Free Republic

It's going to cost more to buy electric cars in California. The state has run out of the $5,000 rebates it was giving people who purchased all-electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf. "The government is saying that if you are an early adopter, be prepared to pay for it," said Jesse Toprak, an analyst at auto information website TrueCar. He said there's enough demand for electric vehicles to absorb some price increases and shrinking rebates, at least for the next year or so. Nissan has sold 4,134 of the battery-powered electric cars this year. General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet, by...

The Obama administration is considering a fleetwide average of 56.2 miles per gallon for all new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. by 2025, two people briefed on the matter said. The proposal would roughly double current fuel-economy targets, and would likely raise the price of some cars by several thousand dollars. The proposal isn't final, and could be adjusted over the next several weeks as regulators prepare a formal draft to send to White House budget officials. The administration has said previously that it is looking at requiring cars average between 47 and 62 mpg by 2025. The...

With everyone pumping oil out of the Gulf of Mexico except for America, it would seem like the environmental wackos are getting their wish. Many Americans are finding it more and more difficult to pay for the high price of gasoline forced upon us by a government caused lack of oil supply. What we may soon be forced to drive is something similar to a vehicle I saw in a museum when I was stationed in Germany back in the mid "70"s as a soldier. It was a funny looking three wheeled vehicle produced by the Messerschmitt Company. The...

President Obama announced on May 19, 2009, a “historic agreement to help America break its addiction to oil.� The centerpiece of that announcement was a new 35.5-mpg CAFE standard for 2016. Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has been advocating the entry of fuel-efficient cars into the market for years. The time is now ripe, and we are in the midst of a major national push for the adoption of these cars. One of the barriers to widespread adoption is the common-yet-misleading line of logic that most consumers follow—that fuel efficiency equates to smaller, less safe cars. This misperception is fed by...

And other unintended consequences of strict fuel-economy standards. If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Such is the case with President Barack Obama's proposed national fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks and a new tailpipe standard for C02 emissions. The national press has uncritically reported that the new standards will make cars "cleaner." In fact, the rules could impose substantial costs in terms of urban air pollution and human life. The standards are designed to reduce C02 emissions from cars, with the twin goals of addressing climate change and reducing dependence on imported energy. Carbon...

I mean, if you're going to radically change the way a car is powered, you might as well radically change the way it looks too. Right? I guess that's what MDI (the company who has been pioneering, or at least attempting to pioneer, the compressed-air-powered car for the last 20 years) was thinking when they created the AirPod. I'm not getting any press releases in English, and my French is horrible. But from what I can tell, this new concept is going to roll off the production line in 2009...

The Transit Authority failed to follow state safety regulations for years by installing ceiling-to-floor turnstiles in subway stations - creating what critics call potential "deathtraps," the Daily News has learned. The revolving-door entrances and exits enabled the TA to close scores of token booths and prevent fare-beaters from entering stations by jumping over waist-high turnstiles. But the ceiling-to-floor turnstiles also could force riders to file out of stations one by one - a potential hazard during fires, terror attacks and other emergencies.