Mr. LINKVOLT & I

I am pretending to interview Neil Young, the socially conscious artist who moved a 15 year-old to sing “old man, look at my life, I’m a lot like you were…” I have to pretend, because I actually haven’t tried to interview the man who made such a great impression on me then, and who continues […]

Oil Prices Fall (again)

Great news! Oil production is up, and the cost of oil is down. So everyone can feel better as they pay less to fill their gas tank. It’s the free market solution to every crisis: produce more, so you can sell more, so you can make more money. It doesn’t really matter if this behavior […]

Fisker Failing, Detroit Rising

Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automotive industry by launching one of the most expensive cars on the market. But in 1908, the technology was simple and the marketplace in its infancy. Nonetheless, the “car for the great multitude” was priced for success and more than 15,000,000 were sold. Fisker faced a much different world when […]

Care to Exchange A Proton or Two?

Which makes more sense: recharging a plug-in electric vehicle using the established electrical grid, or building a massive infrastructure to dispense hydrogen for fuel cell-powered vehicles? I remember back in 2000 when everyone was suggesting it was the latter. Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells were all the rage, and I was watching one company in […]

Welcome to My Driveway

A fossil-fueled car is essentially an oil tanker on wheels. And when oil tankers get old, they leak. Just take a look at my driveway. Or the grocery store parking lot. A drip or two, over time, multiplied by millions of vehicles, and you’ve got environmental impact. Some older, poorly maintained vehicles are more like […]

How Far Can You Go?

The Holy Grail of every electric vehicle is range. From the promised 300+ mile range of the Tesla Model S to the potential 73 mile range of the Nissan Leaf, the average driver wants to know how far the vehicle can go before it has to be recharged. (Not that he will very often go […]

ZAAPED!

I think Zap Electric is not a real car company, but a stock scam. I could be wrong, but I’ve been watching this company for a very long time. They’ve been talking about producing real cars for years, as opposed to their little three-wheeled Xebras that can barely go 25 miles at at top speed […]

The Road Electric