Kevin Colby: News, culture, political blog

While the two idiot parties are bickering over energy dependence and what direction to go. Several big American automakers are trying to do something about it.

The Chevy Volt, an electric car, will be in production starting in 2010. It will run entirely on electricity. Unlike other electric cars, though, it will not conk out if the battery runs low before stopping to charge. A small on-board gasoline engine will run as a generator to charge the batteries and keep the car moving. The Volt is expected to go about 40 miles before that needs to happen. Here is what the rest are working on: Saturn Vue Plug-in Hybrid, Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid, Ford Edge With HySeries Drive, Toyota Prius Plug-In, Toyota 1/X Concept, Dodge Sprinter Plug-In and Jeep Renegade Concept.

GM, though, is famous for killing the first electric car. The EV1 was the first modern production electric vehicle from a major automaker and also the first purpose-built electric car produced by General Motors

Introduced in 1996, The EV1 electric cars were available in California and Arizona as a lease only, as well as through a Southern Company employee lease program in Georgia, and could be serviced at designated Saturn retailers. They were discontinued after 1999 and subsequently removed from the roads in 2003 by General Motors. The car’s discontinuation was and remains a very controversial topic.

My opinion is that we just can’t rely on oil, even though I want to drill, but we also need the electric car, natural gas automobiles and higher fuel efficiency standards on gasoline powered cars. We can also make ethanol out of coal so we wouldn’t have to put the demand on farmers to produce more for ethanol fuel and that would bring food prices back down.

Check out the list of companies with their plans for the electric car. Read the full story.

For more in the EV1. Click here.

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Tags: chevy volt, Dodge Sprinter Plug-In, electric car, EV1, Ford Edge With HySeries Drive, Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid, general motors, gm, Jeep Renegade Concept, Saturn Vue Plug-in Hybrid, Toyota 1/X Concept, Toyota Prius Plug-In