Big companies are quite content to let smaller companies take all the initial risk. If the PHEV SUV they make sells well, you can expect that GM, Toyota, and everyone else will quickly jump on the bandwagon.

100kW continuous? That will generate a seriously huge amount of torque.

Healthy Breeze:

Behavior can change.

Look at what happened to smoking in the last 20 years.

Look at what is happening to incadescent light bulbs. Sales are to be banned shortly in many countries.

Couldn't the same thing happen to 2 - 3 tonnes ICE gas guzzling monsters 20 years from now?

"What is holding them back?"

It is a social phenomenon. The larger any organization becomes, the greater the losses percieved are for any given action. As size increases, so does command and control authority levels, and any decisions become increasing subject to verification and OK at their level. The more levels there are, the more tendency there is to maintain the status quo---to err on the side of safty, "Don't rock the boat." becomes more and more the guiding principle as each level manager becomes more and more reluctant to strike out on new ventures due to percieved risk. The bigger the ship, the harder it is to turn.

We have some awfully big ships---don't expect to see much in the way of evasive manuevering in the war to change energy production and use. It is the small companies like Rasar that have the capacity to change things---but to do that they need support.

If you believe what Rasar is doing is a good thing, then what needs to happen is for people to buy stock in Rasar to give them the resources to persue their technology. If you really want to see it happen, then buy whatever stock you can in that company. It is a risk, but do your research and if it looks promising, then invest in it. If it succeeds, then you get rich.

Breaking The Chains
http://groups.msn.com/BreakingTheChains/_whatsnew.msnw

Fred:

You are probably correct about the Big Three +++ and their immobilism. We are also to blame for buying their outdated re-shuffled products.

Fortunately, there are still many large pro-active compagnies around. Apple, Intel, GE, LG, Toshiba, Tata, Bombadier any many others regularly come out with new worthwhile products. Many battery and ESSU makers will hopefully be in that category soon.

It is not optimism nor pessimism nor calling people names. It is an accurate realistic analysis of this news release.
Raser is making motors that can be used in hybrid vehicles. This is good for Green Cars. What may not be good is the lack of funding for dozens of other companies that want to help too. These may be companies that do not even exist yet and probably never will exist because there is no funding for them to even get started.

If you have watched Raser, you will see a history of them trying to get enough funding to stay alive and trying to sell their products to anyone that will buy them. This may be survival of the fittest or just survival of the richest, but it does not produce lots of products from many companies in a short period to address the problem. I advocate a better funding mechanism for companies like this that make good products that can help us all. The invisible hand of the free market does not seem to do a very good job in these cases.

Sure the Tahoe hybrid may be for the manly men, but at $50,000+ each, they need to be rich manly men. I have not heard how many guys that buy $20k pickups would pay $30k to get an extra 3 mpg. Let's see how many buy the Tahoe hybrid before we say that adding this to large SUVs is the way to go, because not everyone wants to drive a Prius.

sjc,

Most "manly men" buying full-size pickups as commuter vehicles (not as work vehicles) are optioning them with so much extras I bet the average transaction price of a full size truck for personal use is north of $30,000.

Base model F-150 with supercab, 4x4, 6.5' bed, standard 4.6L V-8, CD player, floor mats, cruise control and no other options already hit nearly $29,000. Sure there are probably incentives and at the same time people probably take a ton of options to get those incentives.

A ford expedition that gets 12mpg, driving 40 miles everyday would consume $4800 per year in gas at $4 per gallon.. it would not take long to pay for batteries at that rate. Dont do the math for a Prius :)

Electrics are the salvation of the large SUV.. Rejoice!

Some have suvs simply because they do more and thus make a great second car. Othwea so it bwcause commuting is far less stressful and painful in one. Others do it because they have the money and like the drive feel.
Many older mothers sjop using suvs vecause its far kindwe to older backs.

I know a few who commutr via suv and all do it because it not only massivelt reduces stress and backpain but it also is far safer and we all have had friends in smaller cars get perm disabled because of unsafe 18 wheeler /masses of commuter cars all crowding freeways that are far too narrow to handle the loads the CITIES place on them.

The GM full size hybrid may seem expensive but it really increases the city mpg and can pay for itself within four years. I don't like big SUV's but GM's approach does make sense.

Also while I would never buy a 'loaded' vehicle many SUV buyers are already buying loaded versions with EVERY option. The hybrid is just another option and many will pick it for status.

I work with 4 other Guys who own full size pickup trucks and one who owns a fulls size SUV out of 9 employees. None of these guys need an obese vehicle but they all drive em. If the large auto makers don't get to improving the fuel economy of large vehicles we will never reduce our oil consumption. Hybrid, electric whatever it takes those who don't feel they can go smaller must have options in the future.. TED