yeah, but Al Gore supports hybrids, so I'm against them all.

According to Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, Hypercars could reach fuel efficiencies of 300 miles per gallon. Hybrid is just the beginning. Throw away your iron-age automobile and re-design it from the ground up, using ultra-streamlined design, lightweight but ultra-strong composite materials. A hybrid that's built on the chassis of an iron-age car is still an iron-age car.

I would love for my next car to be all-electric. Then I pop some solar panels on the roof, and it's all gravy.

Even if CO2 emissions are similar, there are significant foreign policy benefits to using coal compared to oil based fuels.

Why would the demand for a now-obscure bridge technology drive demand for the electrical infrastructure you speak of any more than not-so-obscure existing technologies (light bulbs, all electrical appliances,..., etc.)? In other words, why should potential applications drive the demand for these sources anymore than existing applications?

Just wonderin'.

It turns out that most of the benefit of the plug-in hybrid comes not from the fact that electricity generation from plants is more efficient than electricity generation from an internal combustion engine, but from the mundane fact that the battery cuts down on engine use around town no matter where it gets its power from.

Um, I don't see the logic here other than the fact that battery use would cut down on urban air pollution. That would be a good thing, but it wouldn't change net CO2 emissions. The energy used - and therefore the CO2 emitted - would be the same whether driving around town or anywhere else.

aa

Why not just sell them to us in the North West? Pretty much all of our power is hydroelectric or nuclear.

The NEVCOR website http://nevcor.com/ has a lot more on plugin hybrids and renewable energy. These technologies offer much more than many appreciate. i'll outline some specific comments to Kevin's post later, but take a look at the the NEVCOR website.

I have know actual knowledge of this, aardvark, but I'd bet a battery powered car actually uses less energy (is more efficient) in city driving.

Electric? Phiffft! Imagine what technological innovation could do for this baby.
In the meantime, nuclear power takes a hit
A WARMING WORLD
….They make a weak case. The enormous cost of building nuclear plants, the reluctance of investors to fund them, community opposition and an endless controversy over what to do with the waste ensure that ramping up the nuclear infrastructure will be a slow process — far too slow to make a difference on global warming. That's just as well, because nuclear power is extremely risky. What's more, there are cleaner, cheaper, faster alternatives that come with none of the risks.…..

Once that infrastructure is in place, it makes all-electric vehicles far more marketable, and it's likely that advances in battery technology will make electric vehicles both more efficient and more consumer friendly over the next decade or two.

Assuming, of course, that the petrol-reliant portion of the hybrid equation lasts that long. I realize James Kunstler's cassandraisms can be a bit over the top from time to time, but his weekly blog post today nails this well -- the effort invested in trying to prolong the current one car per person model would be better spent on restoring a viable network of commuter rail and trolley services for those parts of our country that can be salvaged for a post-oil world.

I considerer myself a committed environmentalist, but I get tired of all the “pie in the sky” claims for new technology from Lovens and others. Composites are frightfully expensive right now. While the prices will come down the weight savings over a well designed aluminum structure is not all that great. Meanwhile cars are getting heavier because of impact standards and increased features (air bags, air conditioning, power everything, etc). Aerodynamics only makes a large difference if you are driving fast, which doesn’t apply to most cities. I have been hearing about miracle batteries my whole life, but at the end of the day batteries are a mature technology. The periodic table is finite, and all possible chemical combinations have long since been explored. There will be improvements but they are likely to be incremental (fuel cells are more promising as a break through technology). All the yammering about advanced technology ignores the human element – how do we get people out of their single occupant SUV commuting vehicles and into mass transit or more appropriate fuel efficient vehicles.

The average gasoline engine has a maximum thermal efficiency in the 20 per cent range. Diesels do a bit better and can break into the 30 per cent range. Compare this to old technology electric plants which typically break 40 per cent. New technology plants using gas turbines combined with a steam turbine running off the exhaust heat can reach 60 per cent. There are transmission losses getting the electricity out to our homes, but it is much more efficient (and as a result produces a lot less CO2) to produce energy in large centralized plants rather than in small mobile distributed units the way cars do.

Isn't the attraction of plug-in hybrids over regular hybrids extended miles per gallon in ordinary city ommuting? Since there is an already charged battery there is reduced need to run the gas powered engine the first leg of the days commute. The weaknesses of all electric cars are range and the time it takes to recharge a battery, reducing their use in long distance driving.

One sure way to reduce your automobile's car emissions: drive less.

It's not the cars, people, it's the communities that force us to drive everywhere.

"...it means that plug-in hybrids aren't likley to be a substantial improvement over conventional hybrids for a long time."

No it doesn't. It only means that plugins are not a major improvement on the narrow (and in my opinion less important) yardstick of carbon-emissions.

In terms of making us a bit less dependent on foreign oil, it's a clear improvement.

It's also worth noting that for average trips around town - i.e. under 30 miles - the gas engine would never kick in at all, so for people who have short commutes this would clearly be a superior vehicle.

I am not an expert, but my understanding is that a significant advantage of plug-in hybrids or simply all-electric vehicles is that they would use excess electric capacity because the majority of their charge time would be at night. If peak usage at night did not exceed peak usage during the day, no new electric generation would be required. Therefore, the calculations that you mentioned would be incorrect because they are based on new generation instead of better utilization of existing electric generation capacity.

I now own two Toyota Prius (2001 and 2007).

Both are outstanding. The advances made from 2001 to 2007 are stunning. Think about how many more advances in all renewable energy technologies can be made in the near future if we put our minds to it.

Looks like Biodiesel has 'em all beat -- something like 25g/km, which apparently is better than walking (remember that humans are polluters too -- O2 in, CO2 out)

Link

I think the main driving force here will be economics. We have a virtually unlimited supply of coal and are about to hit the wall on the oil front. A hybrid natural gas/electric might be a nice thing to throw into the mix. Specifically for buses and light rail.

Since when did global warming become the environmental issue? Stopping global warming is almost certainly an unattainable goal -- one that the US alone has less and less control of. In the mean time federal lands, zoning laws, endangered species protections, air and water quality are all eroded.

I'd rather see a candidate who was focused on our own backyard than have one that made vague speeches about global warming. McCain and Lieberman know this is a no lose environmental issue -- great for talking, low probabality of action, no corporate impact. My guess is they'll eventually come up with legislation that reduces petroleum consumption to match Hubert's bell curve.

Inserted fake spoiler for shortstop: I can't believe Errol and Trevor saved The Burrow from the snorkrunks and their wand mortars using a Horcrux sheild. Too bad they fell into a deathly hollow and no one heard their frantic chirps and ribbits.

Small point:

And this is ALWAYS overlooked by "plug-in" supporters.

The "duty cycle" of batteries used in hybrids is not the same as the duty cycle of conventional hybrids. It is a "fill and drain" use pattern that limits battery life to 2 years at the most.

This completely changes the "cost benefit analysis" of "plug-ins".

"Plug-In hybrid" batteries can not last more than 2 years.This is a big problem for the future of "Plug-ins". And it is a problem that cannot be fixed.

See the recent testimony to Congress (1-30-07) regarding the longevity of batteries. This is from world recognized battery experts. See Panasonic's own LiIon website regarding battery life in a "fill&drain" use pattern.

These "battery facts" can not be changed with a "press release" saying otherwise.

ALL batteries, even the newest MIT versions of LiIon, and also including ALL NmH and ALL forms of lead-acid CANNOT last more than 2 years in a "fill&drain" application. There are NO EXCEPTIONS.

A conventional hybrid "fills & drains" only the middle 15% of the battery. They are never fully filled, and they are never fully drained. This enables a much longer lifespan.

Contrast this with Plug-ins that use ALL of the power of the battery and then are 100% recharged. This severely limits battery life, as any battery expert will be glad to point out. And was carefully explained to Congress recently.

Is anyone in the press listening?

Note the 500 hybrid electric buses in NYNY. Their batteries become useless after 2 years. A MILLION pounds of batteries a year are being replaced - thus eating all the money saved in fuel use.

Batteries that last 5 years in normal use will last only 2 years in Plug-ins, and there is NOTHING anyone can do to change this.

All talk of "plug-in hybrid" improvements to energy use and emissions take a back seat to the sad fact that the toxic materials in batteries, plus their short lifespan, will always be the "real issue".

A better battery is not on the horizon. Regardless of what the battery companies keep saying.

See the transcript of Congressional testimony from the recognized battery experts. (Menachem Congress Battery).

Just because many battery mfr's claim a "better battery" is just around the corner... does not make it so.

The congressional testimony clearly shows there will be NO BREAKTHROUGHS of significance. Panasonic's own website makes it clear.

Plug-ins are not the "technology of choice" when the lifespan of the batteries is factored in.

It's a shame, but it is an unchangeable fact.

> There are transmission losses getting the electricity out to our homes, but it is much more efficient (and as a result produces a lot less CO2) to produce energy in large centralized plants rather than in small mobile distributed units the way cars do.

You're understating the transmission losses, plus there are additional losses in conversion to battery DC voltage and charging. The studies that I saw (granted, it was 10+ years ago) indicated that EVs only became more efficient than ICEVs with the (then) latest generation controllers. Today's controllers are probably better still, but the distribution and conversion losses are still there. There's nothing like a 20 percentage-point difference in overall efficiency, unless you have a windmill or PV panels on your house.

Why do hybrid cars need batteries at all? How about a car with a small gasoline or diesel engine that doesn't drive the car, but runs all the time at relatively low RPM and serves only to turn the rotors on an electric motor (or several -- one for each wheel?) which drive the car? I am no engineer, but I can't see why that wouldn't work. Or am I missing something?

Absent a quantum leap in battery technology, plug ins have no real future. We are far more likely to develop a liquid fuel alternative like hydrogen than to drive around on batteries.

"You're understating the transmission losses, plus there are additional losses in conversion to battery DC voltage and charging. The studies that I saw (granted, it was 10+ years ago) indicated that EVs only became more efficient than ICEVs with the (then) latest generation controllers"

Transmission losses can be helped with increased use of DC transmission. It is already used to tie the Bonnieville Power Administration in with Southern California.

The efficiency of conversion is one problem that has been solved. Modern converters using solid state "switching" technology are very efficient. Older converters depended on large "lossey" transformers and weren't so efficient.

>Contrast this with Plug-ins that use ALL of the power of the battery and then are 100% recharged. [...]
>Batteries that last 5 years in normal use will last only 2 years in Plug-ins, and there is
> NOTHING anyone can do to change this.

What utter nonsense - a plug-in can limit the amount of battery discharge just like a hybrid does. Then we're left with a tradeoff between battery size and battery life. Tesla is claiming 100K for battery life; even if they are wrong by a factor of 2, that's still 3-4 years.

Hi Bob,

You need a battery to harvest the gains from regenerative braking, which is where most of a hybrid's efficiency gain comes from. Also, in your model (gas engine-driven generator supplying electricity directly to drive motors) the small gas engine by itself won't produce enough current for acceleration, hill climbing or other high-power scenarios.

Puttering around town or steady cruising at moderate speeds takes surprisingly little of an engine's power, which is where the model works okay.

Cheers.

p.s. GM's Chevy Volt concept would be a commuter's dream, if only the necessary battery existed.

Why do hybrid cars need batteries at all? How about a car with a small gasoline or diesel engine that doesn't drive the car, but runs all the time at relatively low RPM and serves only to turn the rotors on an electric motor (or several -- one for each wheel?) which drive the car? I am no engineer, but I can't see why that wouldn't work. Or am I missing something?

Kerkira, I think you're right. Plug-in hybrids would simply have a fully charged battery starting out on your commute, so the "assist" for propulsion would be more robust using the gas engine less resulting in less liquid fuel consumption. Otherwise the battery in your hybrid would have a much lower charge. I think there are several EE Professors out in SoCal that are using them already.. maybe Kevin can help straighten this out.

Where are Al, Eggy and Normey to tell us that a Hummer is more envrionmentally sound than a Prius? Are you kids out filibustering somethere? Getting spanked by Coulter?

Bob says

Why do hybrid cars need batteries at all? How about a car with a small gasoline or diesel engine that doesn't drive the car, but runs all the time at relatively low RPM and serves only to turn the rotors on an electric motor (or several -- one for each wheel?) which drive the car? I am no engineer, but I can't see why that wouldn't work. Or am I missing something?

The answer is that it's almost always more efficient to drive the wheels directly from the engine -- at each stage in conversion you lose a little energy. Therefore engine -> electricity -> electirc motor -> wheels (2 conversions), is going to be less efficient than engine -> wheels. The reason hybrids have batteries, and get such great mileage in town, is that the battery can store electricity when braking (called regenerative braking).

Note that there are tradeoffs -- since most combustion engines are more efficient in a small RPM range, it's theoretically possible that an electric drive could be more efficient overall. There are other benefits of using electric drive, such as very high low-speed torque. See, for example Diesel-Electric locomotives.

"I'm not an engineer" indeed :-) Good questions tho!

> The efficiency of conversion is one problem that has been solved.

It hasn't been solved, just ameliorated.

> Modern converters using solid state "switching" technology are very efficient.

But 'very efficient' means ~90%; that 10% loss is hardly negligible.

Currently, a major cost savings of plug-in EVs is the avoidance of federal and state gasoline excise taxes. This is the reason that many MPG calculations for EVs are bogus - the taxes aren't deducted, so it's and apples-and-oranges comparison.

Eventually some politician, reporter, or blogger (Hello, Kevin?) will pick up on the fact that when/if plug-ins become popular, highway trust funds will dwindle, and there will need to be a new funding scheme. OTOH, if plug-ins are just a transitional technology (soon eclipsed by fuel cells) then the effect would be minor.

Ah, Kevin.

Plug in hybrids are a very poor technology, Kevin. Imagine having to stop your car about 10 times on a 2 hour trip just to plug it in somewhere. And where are you going to find an outlet? The infrastructure isn't even in existence. But I suppose from the perspective of your bedroom, Kevin, you think a guy can always pull over and ring the doorbell of a stranger's house and ask "Uh, excuse m-me, c-can I plug my car into y-your outlet?"

Its ridiculous Kevin. Plus, if your not careful, you could easily blow yourself up if you plug into the gas tank or whatever.

"The answer is that it's almost always more efficient to drive the wheels directly from the engine"

Gasoline engines are most efficient when running near full throttle (and also when they are completely stopped). At light throttle a gasoline engine expends energy creating a partial vacuum in the intake manifold (diesel engines avoid this – the source, together with their high compression ratio, of their efficiency advantage). Frictional losses also tend to greater as a percentage under light throttle. Hybrids achieve their advantage through regenerative braking but also by allowing the gasoline engine to shut down completely under what would otherwise be inefficient part throttle operation. Hybrids also get by with smaller gas engines (at least in theory, not so true of some of the newer “performance” hybrids) because they have a battery boost available when extra power is needed

One more thing:
Did you know that the US is a major exporter of biodiesel fuel? There's a $1/gal tax credit for sellers of blended biodiesel; since no percentage limits are specified, producers are adding 1% petroleum to the biofuel and exporting it to Europe. This has destroyed the German biodiesel industry and is threatening those in other EU countries. And of course it makes biodiesel more expensive in the US as well.

Here's an article discussing the problem, though the main complaint is about sourcing the biofuels from Brazil or Malaysia (I believe domestically produced oils get the same export credit):
http://www.soyatech.com/news_story.php?id=1929

Egbert -

One (perhaps the major) advantage of a plug in hybid over a pure electric is that you don't have to stop and plug in (or get stuck by the side of the road) when your batteries are gone - you just keep going on the internal combustion engine. Are you sure you understand what a plug in hybrid is?

Eggy never disappoints, does he? Sheesh.

Here's a nickle; the clue vending machine's over there.

I followed the link and was unable to find the lifetime energy costs. As of 2006, the lifetime energy costs of hybrids were greater than the standard combustion.

Plug in requires more battery power than a hybrid normally needs. At constant speeds, the hybrid can do no better tha a well built combustion motor. For stop and go, the hybrid need only store up to a few blocks worth of electricity, not enough for a plug in.

Hybrids get some advantage by only running the engine part of the time. A big advantage of a plug in is not to run the engine at all on short trips of less than ten or twenty miles. A gas engine is most inefficient during the first 5 miles or so while it is cold and while it runs a rich mixture to heat the catalytic converter.

I think the focus on "the dirtiest of old tech coal plants" obscures the larger points. First, if it wasn't for Republicans those coal plants would have already cleaned up their acts. Second, it goes without saying that thousands of individual and mobile pollution sources will lose to singular, immobile sources. Third, by forcing the primary polluter to be stationary, we can actively choose the best locations for the pollution we can't control. Fourth, by the same reasoning, the focus for pollution reduction technology shifts from thousands of point sources to a few big polluters - it is immensely easier to keep track of a few key sources and doesn't depend so heavily on battles over individual states rights to ignore pollution (e.g., they don't even do emissions tests where I live in OK - so you can just forget about those 450 g/mile CO2 producing cars here! Exhaust system? What's that?). The reasons to switch to increased electricity over gasoline - whether purely electrical or hybrid - just go on and on.

I'm optimistic about battery technology over the long term. Sure a lot of chemistry was figured out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But we still have a long way to go in being able to precisely control the organization of atoms at very small scales. We know from biology that the shapes of molecules can make a huge difference in their performance. Another opportunity with nanotechnology is making batteries with much larger surface areas on the inside. All of this will take time, to figure out approaches that work, and to weed out the real solutions from the hype, but if we keep working at it and don't crash our civilization first, it will happen.

Another good reason for plug-in hybrids is they can be charged with ultra-green power such as wind that is not 100% reliable, and the power can be used later when it is needed. Time-shifting power has been very difficult, especially at a large scale. There are not many places where they can build a giant pumped storage facility. Plug-in hybrids require minimal up-front investment, offer immediate tangible benefits to consumers, and they could scale up with volume manufacturing. Each one deployed helps to expand the market for green power, and allows us to make the rest of our energy economy more efficient and more environmentally sustainable.

The fact that plug-in hybrids initially won't have great battery capacity or great range is not a huge problem. From the driver's point of view, it's just an issue of how far they can go on cheap electrons before the gas engine switches on and they start burning expensive fuel. The first plug-in hybrids will offer only modest advantages, but they could drive the advances in battery and control technology that we need. The challenge is getting the positive feedback loop started.

You have hot, sunny deserts in the South-west. Why not combine Concentrated Solar Power with Hybrids (of any description). With the cost per barrel of oil equivalent falling to $20 in the long term, it makes sense.

The only problem in the U.S. is the lack of an effective bureaucracy.

"...a plug-in hybrid generates about 325 grams per mile of CO2... a conventional hybrid is about equally efficient: it generates around 300 g/mile of CO2."

Noooo... that's not equally efficient. In fact, that's a reduction of 7.7%. That's actually fairly significant in terms of mass when extrapolated out over the national fleet. Would you like a 7.7% improvement in your gas mileage? A 7.7% reduction in your utility bills?

Regarding the comments about the lifetime of batteries in a hybrid, I have a 2001 Prius that is now at 6.5 years on the original battery pack and a 2004 Prius that is still on its original pack.

One of Toyota's breakthroughs was the realization that by controlling the charge/discharge cycle properly they could significantly extend the life of the battery.

Based on a "well-to-wheels" model for CO2 emissions, it concludes that even if you assume that your electricity comes entirely from the dirtiest of old-tech coal plants, a plug-in hybrid generates about 325 grams per mile of CO2 compared to 450 g/mile for a conventional car.

Sounds great. However, it's worth noting that under this scenario a conventional hybrid is about equally efficient: it generates around 300 g/mile of CO2.

Yes, so a conventional hybrid is about as good (even a little better) than a plug in the worst possible case of large-scale electricity generation. Which means, with real world mixes of electricity generation, the plug-in hybrid is a lot better. Even if you assume that new non-coal power will be maximized in any case without plug-in hybrids, and that all additional demand will be met with new coal plants, those new coal plants won't be as dirty as the "dirtiest of old-tech coal plants". Of course, that assumption is dubious, since the increased demand increases the value of new generation capacity, including non-coal generation capacity, and should increase the amount, if not the proportion, of cleaner capacity actually put on line, so the plug-in hybrids should, in the real world, be substantially cleaner than conventional hybrids.

Either of which will be substantially cleaner than non-hybrids.

The plug-in hybrid is superior only if it gets its electricity either from coal plants that use carbon sequestration or from sources like nuclear or biomass

As long as it gets some of its power from those sources, orr wind, geothermal, tidal, solar, hydroelectric, or even fossil fuels that burn cleaner than coal in electricity generation, like natural gas or oil, etc. Which is a virtual certainty in the real world.

I think that this thread is an example of the way that people often discount major improvements while waiting for the 'perfect' technology to come to fruition. But what I'd really love to see is a way to retrofit mild hybrid technology that uses a larger battery and a high-torque starter as used in the GM hybrids, so that owners of older cars could take advantage of improvements to increase the mileage of cars they already own. Let's face it, cars last a long time and not everyone wants to spend $25 grand to get better mileage. Isn't it better to recycle the car you have? A system that shuts the engine down at every stop light could improve any car's city mileage up to 25%.

And can we just get rid of drive-thrus, as a patriotic gesture towards energy independence? There's a huge improvement we can make that would cost nothing.

Intelligent comments like the above are why Political Animal is probably one of the best blogs out there.

Just sayin'

I agree...bring on the plug-in hybrids. But they don't have to run on coal from old polluters or wait for coal that captures carbon. IL legislators are moving fast to 25% wind power and renewables, and MN has already committed same...just 12 years away.

Your next car should run on wind power and grassoline when the battery charge runs down.

Let us not forget to factor in that expensive rechargeable batteries lose their capacity with time, have a high self-discharge rate, and can be quite prone to failure. Charging at high or low temperatures can cause deterioration.

A tank of gas is more predictable.

Just keep in mind that a tank of gas loses its purity with time, has a high evaporation rate, and can be quite prone to failure. It does not start well at low temperatures. At high temperatures, the engine runs less efficiently and the boiler can overheat. Charging at any temperature can cause explosion.

So bring on the plug-in hybrids.

The installed base of wind-generated electricity is increasing at about 80% per year in the U.S., which added more wind-generating capacity last year than any other nation. The wind continues to blow at night, and indeed tends to blow more consistently at night than in daytime. As wind-generated electricity increases, and PHEVs increase in prevalence, the CO2 advantage of PHEVs will steadily increase.

So bring on the plug-in hybrids.

Joel Rubenstein: Throw away your iron-age automobile and re-design it from the ground up, using ultra-streamlined design, lightweight but ultra-strong composite materials.

A little at a time. first carbide ball bearings. then carbide transmission gears. Then carbide CV joints. At present, these can not be cheaply manufactured in large quantities, but development is ongoing. Or nitrides. I'm thinking that an all-composite car will finally appear in about 2040.

The Boeing 787 has a carbide skin on the fuselage. If they can do it with aircraft fuselages, they can do it with car bodies. There is still the issue of repair, but progress is ongoing.

There is a variant of hybrid technology that isn't discussed as much yet-using compressed air instead of batteries/electricity to capture braking energy. You could also use a portable fuel>fuel cell>electric motor drive scheme (eliminate the IC engine). Maybe you could use the electric grid at night to generate hydrogen for your fuel cell and *recharge* it? You can't get much simpler and maintenance free than a single electric motor drive.

But what I'd really love to see is a way to retrofit mild hybrid technology that uses a larger battery and a high-torque starter as used in the GM hybrids, so that owners of older cars could take advantage of improvements to increase the mileage of cars they already own.

There are several in development (see, e.g., here), and , but I think the set of people willing and able to spend the money to refit but not willing and able to simply buy a new car may not be that big. Even though its nominally cheaper to retrofit, because its often easier to finance a new car purchase on favorable terms than an upgrade, its often more practical for people to afford a completely new car than a retrofit; the people that could pay in cash for an expensive retrofit would be the people least likely to be put off by replacing the whole car in the first place.

The objections raised to batteries are real. However, that is the whole point of a plug-in hybrid vehicle. A fully electric battery is technically very difficult. Therefore, the PHEV uses a small battery which is relatively cheap. Most people don't drive hundreds of miles every day. A large fraction of daily driving is within a few tens of miles. A plug-in hybrid would travel this distance either fully electric or a large fraction of the distance would be made on battery power. If half your commute is on battery you've just doubled the mileage of the car. If you have solar panels on your roof you can cover much of your driving with solar power which really cuts CO2 emissions. True, you're feeding power to the grid in the daytime and getting power out at night to charge the car but the net effect is less CO2 emissions.

We have a Prius now and we are really excited about the Gen 3 Prius which might be a PHEV.

There is no benefit about these reducing oil dependance. I live in an area with many oil based power generation plants built by Bush and Cheney to help "address" the energy short falls when they took office. The problem is that we do not know where the power is coming from, so there is no certainty that it is an improvement to use all electric.

Better to continue pushing forward on all initiatives, including pushing for higher mileage standards for all vehicles, with a tax on low mileage vehicles (yes, I especially mean Hummers and other fuel wasters out there that serve no purpose but boosting the egos of their self-involved owners).