Government does not need to interfere with technology. OK, they can set standards that must be met. I must be optomistic, but I feel like the 20% improvement will be blown away by a considerable margin! Just wait for the next gen toyota system..........

One of the biggest changes we have seen is because of the increase in the cost of fuel.
Raise the tax on gas, fund conservation and alternative fuels research and enforce a percentage of Biofuels across the nation. B20, E10. Incremental changes in 5 years.

Imagine if the DOD was building batteiers instead of bombs, how much more effectively we would be fighting terrorism. We could build wind farms to generate about 10% of our total current electrical consumption, and we could build nukes to generate 50% of our total current electrical consumption, and we could power our plug-in hybrids without emitting green house gases. But instead we have photo ops on the white house lawn.

I want to puke when I see my president next to a prius..

I watched a representative from the oil industry on CSPAN the other day and he said we need to slow down and make sure that the solution(s) we implement for alternative energy will be viable over the long run. My interpretation: the longer we wait, the more profit Big Oil makes and the longer their subsidies stay in place. Big Oil only looks out for Big Oil; they see the immediate implementation of alternative energies as a threat to their continuing control of the U.S. Energy Business and they will work hard to continue control; Lobbying, Lying and Lapping up patents.

Yeah, let's just pour money into finding ways of substituting gasoline for other fuels, rather than actually reducing our relative consumption by imposing stricter mileage restrictions on new vehicles and by funding public transportation development and initiatives.

He's halfway there. He's missing the more important part of the equation though. Let's hope the Dems figure it out in 2 years.

wake1 writes: I want to puke when I see my president next to a prius..

Why is that? Is it because a super macho guy like him should be standing next to a Hummer H1? Or are you appalled that a symbol of our nation is standing next to a symbol of the vision and engineering skill of the Japanese, next to which our dying auto industry does not look good? Or do you just want to puke when you see him standing next to anything?

I will only believe President Bush comittment when he puts his money where his mouth is!

As an outsider, the fact that this is not a GM PHEV on the White House lawns, is disturbing. From what I've read, Hybrids are considered vehicles of the Smug in the USA. I doubt there will ever be a massive uptake of PHEV's there until GM gets on board.

"It's time for The General to take charge!", for the planets sake. Other than that...it's all good!

Did anyone catch this part:
"The Friday display of a Prius converted to a plug-in with an A123Systems li-ion battery pack and the Phoenix Motorcars all-electric Sports Utility Truck on the White House South Lawn followed a one-hour private meeting."

While the photo of the Commander in Chief next to a Prius was a bit startling, the battery (to enable plugin capability) was American, and so was the Phoenix Motorcars pickup.

Here's another article, w/a photo of Bush and the electric pickup.

That is problem Shaun; for the last ten years many of us have been begging GM, Ford & Chrysler to please 'get on board.' Instead, they published propaganda & even engineering reports refuting the veracity & success of what we were asking for which ironically is the very technology they now claim to be chasing & promoting so arduously. I hope they are telling the truth this time, as they have certainly brought very little of their media touted, advanced efficiency technology to fruition over the last 7 years.

I for one am quite excited to see the President standing behind a Prius. He has for far too many years stood behind the philosophy of no peak oil, no global warming & the idea that single occupant Suburbans, Tahoes, Rams, Explorers & Expeditions on our highways is A-OK in every way. Maybe 10 years from now we will get to see a US President standing more proudly behind a Volt. Oh how I hope the Volt is not just some more GM media vapor.

Would I buy a Volt if GM made it as described today? Yes, just as quickly as I have bought my other ‘real’ hybrids & Shaun; I am well known for not being ‘Smug.’ In fact, most Prius owners I know are caring, giving people. We are a little older; 45-57 is our median age and as a lot, we are pretty well educated but, Smug? --- No, most of us simply are not.

Now as far as technology being stolen; a US citizen filed a patent in 1925 that shows basically the same technology as the Prius has; two motor-generators connected to an internal combustion engine via a planetary gear set that sets forth in its descriptions & claims many of the virtues being garnered today by the Prius & other advanced hybrid vehicles. The truth is Toyota got it to market successfully first & the rest of the players are not happy about it.

The Florida suit has almost no leg to stand on as the technology they claim is stolen is well covered in the 1925 patent. You can take a look at this patent if you like, it is US Patent 1558806 from 1925 by A.C. Hess Jr. titled "Electromechanical Power Transmission Mechanism" & it looks a whole like the GM, DaimlerChrysler, BMW ‘Dual-Mode Hybrid Technology’ system splashed across several press releases last April. Interestingly, Toyota has not brought this 1925 patent forward as a defensive piece yet in the Florida case; maybe they simply don't need to.

I am sick of pseudo-environmentalists who see conspiracies everywhere.

The electrification of the the auto and truck fleets is a hurtling onslaught that is building like an on-coming hurricane.

With half a brain they toot build the needed electric components for electric autos and trucks are already paid for and being built on a massive scale. The world's LDV industries are converting to electricity from old technology just as surely as the USA converted to war production in 1941 and 1942.

Hitler and the Axis was a going to see thousands of war machines on the battlefield in 1943 -1945. You didn't need to be a prophet to be assured that was going to happen in 1942 from happening.

GWB can think; he did earn a MBA from a prestigious school and was smart enough to be become a jet fighter pilot in spite of the propaganda from leftist know-nothings.

Unlike most of the ideological chanting and messianic fervor espoused by the watermelon greeniees led by a Divinity school flunkout who wants to have you believe his environmental apocalypse. He demands that heretics such a climate scientists who say it isn't so, should be burned at the stake like the Delaware governor has just decreed.

Any surprise shes a Dumbocrat?

Want to bet that an artist who worked hard on his documentary and merited an award, will be screwed and passed over by the leftists saying
Art be Damned.

Lets give the knot head an Oscar? Just like the same artists screwed the music artist who deserved an award to make a political statement by awarding a Grammy to the Dixie Chicks...

The reality is that LDC fleet will be transformed in less than 20 years. GHGs will plunge not to just the phony Kyoto 1990 targets, but to 1930 levels for the entire USA economy, without any other changes. Yes the LDV fleet generates that much "GHG"s.

George W Bush and his cohorts have no interest in the public good. Their golden parachutes and self-sufficient getaways from the coming collapse are fully in place. For George to pose before a PHEV signals nothing but trouble ahead.

This week ABC and CBS did "in-depth" 30-sec spots on hybrids, both warning that mileage claims are false! Is it a coincidence that these national broadcasters produced defamation spots this week? I don't think so.
Did GM threaten to cut millions in TV advertizing unless they put out this BS?

Buy a big GM now! Special deals! Financing for everybody! Buy now and get a big 40" flat panel TV! Wheee!!!