VW to joins rank of electric car markers

[faethor]

In 2013 Germany is a nation that gets the largest amount of it's power from renewables, often wind. It makes sense to make vehicles that utilize this. Europe, of course, has a greater population density than the USA and driving distances are much less. I suspect we'll see the same sort of vehicles here.

In related news. Recent testing of the Volt did find that it goes 40-50 miles on it's charge before switching on it's engine. It cost them 80cents of electricity for a 40 mile trip. This is 50 miles per dollar. At the current $4/gllon this is equivalent to 200MPG.

 

[JoBBo]

In 2013 Germany is a nation that gets the largest amount of it's power from renewables, often wind. It makes sense to make vehicles that utilize this.

Today, Germany gets about 17% from renewable energy sources. The current government announced plans to increase it to 35% by 2020. Compared to Iceland which gets 80% of its power from renewable energy sources, those figures are not exactly impressive. But Germany does stand out if you strictly look at the world´s largest economies.

In the area where I live, I can see wind mills on the horizon in every direction.

In related news. Recent testing of the Volt did find that it goes 40-50 miles on it's charge before switching on it's engine. It cost them 80cents of electricity for a 40 mile trip. This is 50 miles per dollar. At the current $4/gllon this is equivalent to 200MPG.

As soon as the shrinking federal income from gas taxes creates noticeable budget shortfalls, you can be sure that this will change, however.

 

[faethor]

Thanks JoBBo You are indeed correct my wording was bad there.

I'm sure too the gas tax will need to change. Afterall if you want a road to drive on one has to pay for it somehow. They are considering a per mile tax instead. I think this may run into a problem as purposed here it will require GPS tracking and few people would want the Gov. to do that. Our tax is 27.2 cents per gallon. 30MPG this is roughly a penny a mile. If we were to add a penny per mile that would be a 50% increase in cost for electric. The government could make a bit more, users would pay less in fuel costs and they could use that excess to stimulate the economy in other ways.