I agree with you, CohibaVancouver, though the following joking reply comes to mind:

A CIA IT person who goes backpacking in Thailand for 5 weeks is going to enjoy double-secret-probation upon return.

I disagree.

1st Claim: The US military has a number of autonomous, currently unarmed examples include Global Hawk, X-37, and RQ-3. There are certainly others, and there may be armed examples.

2nd claim: It is easily argued that remote-killing does not fulfill the proportionality argument of just war (bellum iustum). The very fact that the US is so heavily investing in them, indicates that the loss of a UCAV is considered less costly than the loss of the crew, thus, we as a combatant are not subject to the same proportional losses as the other guy in an engagement using them.

While I won't fault anyone investing their treasure in technology to protect their troops, I acknowledge that there's a problem with disconnect when the asymmetry is large.

But back to your statements: 1) there ARE autonomous drones and 2) there is no ethical similarity between killing with a UCAV, gun or bare hands. Yes, they're all killing, but no, they're not at all equal in so doing, and the difference is so large as to nullify your claim.

Easy Starter Links: the interested party can go way deeper from here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hawk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-37
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RQ-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_Avenger
http://defensetech.org/2011/12/14/usaf-sending-new-drone-to-afghanistan/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war

I agree, there are problems, and you've accidentally hit the principle one:

                                                                                                            tl;dr

Sadly, I disagree with you, and will continue to make the effort that I hope offsets your lack thereof.

...50 or 60 cycles? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan

I don't mean to thread-jack, but the Empire strongly objects to your characterization of our "Truth Facilitation and Subjects' Rights Preservation" droids. They've been deployed to insure fair treatment and accurate recording of consensual testimony, preventing the excesses of law enforcement before the Empire, and ensuring the voice of the accused is heard. To refer to these sophisticated and sensitive instruments by a catchy epithet is counter-productive, citizen, and against the goals we all share towards the glory of our Empire, and the creator. May George have mercy on your soul.

Am I the only one who thought of William Gibson's "Zero History"? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_History) This post instantly made me think of "the world's ugliest shirt." (I'm trying to avoid spoiling it for anyone, but this is a wonderful plot device.)

Dammit. AC'd by accident. My name is Ben, and I support Blue Parrot, and not Anonymously.

But what if I'm wearing a Red Shirt? (I'll pause to count the number of exploding heads...)

My first hands-on *nix flavor, on a then-bleeding edge Indigo.

A dog is not the best option, the false-positive rate can be high. This rate is very difficult to predict at the time of acquisition, and can involve subtle environmental cues (EG: dappled sunlight) or combined-effects (EG: Mr. Squeaky sliding under the couch). The end result is getting the alarms confused for "Major Alien Invasion" and "Agent With Flat Tire." (Get Smart)

If an electronic alarm had this tendency, it would be thrown out the window. Doing so with the dog is ill-advised.

I'm not certain of your typing, but dietary calories (the "2000 calories a day" kind) are actually caloriesx1000, or kilocalories. I believe they adopted the capital-C to signify this, but I'm no expert.

Your comparison seems to swap little-c calories and big-C Calories rather freely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie
vs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_energy

I'm still unclear on this difference, but thinking that a human needs about "2000 calories a day" is pretty daunting efficiency standard to try to beat technologically. 2,000,000 calories a day seems more realistic. And in light of this conversion, your performance seems more closely attuned to the car than you realize. Compared to a compact scooter (or heck, my medium-sized motorcycle) then all of a sudden it leans towards the ICE.

Which may make sense, as I once heard about 75% of our energy-burn is in cooling, to keep our brains working. So you may be burning a lot more oreos and bananas than you thought, but mostly to prevent overheating your brain.

If true, that--the cooling demand--simply shows that the zombies would have a considerable advantage. (Romero-shamblers OR 21st Century F1 versions)

I hope it's more of a riff than a rant...

1) Driven an electric...
I have: in the 90's I drove the Dodge electric minivan. It was EERIE. And very cool. Also driven many Cushman carts, and I can't help but think if 1940's tech can operate so well, why are we still having problems? (Yes, no heater at -20, but they do scoot through the outdoors at that temp as long as their spend 90% of their time indoors. So why can't we make a car that'll reverse that 90:10 ratio?)

2) Range
Get OVER it people. 100 miles is FINE. This is a daily-driver. Stop thinking that you're gonna load the fambly and belongings on it and make like the Clampetts. You want to go 500 miles to Chicago? You have choices: Bus, Plane, Train (mass transit) or some kind of carpool with like-minded in a fuel-burner. There's a pizza-delivery shop that runs 70's vintage electric cars, and as far as I know, they do so in the winter. (Galactic Pizza) All short-range, out of a garage, and a nightmare for scaling, but it's a START!

We'll make specialized variations for those willing to pay for the range. (Deliveries, patrols, whatever: usually fleets.) You need the range? Turn in your personal car, for a time-share rental of a fleet.

3) But...But...But...

"If I get stuck in the snow in my electric, I could freeze to death..."

Yes, and you might be UNABLE to out run a T-Rex.

STOP with the conspiracy (or movie plot) thinking. We can ALL come up with a hundred reasons, threats, dangers wherein {the novel tech} will horribly fail. This same logic has been applied to resist all kinds of change, and it makes no sense. YES, there are problems, but they're LESS than the problems we're having with {the old tech}.

Don't put your head in the sand, but stop looking for imaginary dangers. These "counter examples" are not even close to whatever the REAL "killer problems" are with {the novel tech}.

CONCLUSION:
Hydrocarbons are FEEDSTOCKS, not fuels. They were historically needed as fuels, but now our point-source problem is killing us. How long can a steamship go burning it's wood furnishings and fittings? We should look back on this period with a wry smile and think of how Ethanol should've illustrated this foolishness: Burning food for fuel is a loser's bet.

We may use hydrogen as the storage-medium (we're really good at thermal conversion on a mass-produced scale); maybe batteries (we're pretty good at chemical conversion and distro on a mass-production scale); maybe fuel-cells (we're learning FAST); maybe ultra-caps (first responders deal with dangerous fuels all the time, KERS has been de-fanged); flywheels; hamsters, bitten by radioactive spiders, to have electric muscles. WHATEVER, but we need to start thinking "electric economy."

Mass transit is the wave of the future. Social travel with your fellow man is all there is to it. Who wants to compare the biggest possible SimCity WITH and WITHOUT mass-transit? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?

I'm astounded that the Slashdot community isn't leading the charge on this. Come on, fellow early adopters, let's get this rock rolling up the hill! This time for SURE!