Consensus? What consensus?

[rgathright]

Originally Posted by bowtieguy

5 years, NO WAY, i drive a truck for a living, won't happen. MAYBE, just maybe, trucking companies could start conversion to biodiesel and/or hybrids on are large scale.

i've often thought about extracting our own oil while continuing to suck the middle east dry. still, refining our own oil would bring down the price of foreign oil and strengthen the US dollar assuming we export(we should). China and India, in years to come, will help consume if we go independant of the middle east.

I never meant a conversion of long haul trucks, the limitations of debating over the internet! The thought of car companies pillaging the public with overpriced electrics scares me to death. The public's response to overpriced electrics will be negative and our economy will be on the road to a very uncertain financial and political future.

We will consume the supply of oil in the gulf rather quickly because we have all of America's best drillers right here in the oil corridor (Houston to Baton Rouge).

In positive news, this article about an electric Mini Cooper in 2009 came out yesterday! http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/22/e...n-summer-2009/

I feel promoting electrics is the most partriotic thing I can do right now.

[Mayhim]

There is no doubt many of the new electrics and hybrids will have some sort of premiums attached to them before the drive home, and used examples may not be as cheap as one might want, Wife and I are on the waiting list now for a Prius and there don't appear to be any premiums attached to it. There is the sticker price, and that's what we're paying.

That doesn't include, of course, the premium attached to advanced technology taking a dump and the premium dealer charges that will be incurred. I'm not looking forward to that!

But, the Wife is one of the pocket-protector crowd and is enamoured of advanced electronics.

[bowtieguy]

Originally Posted by rgathright

I never meant a conversion of long haul trucks, the limitations of debating over the internet!

limitations indeed. i didn't think that's what you meant. my thoughts were in regards to trucks being the greatest of oil and fuel guzzlers. certainly large transport vehicles will keep us dependant on oil for quite some time.

no doubt E cars must be mass produced(and driven) before that tech makes it to commercial vehicles, if at all.

as the rest of the world increases its consumption of oil, alternate fuels will not be able to keep up with demand. i see first hand in my personal budget and at work the importance of drilling now. it seems support in congress for it as well as failing confidence in global warming may make it happen soon.