Foreign Oil vs. the GM Volt: Blog Watch

The following post comes to us from guest contributor Chad Snyder of HybridCarBlog.com .

Foreign Oil Dependence: Why I Can't Get Charged Up On the Volt

230 mpg: What a distraction!

Forget that tax payers are into GM(GMGMQ Quote) for tens of billions, or that GM will sell the Chevy Volt at a loss, not including its $1 billion plus development costs. Forget that despite a $7500 tax subsidy, the Volt isn't vaguely cost-effective compared to a Toyota Prius, even with $5.00 gas.

Just remember, the Volt achieves 230 mpg in the city thanks to its 40 miles of electric range and that means lots of petroleum-free driving. Of course, that's perfect world range. In the real world, your range might be only 30 or 20 miles, even less.

Even worse, plug-ins won't achieve 20 percent market share in the US for at least two to three decades, at the earliest, and that means many decades of foreign oil dependence if plug-ins are the solution.

Honda(HMC Quote) and Toyota(TM Quote), on the other hand, are in a race to develop the cheapest hybrid cars possible, in addition to fuel cell vehicles - the biggest automotive scam in decades according to many plug-in fans.

Yet, Honda offers an almost production ready fuel cell vehicle today. Even more interesting, Honda has developed fuel cells for homes that significantly increase home energy efficiency, enable solar energy storage and provide hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles. How's that for distributed energy?

Sure such a system is expensive today, but what about in a decade?

Then there is America's abundance of natural gas. Why not use it to end foreign oil dependency as quickly as possible? Besides, it wouldn't be that hard to couple natural gas technology with hybrid and plug-in technology.

Regardless, isn't it time to get real about foreign oil dependence?

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