GM can’t control ethanol? Uhhh….they can’t control gas either! If anything, through this initiative, they are doing more for energy independence than ANY automaker. After all, no automaker is out there making GAS cheaper. Building batteries to get a little more mileage out of cars that still use *gasp* GASOLINE only goes so far if you’re bitching about the price of fuel.

As much as I have been 150% opposed to the E85 kool aid up to this point, it is mostly due to factors that would be rendered moot by this proposal should it be fully realized. I say go for it.

New technology usually reduces a problem in one area while increasing or creating a new problem in another. If given the choice of handing our children dumps filled with mounds of rotting toxic batteries or accepting that some business might profit by eliminating human waste products to produce an oil-based fuel alternative, I choose the latter.

And the name is sarcastic – because of certain nut-jobs on here.

Why is it biased of me to tell everyone that Volt is a HOAX?

Look two years ago wagoner swore to everyone who was willing to listen that Sequal is about to hit the market. Everyone was hyped, from BusinessWeek to PBS, i saw 3 documentaries featuring GM executives on PBS alone saying that Sequal is a real thing.

GM squized all it could from that car, PR is gone, so they comeout with Volt. You may call me biased, but i call myself a post GM Kool Aid individual, meaning Foil me once, shame on you, fool me twise, shame on me, Fool me for 123rd time and i am a GM fanboy.

And celeron, the Prius may have been around for 10 years, but it would not take another manufacturer that long to catch up if they so chose. Just buy one, take it apart, and see what makes it tick. And you know damn well this happens all the time. Also, if you think Toyota won’t be one of the first in line when the Volt comes out, you’re as naive as you are biased.

This post is encouraging for me to see. My concern has been that the Big 3 have been putting FAR too much stock in E85 when E85 is, in its current form, a waste of time, energy, money, and resources. So it’s encouraging to see that they’re working on ways to make it viable. Although energy independence in the auto industry does NOT mean energy independence for the whole nation (I think something like only 15% of a barrel of crude goes to gas for cars), it’s a huge step in the right direction, and it’s an easier switch from gas to E85 than it is to hydrogen.

Do you realize what you are saying, Prius has been on the market for 10 years, Volt may or maynot come in 2010. Only this week we all read reports that Volt may or may not be deleyed.

As lond as we are on this Domestic/Foreighn debate how do you answer the charge that base Toyota Camry has more HP than Corvette and gets much better 0-60.

Do not bother checking facts, because i am comparing 2008 Corvette to 2025 Camry, it will be much better, and it will get 500 MPG, and also it will cost 15 Gs.

How do you like that?

One more time, Prius has been on sale for 10+ years, has a dedicated crowd. Volt #1 is not on sale, #2 GM is 10 years behind Toyota, #3 GM has a dirty image which they constantly trying to fix. #4 Volt may or may not be build. #5 Prius is a real car that you can buy, #6 Last week GM said that 2010 maybe a too of an optemistic date, #7—–PRIUS IS A REAL CAR, VOLT IS A CONCEPT.

Compare oranges to oranges….but you can’t do that, because GM has no REAL hybrid and will not have one for years to come.

Also land is a limited resouce, as is soil, as is water, as production of ethanol goes up those resources will be limited (just like oil fields). Also oil comes from all across the world, Ethanol can only come from USA (maybe NAFTA) because ethanol lobby forced congress to ban imported ethanol. Also ethanol raw materials are everywhere, they #1 they need to be gathered, #2 they will not be free, because they will grow either on governmental land (royalties–just like oil companies pay them to states and feds) or be someone’s byproduct (woodchips), #3 once made needs to be redistributed again. I am once again trying to point out that companies in the field will be have to be BIG, that is not the case now because feds mandate that oil companies add ethanol to gas. Once the ethanol will be on its own it will be produced by a handful of companies who’s main goal is to make money. What we will have is the same as we have now, no gas station can afford to charge more than other stations, and yet gas prices are thru the roof.

There are only so many oil fields, so those who own them control the market. Since you don’t need to own a garbage field, you can’t change the price because nobody will buy your ethanol if it’s more expensive than that of others.

You understand what I mean?

And as Kenny said, if you had a hybrid running on ethanol, it would be even better. So these options are not competing with each other, they can be combined and everybody will be happy.

Kenny, my point was that the ethanol people have their own interests, in due time they will also jack up prices, because that way they will make more money. What difference does it make if you have $3.20 to exxon or ADM?

Prius on the other hand uses less of whatever is in the tank. And yes Toyota does control the technology. The baterry building may or maynot have been outsourced, but Toyota is the one developing it and paying someone to build it. Toyota have almost a direct control of that baterry. GM have ZERO control over price of gas, diesel or ethanol. ZERO.

Imagine if you will that we use municipal waste to create Ethanol based gas and then teamed it with hybrid technology. We’d be using less than 1 gallon of water (a renewable resource) to create 1 gallon of gas (based on waste, perhaps the single most renewable resource in the world) to create vehicles that could get upwards of 50, 60, perhaps even 70 miles per gallon. Our dependance on foreign oil would almost vanish completely and because Ethanol could be made from so many sources (Corn, grass, algea, bacteria, fecal matter, & waste, just to name a few) the cost would be very competitive and only get better as technology improved.

P.S. You’re an idiot to want to fire Rick Wagoner.

The next president may very well remove those subs and it will force ethanol to cost a dollar to two dollars above curent price…..which will make all this ethanol engine money a BIG money losing project.

Look at Prius. Stop coming up with these bull of technologies which you can not sell based on the technology ALONE. No one buys GMs cars to use ethanol in they. People buy the cars……but the car also can run on ethanol.

P.S. Fire rick wagoner.