Reply #19: Not to quibble, but . . .

[lfairban]

. . . Newton was responsible for the three laws of motion.

According to Wikipedia, the first law of thermodynamics, the law of conservation of energy, was first laid down by James Prescott Joule.

You do bring up an important point, that the electricity causes pollution where it is generated. Pollution from power plants is a another great big issue that you shouldn't get me started on.

From an economical standpoint, if electric cars or hybrids were not cheaper to operate, I doubt so many people would be interested in them.

The geopolitical argument for electric cars is that the gasoline must come from oil, which is why many believe we are in Iraq.

I think that you have too quickly dismissed electric or hybrid vehicles because of an overly simplistic analysis. Cars with gasoline engines must carry around the means for turning the chemical energy into mechanical energy, the engine weighing several hundred pounds. Then you need several hundred pounds of frame and body to support it. Now, to get one 150 lb. person five miles to work, you need to get about a ton of material in motion. When the light turns red, you must dissipate all that kinetic energy, turning it into useless heat.

With an electric or hybrid, you can use regenerative breaking recovering some of the energy, especially useful in stop-n-go traffic.

There are a bunch of engineering technical considerations that I am not going into further.