Mar. 4, 2008 - Gas prices are expected to reach $4.00 this summer! Visit Sierra Club to find ways to be more efficient with fuel and your car!
Mar. 1, 2007 - Do some research, its not hard to find a more fuel efficient car that will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Fueleconomy.gov
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Feb. 12, 2007 - Things are looking up. Al Gore showed up at the Grammy's with a strong reception to his move "An Inconvenient Truth ". More
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Jan. 29, 2007 - A list of oil companies that DO have ties with Middle East terrorism. Make sure you're using Terror free Oil
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Jan. 22, 2007 - Read the Denver7 article at... The Denver Channel
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Think Electric Cars are slow? Maybe THIS will change your mind. Feb. 07 - Well that VIDEO was shutdown! Goes to show you, Oil Companies are at work!
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Who Killed the Electric Car? Take a look.
This just out -- BigOilTees.com - Crude Wearables! Biting at the heels of Big Oil with the hopes giving back a bit.
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This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
JUMP START FORD to learn more about your PERSONAL emissions,
Working towards pollution and oil free America, and How to make a difference!
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Well, now that gas prices have dropped... a TAD, we're not complaining
too much... AGAIN. Did you know - The No. 1 U.S. Oil Company earns a
record $1,318.00 dollar profit every second? SOURCE: CNN Money – July
27, 2006.
The big oil fuckers are double dippin' on us, in cahoots with Bush, and
we're the pawns in their money-grubbing lives. Ya, Im pissed about it.
The next chance I get, Im getting a hybrid, or a diesel and converting
it to run on vegetable oil.. no shit. Here's a great article that
makes the hybrids even more appealing.
Hybrid Myths
1. You need to plug in a hybrid car.
As soon as the word "electricity" is spoken, you think of plugs, cords,
and wall sockets. But today's hybrid cars don't need to be plugged in.
Auto engineers have developed an ingenious system known as regenerative
braking. (Actually, they borrowed the concept from locomotive
technology.) Energy usually lost when a vehicle is slowing down or
stopping is reclaimed and routed to the hybrid's rechargeable
batteries. The process is automatic, so no special requirements are
placed on the driver.
Car companies explain that drivers don't have to plug in their
vehicles, but a growing number of them wish they had a plug-in hybrid.
The ability to connect a hybrid into the electric grid overnight to
charge a larger set of batteries means that most of your city driving
could be done without burning a single drop of gasoline.
Can you say 100 mpg? So far, automakers have been reluctant to bring
plug-ins to the mass market, claiming that today's batteries can't take
the extra demand. Until a car company takes a chance on the great
potential of plug-in technology, hybrids don't require plugging into
the grid.
2. Hybrid batteries need to be replaced.
Worries about an expensive replacement of a hybrid car's batteries
continue to nag many potential buyers. Those worries are unfounded. By
keeping the charge between 40% and 60% -never fully charged and never
fully drained-carmakers have greatly extended the longevity of nickel
metal hydride batteries.
The standard warranty on hybrid batteries and other components is
between 80,000 and 100,000 miles, depending on the manufacturer and
your location. But that doesn't mean the batteries will die out at
100,000 miles. The U.S. Department of Energy stopped its tests of
hybrid batteries-when the capacity remained almost like new-after
160,000 miles. A taxi driver in Vancouver drove his Toyota Prius over
200,000 miles in 25 months, and the batteries remained strong.
There's little to no accurate information about the cost for replacing
a hybrid battery, because it hasn't been a requirement with today's
models.
3. Hybrids are a new phenomenon.
In 1900, American car companies produced steam, electric, and gasoline
cars in almost equal numbers. It wasn't long before enterprising
engineers figured out that multiple sources of power could be combined.
In 1905 an American engineer named H. Piper filed the first patent for
a gas-electric hybrid vehicle.
With the advent of the electric self-starter in 1913-making gasoline
engines much easier to turn over and get started-steamers, electrics,
and hybrids were almost completely wiped out. The following 80 years,
characterized by cheap oil, created little incentive for auto engineers
to play with alternatives.
The oil price shocks of the 1970s, and a growing awareness of
environmental problems related to automobile emissions, sent engineers
back to the drawing board. Research and experimentation by governments
and car companies in the 1980s and 1990s led to the reemergence of
hybrids in the U.S. in 2000.
4. People buy hybrids only to save money on gas.
Hybrid cars top the list of the most fuel-efficient vehicles on the
road. Going farther on a gallon of gas-and thus reducing a car owner's
tab at the pumps-is a logical advantage of a hybrid car. But car
shoppers seldom buy based purely on a logical economic equation.
Besides, as critics of hybrid technology frequently point out, those
savings seldom add up to the extra cost of buying a hybrid over a
comparable conventional vehicle.
So, if it's not to save money, why are more and more shoppers going
hybrid? Many reasons: To minimize their impact on the environment, to
help reduce the world's addiction to oil, and to earn technology
bragging rights. Who was the first on your block to have a color TV?
Who will be the first to drive a hybrid?
The car you drive sends a powerful message about who you are and what
you think about the world. Hybrid drivers take pride in letting other
drivers-especially those behind the wheel of gas guzzlers-know that
getting from point A to point B doesn't have to lead us to an uncertain
environmental and economic future.
Also, for your tax return you can expect to get up to a $5,000 credit/deduction!
5. Hybrids are expensive.
At the beginning of 2006, hybrids were available in 10 different models
ranging in price from $19,000 to $53,000. The most efficient models-the
Insight, Civic, and Prius-are available well below $30,000. By the end
of the decade, more than 50 models are expected. By that point, hybrids
will represent the full range of sizes, shapes, and costs.
Rechargeable batteries, electric motors, and sophisticated computer
controls do add to the cost of producing a hybrid car. However, as
production numbers increase, economies of scale are expected to reduce
those costs. Toyota plans to offer hybrid versions of all its most
popular models and thus cut the incremental cost of hybrids in half.
In the meantime, the hybrid premium-usually estimated at $3,000-is
mitigated by federal and state tax incentives, lower maintenance costs,
and extraordinarily strong resale values. In fact, used Toyota Priuses
are reportedly being sold at prices approaching the cost of new ones.
6. Hybrids are small and underpowered.
The Honda Accord hybrid is the fastest family sedan on the market. The
Lexus Rx400h and Toyota Highlander Hybrid share the same 270 horsepower
system. The Lexus GS 450h hybrid sedan exceeds 300 horsepower with
0-to-60 performance below six seconds. And the Toyota Volta concept is
a 408-horsepower scream machine.
These vehicles prove that adding an electric motor and batteries to the
drivetrain does not intrinsically mean diminished performance.
Combining a gasoline engine and electric motors gives engineers more
control to emphasize fuel parsimony or speed, urban driving or highway
cruising, large vehicles or small.
General Motors' two-mode hybrid system, rolling out later this year in
the Chevy Tahoe, is designed specifically to give drivers of full-size
SUVs a V8 highway cruising experience and towing power-without draining
the gas tank.
7. Only liberals buy hybrids.
The long list of celebrity hybrid drivers includes Leonardo DiCaprio,
Cameron Diaz, and Larry David. They zip around Hollywood in their
Priuses and appear on talk shows extolling the virtues of hybrid
vehicles. These celebrities, and other early adopters of hybrid
technology, were primarily motivated by the environmental benefits. As
a result, they created an easy target for naysayers to brand all hybrid
drivers as tree-huggers.
In the ensuing years, Americans of all political stripes have become
more aware of the economic and political costs of oil dependency.
Conservative pundits claim that our petrodollars end up in the hands of
repressive Middle East regimes and their patrons. As a result, we fund
both sides of the war on terror. In addition, autoworkers have grown
more interested in fuel-saving technologies, recognizing that they bear
the brunt of Detroit's reluctance to abandon once-profitable SUVs.
Conserving fuel is now being championed as a way to tackle national
security, jobs, and climate change, all at the same time. Frank
Gaffney, President Reagan's Under Secretary of Defense, supports
bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress to promote the use of
alternative fuels and hybrids.
In an interview in National Review Online, he said: "It would stimulate
far greater production of such fuels as biodiesel, methanol, and
ethanol, preferably in 'plug-in hybrid' vehicles that will permit
electricity also to be used as a relatively cheap transportation
fuel."
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