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This thread is obviously engineer heavy, "it's a neat thing, with lots of nifty engineering to make it that way, so it must be a good thing to have"...eco-ideology in this instance only makes it seem to be more better still.

Hybrids work, they cut fossil fuel use and don't stress our sadly inadequate electric grid. The one I've driven was a great drive and owner loves it.

Plug-ins, however, are nearly as complex (moreso?) and stress the national grid, wide acceptance at this time would crash the system. There are far too many other demands on electricity to make that path reasonable for a long, long, time. The other eco-fetish for corn based motor fuels "only" effected food price and availability (and older vehicles), black or brown outs threaten society itself - not to mention all those plug-in wonder cars.

Add to that the several published studies showing the very high pollution costs of electric generation and America's unwillingness to modernize production and plug-ins don't even score.

Finally, the comment about making a pit stop ever hour or so while in a long trip would leave the most patient driver babbling about demons before he or she got to El Paso.

“Plug-ins, however, are nearly as complex (moreso?) and stress the national grid, wide acceptance at this time would crash the system. There are far too many other demands on electricity to make that path reasonable for a long, long, time.”

The vast, vast majority of all electric car charging is done at night when there is more than enough excess capacity. Every electric car currently being sold has the ability to program “delayed charging” so that even if you plug it in as soon as you get home from work, it won't start charging until a later time. This is especially useful if you have one of the time-of-use electricity plans that are available in many parts of the country. These give you a discounted electricity rate at night... for the sole reason that there is excess capacity at night. Many times there is so much excess that electricity is wasted if it is not used.

“Add to that the several published studies showing the very high pollution costs of electric generation and America's unwillingness to modernize production and plug-ins don't even score.”

Please see my earlier posts in this thread about electricity generation, or just check out this article.