This idea that we need these cars is BS, what we need is access to oil fields that produce, right here. Refineries that produce the amount of gasoline that is needed, and more. We need a federal government that stays out of a free market on energy. We need less moonbats and more engineers, but the University system seems to want to produce more moonbats and less engineers. If we change that problem we have it made, but not for at least 20 years. Until then we will have to wipe the Prius goo off the back tires of our "pickumuptrucks".
Why don't we get more engineers from our schools?
The reasons often given for a lack of interest in the hard sciences obfuscate the point. One MSM op-ed writer was so clueless he said "And then something happened [in the 1970s to 1980s] -- and U.S. students turned away from hard science."
I'll tell you what happened: The environmental religion gave birth to the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1972, the EPA banned DDT for purely ideological reasons. Since then, science and engineering have become increasingly polluted by a religion that characterizes the Earth as sacred and mankind as an evil polluter with our gas and oil wells, nuclear power plants and chemical refineries.
The constant propagandizing in the textbooks is driving many away from the hard sciences while condemning others to sickness and death from malaria and West Nile virus.
Science has become increasingly politicized with the global warming fraud. Man-made global warming is a complete fiction. So-called scientists and U.N. sycophants have committed the "Enron of climate science" by intentionally covering up the medieval-era warm period to make the 20th century look like the warmest on record.
The professional organizations (IEEE, etc.) need to expose the charlatans and let the boys and girls know that there's no room for politics in science and engineering. Then it will regain the respect of moral and ethical people who wish to contribute to the betterment of society.