Typical GM smokescreen, they make a big announcement to grab headlines, and the product never appears, or even worse, the specs are magically changed.:
[uk.reuters.com]

BGnR

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"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

damn, that means I wasted about 10MB of good digital data space at the LA car show taking pics... the Volt was a great attention grabber; was actually looking forward to it...

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Sometimes it is what it is...
and then there's times when it's really better.



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" Lutz said a traditional passenger car would have to be completely re-engineered to make it a functional electric vehicle.

"We need an electric-powered air conditioning system which does not exist," he said. "All of the components like electric power steering, the stereo, the windshield wipers... everything has to be re-engineered to use as little power as possible."

This is absolute, total crap. All of this stuff was developed and used in the GM EV-1. GM took them back and crushed them all, hoping the public would forget that GM had produced a viable electric car. Their strategy seems to be...smokescreen, drag feet, release FUD, more smokescreen...etc, etc, etc.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

> This is absolute, total crap. All of this stuff was developed and used in the GM EV-1.

Maybe the EV-1 didn't have air conditioning.

Yes it did...and a stereo and electric power steering, etc. This is just the continuation of a long trail of FUD emitted by GM regarding EVs. The EV-1 was a really nice, luxurious, high performance vehicle.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

Well let's see..Bush wants ethenol, good for corn farmers, bad for corn eaters, like cereals and oil and deep frying etc. Bioproducts (oils) are good for recycling and plastics, but not for vechicles. Europe has low emission diesel cars and trucks, 40 mpg cars, and a better understanding that the "cheap oil era" is over. When will be get the message? Ok, I confess. I have a Ford 150 extended cab, 8ft bed. Used for commerical usage. I could use a smaller truck and rent for long deliveries. My wife has her "98 Ford Contour SVT(based on the european Mondeo and discontinued to make room for the Ford 500) and gets 25mpg when she is not going real .....My business and daily car is a 2004 Mazda 3 (partialy owned by Ford and made in Japan) which gets 25-34 mpg. There is no excuse, It's about greed.
I would also like to give a "Check It Out" to the Petersen Auto Museum in L.A. Low Rider exhibits and other cool stuff. At www.petersen.org/

Ethanol is not and probably will never be a viable energy source. It takes roughly a gallon of fossil fuel (farm equipment, transportation and energy generation) to make 1.3 gallons of ethanol. Then consider that a gallon of ethanol creates less energy than gasoline when burned and it might be a wash. Not very practical.

Quote
davester
" Lutz said a traditional passenger car would have to be completely re-engineered to make it a functional electric vehicle.

"We need an electric-powered air conditioning system which does not exist," he said. "All of the components like electric power steering, the stereo, the windshield wipers... everything has to be re-engineered to use as little power as possible."

This is absolute, total crap. All of this stuff was developed and used in the GM EV-1. GM took them back and crushed them all, hoping the public would forget that GM had produced a viable electric car. Their strategy seems to be...smokescreen, drag feet, release FUD, more smokescreen...etc, etc, etc.

And if Lutz and GM can't manage to find the plans from the EV-1 for their electric-powered components, they could just buy them from Toyota. It's all there in the Prius. (Including electric air conditioning although earlier versions of the Prius used engine-powered AC.)

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Yeah. This is f'ing ridiculous. More smoke and mirrors, just enough to create the initial headlines and bs...to fool the masses. This story will wind up below the fold or buried in the back someplace. Big Oil buddies are hard to lose.

EV-1 specs here:

[www.evchargernews.com]

All davester says, and more.