We are wasting billions of dollars on a war we can never win, on people who are living in the stone age, on people who don't want us there and don't want our brand of government or lifestyle. All because a few neocons had an idea that turned out to be horribly wrong. If we put all those billions into energy independence, our children wouldn't be dying and our great-great-grandchildren's money wouldn't be spent. This country is big trouble.

Uhhh, I think that Tesla Motors already has an electric car... The body is made by Lotus (overseas), but it doesn't look half bad. I'm going to wait until it's been out for a couple years, though, just to be safe (and to save $$$).

quantum technologys together fisker automotive has already made a car called the fisker karma. It can go 50 miles on a full charge,when the batteries lose juice it has a small gas motor that starts and carries 1 gal of gas.this small motor charges the batteries and allows the car to go an additional 400 miles! Thats 450 miles per gallon.This car is already in production,the technology is already here!! google quantum technologys can read all about it

Wait... what year is this? 1990??? Haven't we already done this, before? GM spent over a billion dollars (not to what mention the other carmakers spent) developing the EV-1 -- which went up to 150 miles on a charge. THEY'VE ALREADY DONE THIS! They need to stop pretending that the technology does not exist and that they have to "start from scratch" to develop these cars.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevy_S-10_EV

WHEN WILL A POLITICIAN STEP FORWARD WITH THE COURAGE TO PROPOSE A MANHATTEN-STYLE PROJECT TO DEVELOP ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES? nO MATTER, THE DEMOCRATS WOULD OPPOSE THAT, TOO.

"Our" government is still willing to give oil companies 17 billion (17,000 million) dollars in tax breaks over the next 10 years, and only 30 million from DOE? That 17 billion needs to be well allocated (not given away) beginning with funding development and then subsidies of the cars themselves with a priority to the highest mileage drivers getting the heaviest subsidies or grants. The government should be leasing these cars to the public so that there is a future return on the investment by the 5th or 6th year. There is no reason the government can't start being run like a business who's job is to help while making money at the same time.

Did we learned nothing from the 70s fuel crisis? oh wait, that's when the japanese automakers broke into the US market in a major way. Today, only one of the top 20 fuel efficient vehicles are made by a US automaker. why are we giving money to these same companies to solve the next problem? Let's give the money to the companies to already know how to build fuel efficient vehicles. oh wait, apparently lots of us are, therefore lots of US layoffs... ummm, vicious cycle...

The DOE is a bunch of big dopes! We had viable electric cars in 1997 they were driven by actors, congressmen, they were available for rent etc. In fact by 2003 over 5000 of them had been built. They were taken from loyal customers and destroyed by the greedy car makers that made them. Why, because the car makers (plus the oil companies) thought they would loose money. Now the DOE wants to spend $30 million to reinvent something that existed in 1997. What am I pay taxes for? It looks like I'm paying for idiots.

The car makers created so much confusing rhetoric that nobody realized the cars existed, they were viable, they emit 96% to 100% less pollution, and most important of all DID NOT REQUIRE ANY IMPORTED PETROLEUM. See the film "Who Killed the Electric Car" for all of the sickening details.

I drove the fast and sexy GM EV1 in early 2000; I've been agitating to buy one (or the equivalent, since they've almost all been crushedby GM) ever since. I'm a member of the Electric Auto Association and maintain a guest blog (as EVolution) on EVWorld.com in order to debunk all the disinformation about electric vehicles (EVs) subsidized by the oil and auto industries.