Forums: Hybrid Electric Vehicle

The baby animal above is not a zebra. And it's not a donkey. It's a zedonk. With a zebra father and a donkey mother, the animal has clear black and white stripes on its legs and the brown-haired body of a donkey. The eye-catching filly was born last Wednesday night at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in Dahlonega, Georgia, about 60 miles north of Atlanta. "She's absolutely beautiful," said Alison Womack, a volunteer at the preserve, adding that the foal is "fabulous, healthy, doing well." "We think we're going to name her Pippi, for Pippi Longstocking," said C.W. Wathen, the founder...

Heads up Michigan Freepers. Why President Obama is betting big on battery plants in Michigan, Updated: Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 11:57 AM Rick Haglund . HOLLAND -- Michigan might seem to be the last place a beleaguered president looking for a positive economic bounce would visit. After all, the state is known for having the worst-performing economy in the U.S. during the past decade. And although Michigan no longer is tagged with the highest unemployment rate in the nation -- Nevada now holds that distinction -- joblessness here still stands at an unacceptable 13.6 percent. But President Barack Obama will...

Mich. Gov: Electric Cars to Create 62, 000 Jobs July 14, 2010 Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm says the next generation of electric cars and their batteries will create 62,000 jobs in the state over the next decade. Granholm made the prediction Wednesday, a day before President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit a groundbreaking ceremony for a battery plant outside Grand Rapids. Granholm says the new jobs demonstrate the need for federal and state investment in private industry. She says the partnership with federal government is the key to manufacturing in the U.S. The Alliance for American Manufacturing says more...

When politicians and environmental activists hammer the table about the need to break our so-called “addiction to oil” — as they are doing with increased fervor in response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — they seldom spend much time explaining exactly how we should go about doing so. About 70 percent of the oil we consume goes into the transportation sector, so wind, solar, and nuclear power plants are of little help. Ethanol, methanol, compressed natural gas, all-electric vehicles, and hydrogen-powered fuel cells might someday do the trick, but at present, those fuels and technologies are...

President Obama's limo is a basically a diesel-powered tank. When he came into office, the new President asked if he could get one with a hybrid drivetrain for his Presidential Topkick Cadillac to go along with his push for greener vehicles across the board. During a recent stop at a North Carolina manufacturing facility that builds battery components for hybrid cars, Obama was asked about the status of his hybrid limo hopes, and admitted that this isn't going to happen. The reason, the President said, was that the Secret Service rejected his idea "because the cars that I'm in are...