@Never_trust_a_Fiat: The EPA has been soliciting industry input for new mpg ratings for many months, and I'm sure GM's automotive lobbyists have been battling other lobbyists all that time to make their car look great and other plug-in hybrids and EVs look bad.
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@Mitch2: That cart doesn't follow the SAE J1772 standard. If the car is started while plugged in, it should go into a fault condition and alert the driver. Also, the connector and cable are required to withstand being driven over. (All part of why a home charging station is more than just a 240V plug.)
@eb110americana: You forgot the #corrections tag. @Justin Hyde, the CLS63 AMG is a 16/21mpg car which represents a 33% improvement in mpg, not 33 mpg.
An AMG should have a low-key grille and monster wheel arches. This CLS gets it backwards.
@Bryan South: Nice car, but to be fair, that's imperial gallons on the Euro cycle. I think you're referring to the VW Polo 1.2 TDI 75PS BlueMotion which gets 83mpg combined (3.4 liters/100km) at UK site nextgreencar.com; the "50 mpg" Prius gets 72.4 mpg (3.9 l/100km) there.
@KillerRaccoon: They have received massive amounts of federal aid to develop their product,
@Allwheeldriveturbosportwagon: I said "LEAST pollutiong, I didn't say NON-polluting. A far more efficient drivetrain that doesn't blow stuff up to make heat and a little forward motion can overcome a lot of source pollution. And the percentage of electricity generated from coal is going down, it's less than 50% in…
@KillerRaccoon: though there hasn't been much praise for Tesla as a company
@McLawdog: Huh? Valmet in Finland has yet to begin manufacturing the Karma for Fisker, and Fisker has not even shown their next-generation Project NINA. Meanwhile Tesla has made close to 2000 Roadsters, opened a bunch of stores, is manufacturing the battery packs for the Smart ED, is committed to some kind of Toyota…
@Muscles Marinara: I was going to comment on the McLaren resemblance, and both look like the Ascari and Koenigseggegeggeg whatevers. Apart from Pagani, supercars look pretty interchangeable.
@midnightcafe: Please name these alternatives. Prius is the most fuel-efficient car sold in America, and in every car class they're sold in, a hybrid is the most fuel-efficient car - [www.fueleconomy.gov]
@Bryan South: Diesel cars still get way more gas mileage that hybrids.
@mrwoolery: The tide's going the other way. I think every car maker in Europe offers mild hybrid "Blue/Efficient/Eco" versions of its midsize cars with stop-start and regenerative braking and all-electric accessories to improve fuel economy. At that point it's just an engineering tradeoff as to how big to build…
@brianesser76: What's a "reasonable number"? Prius sold 139,682 in the USA in 2009, which puts it outside the top 10 but I think in the top 20 best-selling cars.
@Spasticteapot: The Volt is the world's first plug-in hybrid. You can recharge it at home as the cheapest and least-polluting way to travel 40 miles without using any gasoline at all.
@mantaTM: it is indeed better for our little planet to maintain old cars than buying new ones
@milwaukee_slows: I agree producing one unit of battery is worse than producing one unit of gasoline, though you seem to be ignoring the roughly 0.23 gallons of gasoline it takes to produce, spill, refine, and deliver each gallon of gasoline.
@79TA: Mass doesn't directly translate to energy. Meanwhile adding 500 pounds of recyclable hybrid tech to a car in order to save 3 TONS of gasoline (and 10 tons of CO2) over 120,000 miles compared with a 35mpg car is an appealing engineering tradeoff. Here's the math.