[urq] Thought-provoking stuff.......NAC, but all Car stuff.

j.koenig koenigj at comcast.net
Tue Jun 12 08:42:49 EDT 2007


Disclaimer: I haven't seen the film either.

Bob Lutz says that GM did away with all the EV-1s because of liability concerns.

Apparently, technology and/or demand isn't there yet.  Honda no longer sells the Insight, 
and has recently announced the end of the Civic Hybrid.  The market rules!  If enough 
people wanted an electric car instead of an Escalade, you would be able to buy one. 
Hydrocarbon fuel is still too cheap, and everything else is a fool's errand (so far) until 
there is reduced demand.  For now, I'd settle for being able to choose from a larger array 
of more fuel-efficient gas and diesel cars in the U.S.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Fleischer" <jim at activelifestylemassage.com>
To: <s-car-list at audifans.com>; <urq at audifans.com>; <200q20v at audifans.com>
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 3:57 PM
Subject: [urq] Thought-provoking stuff.......NAC, but all Car stuff.


Hey quattro fans,

Please forgive the NAC, and also posting to the three lists I subscribe to, but I saw 
something last night that is starting to disturb me.  Let me start by saying that I am a 
quattroholic, currently owning a '95 S6 Avant, a '91 200 TQ 20V and an '83 ur.  I've had a 
total of 8 Audis (7 quattros) in my driving career and have loved every one of them.  That 
said, I just watched "Who Killed the Electric Car" last night and I found it quite 
compelling.  I also found it quite disturbing.  If you haven't watched it yet, I suggest, 
even for entertainment sake, that you go and rent it.  Now, I'm not one of those 
"conspiracy" types, but I find it quite troubling to know that we, the car buying public, 
are not given the option of purchasing a different propulsion technology for our 
transportation that would seem on the surface to be very economical, reliable, "emissions 
free" (I put that in quotes on purpose....of course I know it takes either nuclear, 
natural gas or coal to make the el
 ectricity to charge the damn things,) etc.  The fact that the major automobile 
manufacturers have gone to great lengths to destroy every last EV they had made makes for 
some interesting "conspiracy" thoughts in my mind.  What are they trying to hide?

My intent here is merely to provoke some mindful thought about what we, as consumers, are 
facing in the real world when faced with high gas and oil prices (while oil companies are 
enjoying record profits), environmental pollution from oil and gas spills, and not to 
mention Global Warming due to internal combustion engine exhaust, (I'm not even going to 
go into the geo-political conflicts costing American lives in the oil-rich Middle East.) 
And to also inform people that there are (were) other viable options available as recently 
as 5-10 years ago that could possibly have kept us from the possible environmental 
predicament we are currently facing.  Am I willing to give up my trio of quattros at the 
moment?  No, but I am thinking of the possibilites of transforming a 4000 quattro to 
electric power sometime in the future........the technology is there to do it.

I invite all thought provoking criticism, constructive and otherwise.......

Best regards to all,

Jim Fleischer
'95 S6 Avant
'91 200TQ
'83 ur 



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