Road-Testing Cars of the Future

1) The US is the largest supplier of the oil we use, the two top foriegn suppliers are Canada and Mexico

2) You can't use Solar PV to charge your Volt overnight, so no matter how you slice it, a Volt will be primarily a COAL powered vehicle.

3) Someone who only drives 5,000 miles per year will never come close to saving enough in gas, even at $4/gal to pay the $8,000 premium over a Prius ($15,500 premium without Tax Rebate)

Someone who drives 80 miles per day, would put nearly 30,000 miles per year on the car. Even so after 5 years and 150,000 miles, they would still be ahead by over $5,000 by driving a 45mpg Prius at $3/gal.

While people might buy the Volt to make a statement such as: "I prefer a Coal Powered Car" or "Not Zero Emissions, Emissions Somewhere Else", the economics suggest that the Volt needs to come down by about $15,000 to be able to compete with existing Hybrids.

The fact that almost all our Lithium comes from two South American countries pretty much precludes that from happening.

It may not be OPEC in our future, but if we build our tranport future around Lithium Batteries, it will be OLEC.

Arthur Doucette of TN 9:01AM August 15, 2009