Why would the rick drive such trash??
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b4099060491065.htm
The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can’t Have
Buying an electric car with our current electrical grid in America is like buying zeppelin stock.
It will fly, but when it fails it will do so with flaming glory.
Abstract this a bit, but just a bit -
TRANSPORTATION, and the freedom to travel,
will be restricted only to the rich and the government.
If you look at it ( and I have had this debate with my "auto gnomes" ) The weight of the Hybrid System is a big drag. Yet the cost and or the repair infrastructure is not their yet for an all aluminum or aluminum intensive vehicle. An all aluminum Chevy Cruze might kick the snaught out of the Volt in terms of dollar / performance / fuel economy, but can't compete against it's all steel brother.
The question is what will Ford do to shed the 500 or 700 lbs in the article if my memory is correct, and Will we eventually have a mano-e-mano comparison of a "Superlite" vs. a Hybrid, especially on the car sales room floor.
Look at the "Edison 2" project.
They won the 5 million and did it via low weight and very low aerodynamic drag, they couldn't make an engineering case for carrying around X00 lbs of electrical drive train that didn't help them up a hill.
What does that tell you....