any environment they invaded with mini oil slicks?

bugs that produce oil. well that certainly is forward thinking. burning oil is obsolete. we must stop now.

Any chance that the bugs escape and destroy the world?