or a Volt unless you drive the latter in gas mode always. In addition, natural is closer to be a source of energy than electricity is. Buy the way, last time I checked, electricity is not a source of energy: you need to expend energy to produce it. Solar electricity is highly efficient in the outer space, but not down here on earth where there is an atmosphere. Besides, there are many places on earth where they get to see The Sun only a few days a year. EV technologies would make perfect sense with nuclear power plants, but after what happened in Japan, they are not expected to proliferate in at least 100 years. IMHO, the future car will be hybrid with a natural gas engine long before it is purely EV. EV car manufacturers will have to

Going green is not exactly the business or a car manufacturer's CEO, but consumers wanting better gas mileage in their cars today is. Despite the fact that I like green technologies or I dislike the oil business, I recognize that the CEO in question might have a point in what he said. In fact, EV technologies or solar technologies are not immediately available to all kind of consumers today, regardless of whether they have the money in their bank accounts or not. Simply put: people who live in apartment buildings in cities (the majority perhaps with no roof to install solar panels and have to park their car hundreds of yards away from home in the open with no electrical outlet available) are not going to want to buy a Tesla or a Volt unless

mass will always matter i.e. two batteries made of the same chemicals, the one with bigger mass will obviously deliver more energy. The future of a long range EV will happen in a vehicle where the entire body, structures and frames are "the batteries", and battery miniaturization will have a key role to achieve that goal as well as to optimize power weight ratio of future Ev's. IMO, power and top speed are OK for today's Ev's. Range is the issue. Extending the range up to 500 miles at a power rate that will allow Ev's cruise at highways' speed limits will put Ev's right on the money.

The advantages of high power micro-batteries are many. Smaller sizes will make it easier to use them as vehicle structures like frames and bodies, similar to what they do with carbon fiber nowadays. The disadvantages of batteries are pretty much the same as those of gasoline. They both store potential energy. According to energy conservation you can never get more than what you put into your system. A fully loaded battery or a full tank of gas is going to deliver a certain( fixed)amount of energy (no more or less). It is up to the user how he/she wants that energy to be delivered (rate). If you maximize power energy spending is high and depletion comes sooner. If you reduce spending then you will simply save more for later. For a battery

GM and Ford should invest in perfecting the CVT's (by far simpler than their counterparts) instead of keeping adding gears, with the extra weight, size, and increasing lubrication issues they will bring along.

If the numbers are good, it's going to be a good buy at a price under $30grand. As far as looks (IMO) I think it's beginning to look like an American SUV.

and GPS will eliminate heavy and expensive cabins, and drivers. The flow of freight will have less interruptions as autopilots don't need to stop to rest or to grab a bite at convenience stores...

"But it's also really, really heavy--up to 80,000 pounds, for a fully-loaded trailer. That's around 36 tons, which puts some perspective on how hard each of those gallons are working"
The curb weight of a semi truck ranges between 15000Lbs and 20000lbs (7-9ton resp.). I am not sure those numbers include the weight of the usual tween tanks worth 200gal of diesel...there seems to be a direct relationship between freight weight and curb weight able to handle such weight increase. With gas prices increasing by the minute, I dare to say that extinction of the semi truck is around the corner. Electric motors coupled to wheels will eliminate the big diesel engines with the big transmissions, big differentials. The use and perfection of autopilots

being able to restart without apparent reason. ...(please, excuse my mistakes) thanks!

@JB: Thank you for the input. My dad use to be a mechanic of big diesel engines (buses and trucks) all his life and my uncle used to be a semi driver his entire life as well. For sure, I own my addiction to motoring to them. That happened in Cuba, where we do not have 4 seasons: it is warm all year long. I remember making the comment with them (that could have happened well over 50 years ago) about leaving the engines idling on big buses and trucks day after day, and they replied to me that it would not affect the diesel engine at all, on the contrary, it would benefit fuel consumption, oil and water pumps, fuel injectors, etc. There always have been a fear, they said, about big diesel engines about not starting when they are cold, or not