I think that dreams is a ways off Matt.

Not a lot of room for batteries on a bike and range is going to drop a lot at 70mph. Most EVs already have better city range do to regen braking an slower speeds, but their highway numbers are going to be below speed limit as well.

It is about the best engine to bring.

By far everything points to the 2.0L which is already set up for emissions in NA, and has already passed all federal testing and is already here in other vehicles.

People may whine about getting the wimpier 1.6L or the more powerful 170HP 2.0L. But in the end the 140HP 2.0L is the closest thing to being "Just right" that VW/Audi have available to them.

This isn't Europe and we aren't going to get 10 engine choices for each car. That is probably another reason why NA has much better vehicle prices. Streamlined choices saves money.

Instead of whining that you aren't getting the 1.6L, you should be counting your lucky stars that you get the option of diesel at all given the market in NA.

A3: 3200lbs
mini: 2500lbs

What is adequate for the mini is not adequate for a car that weighs in a 700 lbs more. They state 11.4 seconds 0-60 for the 1.6L, possibly the only thing slower in America is the "Smart" car.

A dog slow car like this won't sell here and it isn't worth destroying performance to eek out a couple of MPG when you are already at 40mpg.

If you are picking one diesel engine to bring. The 1.6 is not the one. It will reinforce the image of diesels as dog slow.

I have a hard time believing that. 300000 users and not one request... Yikes!!!!

GM really needs to get work with zipcar to find out why no one wants their cars.

I paid ~$300 for a 2G card a few years ago before going on vacation.

Sam. You are one of the top posters at this site so really you should know better than to mix up pollutants and GHGs and post incorrect conclusions.

The article is entirely about pollutants caused primarily by poor quality fuel, zero emission controls and finally the size of the engines.

But the same thing applies when you look at one riding mower producing 34 times as much pollution per hour as car:
http://www.edf.org/pressrelease.cfm?contentID=8370

But it doesn't produce 34 times as much GHGs, it would produce less than the car.

If you burn a gallon of fuel you will get the same amount of CO2 regardless of emission controls. Actual pollutants OTOH can vary by huge amounts.

Likewise we have zero information here to quantify shipping as a GHG source, it may in fact be MUCH less than vehicle transportation. In this case given the absolute horrendous nature of the fuel and total lack of pollution control, I would guess a factor of at least 1000 applies if you want to get back to GHG comparisons, in which case land vehicles become a very significant contributor again.

This isn't like plasma which can't produce this kind of high [b]ANSI[/b] contrast ratio. You can't have light produced by some cells and cells near them producing none. When the screen is on, there is a minimum light coming from the "black areas".

With OLED you can. Now certainly you can turn on lights and destroy contrast that is a fact of life.

But OLED is capable of producing as much contrast as your conditions will allow.

It is being an extremely anal nitpicker to argue about light from the screen going out in the room and bouncing back to hit the dark portions of the screen affecting contrast.

If you watch an OLED in the dark you won't be able to tell where the screen ends in dark scenes.

Unlike current LCDs which are horrid in the dark presenting a great big glowy gray rectangle where it should be black.

Real ANSI contrast ratios has the biggest effect on image quality today where it is very weak on LCDs (grey blacks).

OLED is like the best of LCDs: (perfect geometry, sharpness, thin panels), plus the best of a top quality CRT: (infinite black, superior viewing angles, ultra fast response time).

It is the holy grail of display technology.

OLED will obsolete contrast ratios. The real numbers is INFINITE. Blacks will true black, fully off. 1000 000:1 ANSI is used for convenience and to try to tell you how much better it is than a typical 1500:1 ANSI contrast of LCD. (ignoring the BS dynamic contrast nonsense).

I can't wait. OLED is definitely going to be the display we have all been waiting for.

Yes expensive at first but eventually it should be dirt cheap, use modified Ink Jet to print the OLED cells.

OLED is the future. Just wish the future was now.

For the next 10 years.

Best solutions in best first order of potential beneficial impact at large. Ascending order of most savings per individual.

1: Efficient ICE cars. See cobalt XFE. Making cars smaller and more efficient for everyone will save more than all other choices and can be there for everyone. Less expensive choice for decent results if everyone moves to more efficient cars.

2: HEV: This is probably the best choice if the best ones fit your needs. Best being the Prius and its combined 50mpg. Excellent compromise between great fuel savings and personal economics. But less people will go this route.

3: PHEVs/BEV/EREVs. If you can afford the batteries, the best fuel saving potential when running in full EV mode. But personal economics suffer as batteries are very expensive and even less people will go this route.

Dubious choices:
Biofuels: (AKA food for fuel) See current corn ethanol boondoggle.
Hydrogen: (AKA the future boondoggle: how to spend much more money and use triple the energy of BEVs). T