LRGVProVolt: If the post advances the discussion in a positive direction, I have no complaint with them. I believe that even though john1701a has a definite agenda, he has at times caused us to rebut his posts and thereby advanced the topics presented.

And I will continue to, since advancement is the agenda!

Real-World data will be the focus. It’s the best way to get beyond the MPG estimate mess.

For example, here’s real-world data from a highway drive with A/C using a plug-in Prius earlier today…

distance driven: 105 miles
displayed ratio: 11% EV and 89% Hybrid
displayed average: 63.7 MPG

Thor X Jones: All this talk about reducing pollution and reducing dependence on foreign oil gives rise to one question; viz, how do you think the electricity is produced to charge the plug-in cars? Foreign oil, buddy, and lots of it. And some coal.All this plug-in razzmatazz is just transferring the pollution problem produced with petroleum & coal to somebody else’s back yard and has almost zero effect on oil imports.  (Quote)

Try doing even just a smidge of recearch before posting. Even just a couple of seconds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2008_US_electricity_generation_by_source_v2.png

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html

Petroleum is 1% – 2% of US electricity production.

Coal is largely domestic. The US has massive reserves of the stuff. Natural Gas is largely domestic as well. Uranium is exported mainly by Canada and Australia, which are long term peaceful economic partners with the US. No threat there. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are all by definition domestic.

By the way, the US gets most of it’s oil imports from Canada these days. Most of the oil use in the US is for transportation. It wouldn’t take much to kick OPEC out of the picture completely. A more efficient US fleet would be a good step towards a solution.

I won’t even get into the “displacing pollution” argument any farther than to say I like breathing less fumes when I walk alongside the road in the city, there’s a signifigant thermal efficiency advantage to fossil fuel fired electricity generation, and pollution controls at powerplants are easier to maintain and enforce. That argument has been shot down more times than I can fathom. Look it up.

You get a -1 just for be annoying.

gallons = kWh.

Done. That one simple piece of information is all people need to get the exact same information from the figures they already read and interpret every day.

For example (with some made up numbers of course):

electricity: 5 MPkWh city / 4.5 MPkWh highway
gasoline: 40 MPG city / 42 MPG highway

Want to know range? How do you figure that out now? Well, you’d probably ask how big the tank is. That is, how much energy it holds. 8 kWh gives a range of 40 miles city and 36 miles highway. Easy, consise, and consistent.

How much will it cost to get to Grama’s 200 miles away? 8 kWh of electric energy at $0.10 / kWh is $0.80. The remaining 164 miles uses 3.9 gallons of gas at $2.30 / gallon, costing $8.97.

Easy. People alreeady do these calculations every day, whether they realise it or not. Quit making it more complicated that it needs to be. People already intuatively know and understand energy use per mile as well as most people will ever know and understand any unit of measurement. Give them what they know.

Harry Barber:
A job is a job dufus.I doubt the signs were made in China.  

Just gotta tell ya, recent trip driving thru many states was gratified to see much road work with many signed with the federal R&R sign with one exception. I noted lots of road work in Virginia, but not one hint that President Obama’s initiative was the primary funding source.