Bush's push for plug-in and hybrid vehicles

President Bush's State of the Union Address, delivered yesterday meets the goal of delivering alternative energy and directly new electric batteries:

"We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles"

But even more important than this general goal, Los Angeles Times says that today, through an executive order, President Bush:

"ordered the government today to move toward purchasing hybrid-powered vehicles and reducing the federal fleet's petroleum consumption by 2% each year through 2015.

The executive order, consolidating earlier ones while setting new goals, follows his call in the State of the Union address Tuesday night for the nation to reduce its overall use of gasoline by 20% over 10 years. (...)

His executive order is intended to put the federal government, which Bush noted operates the nation's largest automobile fleet, in the position of trying to lead by example, White House officials said.

Bush said the government was being directed to purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles, which he said could be driven 20 miles before their batteries were drained and the engines needed to switch over to more conventional power. But he said the purchases only could be made when the vehicles are commercially available.

He said, however, that the potential federal market for such cars might increase the confidence of automobile manufacturers that a market for such new technology products could be developed, thus making them more commercially viable." [bold's mine]

Well, there are full electric vehicles already available: Phoenix Motorcars's...


Disclaimer: I owe shares of Altair Nanotechnologies, which has struck a deal to get 16.6% of Phoenix Motorcars.