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"         Last fall, I had the opportunity to attend one of the early screenings of Revenge of the Electric Car, a documentary by Chris Paine of Who Killed the Electric Car fame. It was held at the Nuart Theater in West Los Angeles and you could tell the house was packed with electric car aficionados by the way they would boo and hiss at gasoline-powered cars and cheer the pronouncements of EV mavens, reacting much in the same way as those attending melodramas would react to villains and heroes.   Overall, though, I found the film, which has great production values for a documentary, enlightening, upbeat and generally balanced in its portrayal of the development of the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf as well as the efforts of Tesla and a backyard EV tinkerer known as Gadget.   The only issue I have with the overriding theme of the movie is the belief that the future of the automobile will be all electric. It just isn&amp;#039;t going to happen.   First off, such a vision requires replacing the installed fleet of 250 million cars and trucks in the United States. Given that new vehicle sales are running at roughly 12 million or so per year, all cars being sold would have to be electric or hybrid and given an average vehicle life span of 10 years, it would take at least two decades to completely change over the fleet.   On top of that, there is a tremendous infrastructure in place (gas stations and repair shops) to keep these more traditional vehicles on the road. So the overall complexion of the kinds of cars you encounter on your daily commute probably won&amp;#039;t change much for the foreseeable future.   That&amp;#039;s not to say there isn&amp;#039;t a place for electrics, hybrids and even fuel-cell vehicles. It&amp;#039;s just that they won&amp;#039;t reach the masses the same way conventional gasoline power has for more than a century.   What the future may hold is a scenario where electric alternatives are roughly analogous in market penetration to traditional performance cars. People who buy Volts or Leafs and so on are more taken with the idea of driving such a vehicle rather than outright practicality. In the case of pure electrics, there is the range issue and the fact that you need to add a higher output charging station to your home if you want to reduce plug-in time. Hybrids add cost and complexity with their auxiliary powerplants. Yes, in many instances you will get better mileage, but the outlays involved are certainly higher than with a traditional gasoline or diesel vehicle.   Right now, all these vehicles, even with the controversial $7500 federal tax credit, command premiums over standard cars. So the reasons behind owning a Fisker Karma or a Tesla Roadster are not very different from the desires of someone who owns a Lamborghini or Bentley. The passion on display by those who cheer The Revenge of the Electric Car is just a newer form of automotive enthusiasm, albeit one more focused on the technology employed than the joy of going fast.   So, these new electrics and hybrids and fuel cells should be welcomed rather than trashed by old-school enthusiasts for two reasons. The first is that some of this technology has obvious spin-offs in the performance realm, as witnessed by the Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid racer and Honda&amp;#039;s new SH-AWD system, both of which use electric motors to improve handling. But more important is that these new eco enthusiasts embrace rather than eschew the concept of the personal car and the mobility it brings. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a17998/dawn-of-the-eco-enthusiast/>