Sad but okay in the long run...

It is sad that it requires major currency and natural resource manipulation to force the price of petroleum up enough to the point where large automobile companies can finally start to develop and deploy technology that could have and should have been developed in the 70s to bring electric cars to market. The chart above shows that as of 2005, transportation accounts for almost 67% of US petroleum usage. And the until very recently, the trend has been bigger cars, lower fuel economy. It is truly and deeply sad that the oil shock of the 70s didn't wake American up to the fact that we needed to start to move away from petroleum as a fuel source for our vehicles, and to convince the auto industry by sheer force of numbers that we wanted much better fuel economy, and alternatives to gasoline powered cars. Why such a thing required 30 more years of status-quo is beyond me, and truly sad.

But it does seem that the solution that should have been developed in the 70s and brought online in the 80s is being developed in the 00s and will be brought online in the 10s. And so yeah, it's sad that it took this long, but it's going to be OK in the long run. No, we're not going to change the global power structure. No, we're not going to topple the military industrial complex or the central banking cartel. But yes, we are going to have affordable zero-emissions vehicles that do not use petroleum. Here is the early news on offerings by several major auto manufacturers and some not so major ones: Chevy, Nissan, Th!nk, Tesla Motors, Volvo, Green Vehicles... It just makes so much sense... and it's coming. The cost of charging them will be WAY less than filling a gas tank. If you really give a shit, you can set up a solar or wind-powered recharging system for your electric car.

Within the next 5-10 years, you won't need to rely on oil, coal, etc to drive a car. Long long long overdue. But it's one big step in the right direction that this idea is being brought to market...