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Rebecca Lindland, a senior auto analyst for the research firm Global Insight, is a fan of both electric cars and GM's plug-in Volt. "This is not a George Jetson future," says Lindland. "This is ours." But that future is still a ways off. Lindland said that when she met with GM executives not long ago to talk about the Volt, she reminded them of one vexing question: The plug-in makers' assumption is that drivers will recharge their cars in the garage at home, where it shouldn't be too hard to find an electrical outlet...
That's just one of countless questions that needs an answer before plug-in cars can truly take their place on American roads. Certainly, electric cars have at least one built-in advantage: The electrical grid already exists. Other auto alternatives, like hydrogen fuel cells, would require the development of an expensive new infrastructure to deliver the gas to fueling stations around the country. But to make plug-ins a truly viable alternative - one that could kill petroleum - we will need to make changes to the way we supply and use electricity, both small and large. "Electricity is everywhere...
...popular, before the grid had a chance to get smarter, it could lead to a real power predicament. "You can imagine what would happen if five drivers on the block got home at 5 p.m. and all decided to recharge their cars at the same time," says Charles Griffith, auto project director at the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, Mich...
...voted for the Energy Bill approved by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in December that included language paving the way for the loan guarantees. "We are encouraging Congress to take this up now," says John Bozzella, vice president of external affairs and public policy for Chrysler. Auto company spokespeople insist that they're not asking for a bailout. "These are direct loans that we have to pay back," explains Ford spokesman Mike Moran. "Direct loans to automakers and suppliers will support American workers and strengthen the future of U.S. manufacturing and the economy. Borrowing capital...
...comprehensible--Charlie for President? Charlie as President? Charlie as the ultimate arbiter of war and peace? Indeed, Alice belatedly finds herself facing a moral dilemma: Was it possible that the disaster of Charlie's presidency--the war, the thousands dead--was her fault, just as the long-ago auto accident had been? Was she, having forced Charlie to sober up and get his act together, responsible for giving the nation this charming but limited man as its President? She is boggled by the simultaneous intimacy and superficiality of public life--that the fact that Charlie likes grabbing dinner...