Germany's doing better than the USA, but "Of the 30 hydrogen filling stations operating now in Germany, only seven are available to the public." The map at [www.h2stations.org] seems to match. Talk is cheap, we'll see if the stations actually get built. Mercedes still appears gung-ho over the concept of HFCVs, but the…

I have no problem with the FCX Clarity as the most advanced car of this millennium, and I'm sure the 20 leaseholders driving around Southern California (where the only public H2 refueling stations in the entire USA exist) enjoy the car.

A modest battery plus a small ~40hp generator would work great, but car manufacturers haven't seems to stumble on the concepts the transportation industry has used for decades.

The majority of electricity doesn't come from coal on the west coast (see EPA map at [www.fueleconomy.gov] ), it's dropping everywhere thanks to all the domestic gas production under Obama, and goes to zero if you put solar panels on the roof.

The Volt does put a lot of technologies together. So does the Clarity, but it's a dead-end unless gas runs out AND bioethanol doesn't happen.

Maybe Project NINA is (was?) all that. All we know is Fisker was going to use 4-cylinder turbo BMW engines for its plug-in hybrid drivetrain.

If you buy an Escalade 2WD Hybrid instead of the regular gasser, your mpg goes from 16 to 21. Doesn't sound like much, but over 120,000 miles of pimp-rollin' style you'll save nearly 1,800 gallons of gasoline, that weigh 5.5 TONS. That's more gas than you'll save going from a TDI to a Prius.

R6 "Envia’s announcement said that its packs would deliver cell energy of

It's probably just cost sharing for various components of future modular platforms. BBC has a good explanation of the pros and cons, [www.bbc.co.uk]

Big heavy pickup with poor aerodynamics means it takes a lot of batteries to get the same range as a Leaf, so it's expensive, so a long payback. But it's coming, slowly.

Every Republican president since Richard Nixon has solemnly intoned "We need to end America's addiction to foreign oil."

Are you sure you know more than Audi? Those variants *don't sell*. Audi discontinued the 3.2S quattro version of the old model due to low sales, and only the basic FWD is available with a manual. Be thankful they finally offered the old model with the 2.0 TFSI and quattro.

An A3 TDI quattro sounds great for the USA. Detroit FreeP article says "About 80% of the vehicles Audi sells in the U.S. feature its iconic Quattro AWD system" but I see lots of A3s and A4s driving around without quattro.

Just because you're blind, don't assume everyone else is.

"EV's simply are not a viable alternative to internal combustion"

The Nissan Leaf can travel 100 miles on less energy than is contained in 1 gallon of gasoline. Blowing up fossil fuel to make a lot of heat and a little forward motion is so last century, and any powertrain that can't recapture brake energy and that wastes energy at a standstill is pretty incompetent.

Tesla's first car, the Roadster, had numerous production delays before Tesla made and sold over 2,000 of them. But by "this car" you mean the Model S and Tesla has said for 3 years it will come out in 2012. We'll see; I think you're just being stupid in public when you confidently say it will NEVER come out.

Executive summary: follow the owner's manual and occasionally leave your Tesla electric car plugged into one of the billions of plugs in the world.

It's hard to make your first car from scratch in a new factory, it's unrealistic to expect anyone to know how long it will take.

From the owner's manual page that @rfletch linked to at [media.theunderstatement.com] :