Essay --

How Hybrids Beat Out the Electric Vehicle in the US Automarket Car companies like Toyota and Honda are finally starting to spry up to the idea of marketing more fuel-efficient vehicles, introducing models like the Toyota Prius, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and the Honda civil Hybrid, the three top-selling crossbred vehicles on the market for 20061. While these more fuel-efficient cars do adjoin the MPG rating to averages of 47mpg, 25mpg, and 46mpg2, one has to wonder why car companies are still turning out vehicle models that are dependent on gasoline at all. In the mid-1990s GM introduced the EV1 in response to the atomic number 20 Air Resources Board (CARB)s zero-emissions standards, a vehicle that got 55-75 miles per charge (mpc) with lead-acid batteries and 75-150 mpc with the Generation 2 Ovonic nickel-metal hydride batteries3 without zero emissions at the vehicle level whatsoever. So why convey car companies forsaken the electric vehicle in favor of the low-emission ( but still emitting) loan-blend? Car companies like Toyota and Daimler-Chrysler have partnerships with oil companies like ExxonMobil to improve fuel-economy standards for succeeding(a) vehicles, but none of them involve the development of an all-electric vehicle. Simply, the Bush Administration, backed by oil companies and car manufacturers, can not profit from the mass-production of electric vehicles. Instead, hybrid vehicles that still consume oil and emit greenhouse gases, are this centurys via media between environmentalists and Bushs Big Oil. General Motors has a history of partnering with oil companies to increase profits, starting with the Great American Streetcar scandal in the premature 20th century. National City Lines, a holding company of Genera... ...ons. ExxonMobil, February 2006. www.exxonmobil.com7 Shell Hydrogen About Shell Hydrogenhttp//www.shell.com/home/ good example?siteId=hydrogen-en&FC2=/hydrogen-en/html/iwgen/leftnavs/zzz_lhn2_0_0.html&FC3=/hydr ogen-en/html/iwgen/about_shell/who_we_are_1208.html8 Flomenhoft, Gary ESCI 420 In-class lecture, 2/79 zero Task Force - Wikipedia.com10 Taxpayers for a Common Sense Whitepaper Website Vehicles that throw out for the SUV Tax Break. http//www.taxpayer.net/TCS/whitepapers/SUVtaxbreak.htm11 Toyota Website Vehicles RAV-4 EVhttp//www.toyota.com/html/ crap/vehicles/ravev/rav4ev_0_home/index.html12 Tesla Motors website - www.teslamotors.com13 Who Killed the Electric Car? Documentary Sony Pictures Classics, 2006.14 Toyota Website Vehicles RAV-4 EVhttp//www.toyota.com/html/shop/vehicles/ravev/rav4ev_0_home/index.html