Yup, Tesla got a $465M loan under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. Since Tesla is designing and engineering in the USA and soon will be manufacturing cars at its plant, the program is working exactly as intended to do when Congress passed it under the George W. Bush administration …

Where is this "terrible stigma of failure?"

The Blue Motion is a micro-hybrid with regenerative braking and stop-start, as are the other Blu* EfficientDynamic, etc. European cars. The Prius-beating 1.6 sounds great if a little underpowered, I don't know why VW doesn't sell it in the USA.

It wastes more during production than you could ever hope to save by using it

It's the South Park angry face

Here you go, BMW i3.

"Acura dropped the Legend name when market research showed that consumers knew Acura products by their model names, "Legend" and "Integra", and did not necessarily associate the names with the manufacturer, Acura." [en.wikipedia.org]

The technology is there, it produced a beautiful distinctive luxo cruiser that burns no gasoline for the first 32 miles in eco mode. It's too early to say if that will get many sales amongst all the other over-$100k indulgent cars (Geländewagens, SLK and SL AMGs, etc.) that some rich people buy to drive short…

Relying on battery powered electrics require us to change how we live our lives, and that's simply not possible

Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster disagree. If someone is only known in the fashion world, he or she is not a supermodel.

Here's the judge's math from page 25 of the decision[s3.documentcloud.org] :

Fine, but you should really stop saying "This is primarily a lawyer making an uninformed purchasing decision", which seems more a mean-spirited misreading.

Maybe. I know of no other car that had EPA 50mpg (on the older tests) and dropped to the 30s in the real world. This case had the smoking gun of Honda's software update that lowered the mpg to reduce battery deterioration.

You're right, in 2006 she should have carefully considered the 2007 lawsuit from other Civic owners about poor mpg, the 2010 software upgrade that lowered the mpg to reduce battery deterioration, and Honda's lame 2011 proposed settlement of the 2007 et al cases. What a fool! Buyer beware! Boy, she got what she…

You've got your eyes closed and your hands over your ears, go read J. Walter Weatherman's "Son I Am Disappoint" . It's clear from the class action settlement thatn Honda f***ed up with a poor battery, and so years after the sale the software upgrade lowered the mpg to reduce deterioration. In what universe do these…

Clarkson the entertainer does a lot of handwaving and no serious analysis. You are gullible and lack common sense if you think the pollution from making and shipping 20 pounds of nickel (also present in the chrome and steel of conventional cars) to then produce a 120 pound recyclable NiMH battery pack is remotely…

But alas VW doesn't sell the fine Bluemotion 1.6 TDI (a micro-HYBRID!) in the USA, maybe VW fears it's underpowered at 104bhp, or because its stop-start doesn't benefit EPA mpg ratings. Road & Track tested the 2010 Prius against VW USA's Golf 2.0 TDI and the Prius got better mpg in every driving situation they…

"MPG" becomes somewhat meaningless once you can plug in, but the EPA that everyone around here loves to hate gives you all the info you need to estimate your gas and electricity consumption, assuming the math skills that most lack.

Teh InterTubes suggests the Honda Civic Hybrid battery costs $2100, so with labor costs less than $3000 from dealer. Meanwhile over 120,000 miles the 2012 Civic Hybrid at 44mpg will save 1,000 gallons of fuel over a regular Civic at 32 mpg.

AP story: [www.google.com] , summarizes: