Mitsubishi i-MiEV

Cuts the CO2 footprint of just that piece of course, not the entire assembly of the car. In other words, totally meaningless since it’s a very small piece of plastic.

$47,000? Who. Cares.

We’ve been seeing the electric car come and go since the early 90′s. (Take a gander at the book, “Who killed the electric car?” for more insight.)

The problem is, all these alternative-to-fossil-fuel cars are too damn expensive. And as long as they’re not in the 10k to 20k range, the only people who are going to be buying them are in the very small percentage of those who have that kind of money. For two decades now we’ve seen the electric car announced by various car manufacturers and the price has always left the car without any hope of going mainstream. This is important, since 2% of the population driving alternative fuel cars isn’t going to make a difference. After these long two decades, the argument that “it’s nice to see that there is development going on” is no longer valid.

Until there is an alternative fuel vehicle that is priced in a range that the majority of the population can afford, these announcements are not news.

First, there is a need for infrastructure to supply hydrogen to the fuel cell vehicles (FCV).
Then, some car companies (from Japan, Germany and USA) have designed an FCV but there is still some work to be done about the range.
Also there is talk that there will maybe be different kinds of cars for different needs: if you only use your car to commute and:or do some shopping in town, you may only need an electric car, while people who want a bigger range of action could buy an FCV.