Ignatius quoted "Those batteries would have to be absolutely massive and expensive to keep up with a 75+ mile range."

Probably not (on the size issue). The GM EV1 electric car had a range of around 150 miles and it is a small car. And it was built over ten years ago.

The Toyota Rav4 all-electric truck (not a lightweight car) had a range of 110 miles or so, and then Toyota pulled the plug on them after around ~350 vehicles were produced. Toyota refuses to provide replacement batteries for these vehicle, although many are still running fine today.

This year we see TV commercials touting an "amazing" fuel economy of 30-35 MPG in a Honda Fit, or 40 MPG for a tiny 2-seat Mercedes Benz Smart. Smarts in Canada and other countries are available with the diesel CDI engine that gets considerably better fuel economy (60+ MPG) than the American gasoline Smarts.

The 30+ MPG figure may seem amazing to a typical 15 MPG SUV owner, but in reality it's still indifferent from a handful of 30MPG cars 20+ years ago. Gas prices are still rising. My 2006 Jetta TDI (diesel) exceeds 40 MPG and it is a big car. A lot of earlier TDI owners manage 50-60 MPG with careful driving. My 1996 Toyota Corolla averages 32 MPG with normal driving. Now Toyota is advertising their new Prius that has a 8-mile all-electric range, so customers will feel more "green." Big deal!

45-55 MPG with a Prius is considerably more expensive than running a pure electric car that will meet 90% of American's needs in daily range. To be fair, batteries for long-range driving is still likely expensive. To convert a used Neon or Corolla to pure electric with a 50 mile range, it'll cost $15,000 (maybe less). That's still cheaper than buying a brand new Prius, but that's comparing apples to oranges.

Toyota is taking a step in the right direction with the Prius, slowly but surely.

The complex and expensive gas-electric hybrid drivetrain is generally shunned in Europe because they did not impress when compared against diesel cars.

It's great news that Honda, BMW, and Subaru will release their diesel vehicles in North America this year or next year. The next step should be a diesel-electric hybrid (if not all-electric), which is far more efficient than gas-electric hybrid although it's potentially more expensive.

A ten percent fuel efficiency increase is disappointing considering that fuel prices are rising significantly more than ten percent.

Hopefully the plug-in feature (100% electricity) will have a 75+ mile range. Roughly 90% of Americans don't drive more than 75 miles a day.

In fact, if the range is 60 miles a day I would switch from gas/diesel to electric exclusively, and for long camping trips I'll simply rent a fuel burning car. That way I won't have to worry about maintaining oil, coolant, timing belt, valves, lifters, injectors, fuel pump, etc. There are around 650 moving parts in a gas/diesel vehicle whereas there's only ONE moving part in an electric motor (not counting bearings).

Diesel vehicles running on bio-diesel is a nice alternative solution to gas/ethanol as well. They could run on fuel from renewable and CO2-scrubbing Algae, which yields HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS more fuel than Ethanol from Corn (30 gallons an acre?), which is harmful to the environment.. but they fill the corn farmers' pockets nicely. Algae has an awesome potential, look it up.

There's also Bio-Diesel Trees, from which you can milk fuel from using a tap & bucket (in a similar manner to collecting maple syrup).

Some race cars normally have negative camber to help with cornering traction. The trade-off is uneven tire wear, but that's not a concern as races are short. Aside from the funky teenaged paint job (ugh) this car could be decently race-tuned.

While an electric/human powered bike (or a scooter which I plan to buy) will be cheaper, there are a few valid reasons for this HumanCar:

- It can have a roof (sort of), to shield occupants from crap weather.
- Very few 2 wheelers can comfortably ride in snow/rain.
- The HumanCar has an exoskeletal safety cage chassis, giving occupants a greater sense of security while many 3,000-6,000lb vehicles continue to lurk our North American streets.
- People may prefer 4 wheels and some cargo space to carry things.
- People are obsessed with cars. For some reason they'd rather drive their 4,000lb "compact" cars or 6,000lb SUVs to a grocery store a few blocks away.. than use a bike with a small trailer.

Hopefully the HumanCar will encourage people to adapt to healthy methods of transportation, one step at a time.

Can you simply select 720p or 1080p for each video? Say, if I only have a 720p TV I'd like to download a smaller 720p file rather than 1080p.

Is closed captioning available in VuDu movies and TV shows?

Odd, the reply command didn't work the first time.

Actually it has 5; Moonwalk mode.

"The other 53-percent said they preferred being powerless, poor, and not knowing what to do with Visual Basic."

I think virtually everyone wants nothing to do with Visual Basic.

Canadians beware: macsales.com charges a minimum of $20 for shipping this USB 2.0 drive adapter to Canada.