anyone consider getting an alternative fuel vehicle?

I *want* a chip oil car. That is the only kind of car I would ever consider having.

I'm looking at either the Hybrid Honda Civic and the Hybrid Toyota Prius - I actually prefer the Prius, but there are no local dealerships certified to service them - nearest authorized service is about 150 miles from here - not a strong selling point. But I do like how the Prius handles - much more responsive than the Hybrid Civic. Of course, the Civic came out better in safety stuff, though, if I recall that correctly.

I know that Ford (er, maybe not Ford, on second thought, but an American company) is coming out with a Hybrid SUV for 2004 - can't decide how I feel about that - good because it's a Hybrid, bad because it's a SUV.
I'm holding off on purchasing anything, this year (unless my car goes belly-up, which is a sad likelihood) - I'd like to wait for another year or two until there are more hybrids on the market and some of the kinks have been worked out.

Vrooooooooooooooooooom...

I think they're grate. Quiet, too. Unfortunately my parents won't be buying any until used ones start popping up.

a friend of mine just got a hybrid honda of some sort and loves it. i'm not clear on exactly how it works, but it's self-charging in some way. an electrical engineer friend had been making fun of her about it until he got a look under the hood--now he wants one for himself.

You have invoked the broken record.

Hybrids are indeed clever devices. They way they work is, electric motors are used for rapid acceleration, and when a fairly constant speed is attained, the power switches to a small, fuel efficent combustion engine. When the car brakes, the kinetic energy lost is used to recharge some of the battery - this is really the beauty of it, since so much energy is wasted when a regular car brakes. Still, the car is not a perpetual motion machine, it still needs gas to go.

Oh yeah, I need to say something doom and gloom - its far to late for these to make a difference, its still an enormous waste of energy to use a huge, heavy machines to move a single person around, and building cities where people have to rely exclusively on these huge machines will result is very useless cities in a decade or two.

(Criminey - I just looked up and saw that JuliaA pretty much just said the same thing - that's what I get for jumping ahead to reply when I see my name. Sheesh. My apologies, JuliaA.)

But back to the Hybrids in general - the live-in's Honda Insight is awesome - really. When you come to a stop (say, at a red light) if you shift into neutral the car stops. Then, when you shift into first, after the light turns green, the electric battery kicks in and starts the motor instantly - for the first few seconds you're running on the battery power, not the gas engine power.) Anyway, I am all for the darn things, though I agree with fleteret that it's a bit late for their development as far as saving the environment is concerned. But MAYBE, just maybe they might make some difference in this world of ours.

The cooking oil thing is true, you can buy convertors for diesel engines. There are peolple in Wales who run their cars on chip-shop oil. Apparently them smell is becoming a bit of a problem.

my buddy's been living in argentina, where apparently they run lots of cars on natural gas. i'm unclear as to whether this is any "greener" - i think they do it cuz its cheaper. i would think that it would burn cleaner?

As soon as I am able I will get an alternative fuelled vehicle for my out of town trips. What technology it eill run on. I'm deeply suspicious of the total life cycle impact of a battery vehicle (also range etc.). Hydrogen internal combustion or Biomass diuesel or ethanol look the best bets in the short to medium term, then fuel cell into the future. Of course hydrogen is not a fuel, merely an energy store and it is only as green as the method used to produce it.

This is interesting (colors).

http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&subject=colors&story=colorSport&referer=advice&aff=national

also cost of upkeep prolly cancelled out by gasoline savings

I think you'll find that the safety of the passengers in the SUV isn't much better than if they were in a regular car. Couple this with the fact that most SUV drivers seem to think they're invincible, and very few of them actually have any idea of the correct way to drive a vehicle that size.

Anyway, I'm sure as hell not getting an alternative fuel car, but other people should, and stop taking my goddamned petrol!