If your region loses electricity for any significant period of time your local gas station won't be pumping any liquid fuel. OTOH during the last hurricane evacuation from Houston - bumper-to-bumper traffic for 16 hours - Priuses made it through due to regenerative braking while liquid fuel vehicles ran dry. So there's that.

And entire economy cannot be structured based on 1-in-100-year worst case scenarios. Los Angeles (earthquake), Seattle (earthquake, tsunami, lahar), St. Louis (earthquake) are not so structured and no one is proposing it be done. A daily driver cannot be justified based on a 0.00001% use case.

sPh

The Malibu is an excellent car, competitive with anything in its size and price range. I understand the new Impala is even better. I had somewhat the same view of GM in the 1980s but they have actually gotten their design and engineering act together.

sPh

= = = Who wants to roll around town looking like the "before" picture in a testosterone replacement ad? = = =

It was only ever a certain percentage of the US population that ever participated in that "my sexual identity is wrapped up in and reinforced by my car/horse/mastadon" game. And by observation, among the current generation that percentage has dropped drastically since the 1970s. So I don't think automakers really need to tailor their design and marketing campaigns to reproductive organ insecurity anymore.

What's not to like is that although it seems like a good idea, no one has managed to do it successfully at even pilot batch scale much less industrial scale. And the process does generate some not-nice waste.

sPh

Distribution of Vehicles and Persons per Household
Vehicles Per Household
1969 = 1.16
1977 = 1.59
1983 = 1.68
1990 = 1.77
1995 = 1.78
2001 = 1.90
2010 (unofficial) = 2.28

Persons Per Household
1969 = 3.16
1977 = 2.83
1983 = 2.69
1990 = 2.56
1995 = 2.63
2001 = 2.58

2.28 cars per 2.58 people. One of those cars is typically dedicated to primary breadwinner commuting. So the "expense of the 2nd car" is already there.

sPh

I agree on the $20k target (although the average price of a new car sold in June 2015 was around $33k); it will be interesting to see where GM prices the 2016 Volt (2nd generation).

However for most of its model life the Volt has been eligible for tax credits and rebates which are generally around $4-5K, lowering the out-of-pocket cost quite a bit.

sPh

Which could be one of the reasons that car salespeople don't sell them very hard: no service department revenue for 10 years until those components start to reach end of life.

sPh

= = = Electrics are only good for commuting. I = = =

Which is about 98% of US driving, esp for the primary breadwinner's vehicle.

= = =If I go on a long distance drive then I want to be able to stop for 5 minutes to get gas and keep going. = = =

Average US household is at what: 2.3 cars? Get a Ford Transit minivan with a hyper-efficient turbo engine for the 2nd vehicle and use that on the road trips. Assuming you didn't buy a Volt for the primary car.

sPh

= = = Chevy volt, nissan leaf, i3, etc are all pure POS in which the car sales have been going down = = =

Last time I checked the numbers the Volt had a 99% consumer satisfaction rating - a smidge higher than the Tesla, with the next vehicle on the list not even close - and a 100% "would buy again" rating. Not sure how that meets the definition of 'POS'.

sPh

= = =
In other words, perfect as a second car for upper-middle-class suburbanites who don't drive far.
That's a small population. = = =

Even setting aside the gap between the average suburbanites actual commuting patterns and vehicle requirements as scientifically measured vs. their psychological perceptions of same, at least 80% of USians classify themselves as "upper middle class". So no problem.

sPh

Yes, I know, Lake Woebegone. Don't electrocute the messenger.

So until electric or combination electric-ICE vehicles meet 101% of the needs of 100.0% of the population of the US - including the very small minority who live in isolated rural areas - they should not be popular (or even sold!) anywhere in the US including the metro areas where 85% of the population lives and commutes. Got it.

sPh

Can you point to any statistics showing that the out-of-warranty replacement frequency for a battery pack on a Prius, Volt, Leaf, or Tesla is any higher than the out-of-warranty blown engine frequency on ICE vehicles? Anecdotally I haven't heard anything about it being so and most Prius owners I know have exceeded the mfgr's estimated battery life by a factor of two. But perhaps that is just anecdata and there are statistics showing otherwise?

It does seem that electric vehicles must jump through all kinds of hoops to be considered "successful" that ICE cars do not meet themselves.

sPh

= = = That, and plenty of folks live 50 or more miles out of the nearest urban center, = = =

That's one of those cherished American myths that turns out not to be the case. US population went from below 50% urban to above 50% urban around 1895 (between the 1880 and 1890 censuses) and today around 85% of all USians live and work within urban/suburban/exurban agglomerations. Not dense central cities but sufficiently dense and interlocked that they aren't really tooling through the countryside they way they believe.

sPh

= = = until charging stations are ubiquitous, the convenience factor for using a gas-powered car will weigh heavily on consumers's minds. = = =

What baffles me is why the Chevy Volt hasn't sold better. It is electric for 95% of all metro area needs (and 85% of US people live in a metro area), plus 275 miles gas tank range for trips out of town. Easily 90% reduction in gasoline usage for 99% of all owners. Not expensive compared to other vehicles I see people commuting in solo, esp with a tax credit.

Yet not even close to a success.

75% of the right-click open-in-new-windows actions in Firefox 38 result in a bare window with no menu, controls, or scrollbars. Tried a few config setting which resulted in 5x5 pixel windows. Really useful.

sPh