Companies thought people would not understand if they said 40 mpg not plugged in and 60 if you do?

They should have sold the choice as a plus, not spent millions trying to hide it.

I can hardly wait to see Ed Begley Jr campaigning for nuclear power plants to be built in California to handle the power demands of thousands of enviro-wackos in LA and SF for their daily commute.

Yes, Virginia, there is an electricity fairy.

Heck, using their method of computing MPG, I can build a car that gets infinite mpg. Just hook a tow rope from my front bumper to a towtruck. I'll use no gas -- or even electricity-- whatsoever.

Because we all know that the only thing that counts is the gastank in your car, and you can ignore any other energy that you use.

See Ed Begley Jr on The Simpsons?

He scooted off to a "save the trees" protest in a go-cart powered, he said, by "my own self-satisfaction."

Mr. Cohen nails it. The fact is that these guys have no idea how many miles per gallon they're getting when they plug in because they have no idea how many gallons of oil were burned to power the turbines to make the electricity to charge the batteries. It's really no different from a teenager claiming he gets 100 miles / gallon because the gas tank is usually filled by his parents. He probably only stops at the gas station once a month as well.

I foresee a network of cables and Prius Plugs drawing electricity from power plants burning only whale oil.

Marketing slogan:
"Moby DC power for your Prius--It's renewable."

Any claim to copyright or trademark protection for this concept is herewith renounced. I just want to help.

Axel,
They like whales. They'll probably just start harpooning the overweight conservative evangelical smokers.

Combine this with nuclear power, though, and we're set for the next few centuries.

Reading some of these comments I perversely hope gas climbs to $4.00 a gallon sooner than later.
I suppose I'm losing my sense of humor on the subject.

Victor Davis Hanson 4/1/05

For our own part, the United States desperately needs an energy policy, one that combines alternate energy sources, radical conservation, nuclear power, and increased fossil-fuel production — and transcends shrill partisan debate. It is critical to curb our petroleum appetite not just to help our economy, curb foreign debt, and address trade imbalances, but more importantly to lower the world price of oil, and thus to keep obscene profits out of the hands of petrocracies that so easily appease terrorists and deform their economies. The only thing worse than a dictator is a rich oil-fed dictator whose failures are masked by largess.

Dr. Hanson is a great historian and an excellent writer. He is not an economist. This is particularly unconvincing.

1. Foriegn debt and the trade deficit are woefully misunderstood. They don't matter. As they are more or less the same thing, counting them twice indicates that they are misunderstood.

2. To the extent that they have any effect, they make our lenders and venders more interested than otherwise in our well-being and stability.

3. Radical conservation while the price of oil is falling is impossible.

4. As Steven den Beste noted in the comments the other day, petroleum byproducts are produced in certain ratios. We therefore have to make due with, not only "radically" less gasoline, but also radically less nitrogen fertilizers and plastics. Nor can we just import these products from other places, as the whole point is to reduce use of petroleum, not reshuffle it.

5. Of course, radical conservation of gasoline requires the use of plastic in order to reduce the weight of our automobiles. No plastic, no conservation, while if we don't reduce our lack of plastic, we won't reduce the need to pump petroleum. On the other hand, lighter cars may reduce petroleum consumption on account of the increased number of traffic fatalities caused by necessarily reduced crash protection.

6. The United States satisfies only 12% of its energy needs from middle-eastern oil. If we reduce that in half, it still likely won't make much of a difference. If, as noted above, we do it only by relocating demand overseas, we've accomplished nothing. On the other hand, terrorism is cheap. I've seen estimates that 9/11 cost something on the order of $500,000. That seems low to me, but you could certainly do it for less than $1 million. No matter how low the price of oil gets, terrorists are going to be able to raise $1 million a year.

7. Heavy manufacturing, and in particular refining steel, is very energy intensive. It would be hit hardest by radical conservation. So, we can't use plastic and we can't use steel in order to combat a terrorist threat that is limited and now much reduced.

8. On the other hand, the price of everything but petroleum would increase radically, lowing our standard of living.

9. The point about the electric cars is that electricity is simply a means of energy trasport. The energy still has to come from somewhere. Hydropower is almost tapped out and wind and solar are extremely limited. Hydrogen, too, is just a means of storing and transporting energy. That leaves coal, uranium and X. While we wait for X, are we willing to relax the clean air laws and other environmental regulations that limit the mining and burning of coal? How long will it take before the deaths from increased coal usage are greater than the toll of terrorism?

10. I'm all for using uranium. Call me when we're actually serious about this.

Households know how much power they are using because they pay their electricity bills. If hybrid owners plug in their cars to save gas yet their power bills skyrocket, they'll judge their car purchase to be unwise.

Considering that foreign oil fuels our cars, yet American coal powers our electrical grid, I fail to see how a switch from the current cars to hybrid/electrics is a bad thing.

The one good thing from a Democratic perspective is that finally conservatives are lining up against the change to coal because it is not environmentally sound. I'd love to see more Republicans internalize that perspective.

1. Foriegn debt and the trade deficit are woefully misunderstood. They don't matter. As they are more or less the same thing, counting them twice indicates that they are misunderstood.

Your first sentence explains your second. The question isn't whether foreign debt, or any debt for that matter, "matters", but at what level does overall debt begin to have a negative impact. High debt loads may be maintainable if the cost structure of the economy remains stable or declines, but if energy costs begin to extract a larger percentage of economic output, it will exacerbate the debt burden on the economy.

2. To the extent that they have any effect, they make our lenders and venders more interested than otherwise in our well-being and stability.

Like a drug pusher is interested in the well being and stability of the addict? This is a handy bit of self-deception.

3. Radical conservation while the price of oil is falling is impossible.

The price is rising.

4. As Steven den Beste noted in the comments the other day, petroleum byproducts are produced in certain ratios. We therefore have to make due with, not only "radically" less gasoline, but also radically less nitrogen fertilizers and plastics. Nor can we just import these products from other places, as the whole point is to reduce use of petroleum, not reshuffle it.

But you are assuming that the growth of demand in the fertilizer and plastics byproducts grows at the same rate as the demand in the fuel byproducts. It depends on which product drives the demand, but I think it is safe to say that it is the fuel products that drive overall demand. We've benefitted from a glut of nitrogen fertilizers and plastics. If fuel demand from oil decreases, we'll get less of these other byproducts, which will either go up in price or for which we will find cheaper or better alternatives. We are not locked in to the level of production for oil as it currently stands just to satisfy our demand for fertilizers and plastics.

We can hike the price of gas via taxes.

"The one good thing from a Democratic perspective is that finally conservatives are lining up against the change to coal because it is not environmentally sound. I'd love to see more Republicans internalize that perspective."

Coal is wonderful for the enviroment although it is not nearly as good as the costless non-poluting power dervied from [fill-in your fantasy technology here].

Jam tommorow and never Jam today.