The Fed should buy every tax paying American a hybrid car built by GM/Ford with the bailout money.

[Lumpsum]

Fix the car industry. Fix the environment.

Case closed.

[ingac70]

1. Are there any hybrid cars available yet...

from American manufacturers? The silly bastards have put them in nothing but SUVS up until this point.

[Lumpsum]

5. Yes.

Both GM and Ford offer hybrid vehicles.

[ingac70]

18. Cars? Or just SUVs?

[amandabeech]

8. Chrysler has them, too.

As to cars, Ford WAS coming out with the Fusion hybrids (and their Mercury and Lincoln clones) in January. The vehicle is very popular and reliable, and will have a re-worked version of the engine found in the small SUV hybrid Ford Escape (and its Mercury and Mazda clones), but with a new, smaller, lighter battery. The instrument cluster will help show the driver how to maximize fuel economy with the hybrid engine, and is expected to be a bit more fuel efficient than the Prius, which may be the only other full hybrid car. The Fusion's styling is less radical and may appeal to those who just don't like the looks of the Prius, and believe me, they're out there.

However, since there is no loan forthcoming, it is unclear to me whether Ford will start up that line which were to start up in December.

GM offers the BAS mild hybrid systems on the Saturn Aura and the Chevy Malibu. They also offer the mild hybrid in a few SUVs and perhaps a truck or two. These will not offer the tremendous increase in city mileage that the Toyota and Ford full hybrids do.

In 2010, Chevy was to offer the Volt, which is a full hybrid that runs like a diesel/electric locomotive. The "engine" is really an electrical generator that supplies electricity for the electic motors that drive the wheels. Theoretically the generating engines could be made to use gasoline, diesel, biodiesel or ethanol, without much trouble. The Volt also uses a large battery pack that can be charged by plugging it into regular 120 or 240 outlets. NOBODY else is using this technology to run a highway vehicle. There can be NO assurances that the Volt will be in production anywhere now that GM may not live past January.

Chrysler offers hybrids on SUVS and maybe trucks. If they live, I suspect that they, too, will offer hybrids in autos.

[lectrobyte]

15. I thought Chrysler cancelled their hybrids. nt

[DainBramaged]

9. Nope, as usual, a completely wrong assumption

I'll let you search around a litle. I am tired of making it easy for people who make fools of themselves to escape scott free.

[lectrobyte]

16. They do make some, but very well kept secrets for the most part.

All I still see from GM is SUV and truck ads, the Cadillac division seems to have the biggest ad budget.

[Touchdown]

11. Ford's hybrid tech is actually Toyota's

Ford is paying royalties for the technology. But, at least their forward thinking enough to know a good product they can use in their own cars.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E6DE153EF933A25750C0A9629C8B63

http://4wheeldrive.about.com/b/2004/04/02/toyotaford-hybrid-technology-agreement.htm

EDIT: I believe GM's is home grown... mainly from the Impact/EV-1 technology they perfected in the 90s.

[philosophie_en_rose]

2. Or pay them to build public transportation

?

[Lumpsum]

7. At least California is doing this.

Hopefully the rest of the country will catch on.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. or air cars

They are being manufactured in India now.

[gristy]

4. There's 300M people in the US. If we buy each household a car, that would be maybe 100M cars

You'd need about $1500B for that, assuming you could produce these cars for $15K each.

I like this idea.

[Lumpsum]

6. If they print trillions out of thin air, I think they can afford this.

[wildbilln864]

10. Excellent idea! nt

[MercutioATC]

12. What if I don't want one?

I mean, a free car is a free car...but I have no interest in driving one.

[BeFree]

14. So

We buy you a pony, Happy now?

[MercutioATC]

17. Woohoo! I get a pony!

...my point was that it's a cute idea but this "solution" wouldn't appeal to many people.

[Initech]

13. I'd take a '10 Fusin hybrid!