The foot dragging is exactly because of what happened when the computer manufacturers didn’t wait for the perfect battery: fires! If you think a battery weighing several ounces catching on fire caused a PR nightmare for Dell, what would happen if a 300 pound battery caught fire in a car? The resulting loss of consumer confidence and barrage of (America’s favorite pastime) lawsuits would bankrupt the supplier and probably the car manufacturer.

The fatal flaw in most such conspiracy theories is that it is not in the financial interest of “big oil” companies to interfere with transitions to alternative energy sources, because almost all alternative energy R&D is being funded by “big oil” (or more accurately, “big energy”).

A transition from gasoline to solar or wind derived electricity, for example, means that Exxon-Mobil gets to sell more electricity, which it generates itself meaning a higher profit margin, and less oil, which it has to buy from other countries. The problem with buying from other countries means that the profit margin is lower than it would otherwise be.

Supply also causes a problem for “big oil” because, while it inflates price, it also curtails usage. Yes, I know, petroleum usage has continued to increase even as prices soar, but not as quickly as it would be increasing if gas was still $1/gallon.

It is not helpful to berate those doing the most to break oil’s almost exclusive lock on automotive energy supply.

“Hmmm…a whole 14 PHD’s…wow…that’s alot of people…NOT.”

Not? You really think that 14 PhDs — undoubtedly part of a much larger team (PhDs are not going to do a lot of the “grunt work” involved in this type of R&D project, they’re just going to be leading the effort) all working on a single aspect of a larger project is NOT a lot of people?

That hurts my brain just to try to figure out what that means.

Eschew obfuscation.

“And Noz has a point, that a $300 million manufacturing facility and 14 phds isn’t much for a company the size of Exxon Mobil. (But one must not look a gift horse in the mouth, even if the horse is small and weak.)”

Did you even notice that they aren’t even building the plant or employeeing people in the US to do this?

That’s not a gift horse—it’s a trojan horse—for us!

They are making the highest corporate profits in history selling you oil, and taking the manufacturing capability to replace it overseas. Some gift!

Hybrids now have the same guarrantee or longer than conventional cars have ever had. That doesn’t mean they cann’t be improved in the futue also.

Ethanol combined with hybrid technology and plug in capability have the possibility to make the most far ranging versitile and innovative changes in automotive design since they were first invented over 100 years ago.

Ask me how on my new forum “Breaking the Chains”

http://groups.msn.com/BreakingTheChains/_whatsnew.msnw