Who is surprised by this? Dinosaurs? There's freaking parks dedicated to looking at dinosaurs that drowned in the abundant petroleum deposits.

Awwww, we're not talking about Los Angeles. Really, Houston is the electric car capital now? Huh.

It's awfully lonely in here.

Hi

Is that better or do you need a hug?

Pffft, whatever. I tow a Prius behind my bicycle.

free electric charging stations in my fair city?

Bring on the Tesla S! (new window)

//Commutes in a Prius

not too much of a surprise, though i think the writers never actually been down here

Buster Hermano: Pffft, whatever. I tow a Prius behind my bicycle.

That's not very earth-friendly. You should tow a Tesla Roadster instead.

tanman1975: free electric charging stations in my fair city?

Bring on the Tesla S! (new window)

//Commutes in a Prius

we actually have a v ery active electric car club down here.

It seems to me that oil companies are as aware anyone else that we will have to move beyond petroleum in the near future, and are positioning themselves for the transition.

DRTFA

Why not Houston? Its economy is based on energy production, and as the article pointed out, that means all sorts of energy. Texas is expanding its atomic power capacity with two more reactors at Comanche Peak, near Glen Rose, and four more at two new sites in Texas. The South Texas Project (STP) has already submitted an application for expansion of its Matagorda County facility. (new window)

Think what you will of Texas and Texans, but they get it about energy and they aren't afraid to get sh*t done.

I'm sure environmentalists are happy that a city is adopting electric cars no matter where it is. People like the subby are just always ready to jump into any situation and turn it into a fight. Relax, this is a good thing.

raygundan:
That's not very earth-friendly. You should tow a Tesla Roadster instead.


I can't; there's too much sunshine coming out of my ass.

loonatic112358:
we actually have a v ery active electric car club down here.

Sadly, i average around 45 miles per gallon whereas my pops averages 49 in his in mountainous Virginia. I attribute it to traffic running at 70 mph on the highway here.

So the Prius isn't all electric, but at least it can double as a fairly quiet generator next time a Hurricane hits.

Maybe Houstonians are just tired of living in proximity to things that can blow them up.

Buster Hermano: raygundan:
That's not very earth-friendly. You should tow a Tesla Roadster instead.


I can't; there's too much sunshine coming out of my ass.

then you better be towing that new prius with solar panels on the roof

tanman1975: loonatic112358:
we actually have a v ery active electric car club down here.

Sadly, i average around 45 miles per gallon whereas my pops averages 49 in his in mountainous Virginia. I attribute it to traffic running at 70 mph on the highway here.

So the Prius isn't all electric, but at least it can double as a fairly quiet generator next time a Hurricane hits.

in houston you'd be better off with a diesel vw bug then a prius

FTFA: "On Tuesday, Mayor Bill White and local electricity retailer Reliant Energy launched a plug-in hybrid program that includes 10 vehicle-charging stations around the city."

Ummmm, 10 - wow.

Another article:"Next year, Seattle will be one of five cities to get 2,500 charging stations under a $100 million federal grant . . . About 600 electric vehicles are estimated to be in King County now, although Seattle has the nation's largest chapter of the Electric Vehicle Association."

Link (new window)

Sorry to break it to you Houston, you're not the electric car capitol of the nation.

The first 5 comments in this thread farking crack me up.

MrSteve007: Sorry to break it to you Houston, you're not the electric car capitol of the nation.

seattle is a bunch of slackers
/kidding, it's good

building done yet:?

I wonder if this is guilt driven.

Oil companies pay well. Employees know they work in an industry polluting the planet. Employees use extra cash to ease their concience.

Flogster: I wonder if this is guilt driven.

Oil companies pay well. Employees know they work in an industry polluting the planet. Employees use extra cash to ease their concience.

That's what we call "projecting."

That article made me chuckle. It mentioned the Chevy Volt in a way that implied that GM might actually intend to start selling them.

nutkick_42: That article made me chuckle. It mentioned the Chevy Volt in a way that implied that GM might actually intend to start selling them.

Oh, they'll start selling them, and probably even somewhere close to their intended launch date. I'm sure they'll get 20, maybe even 30 off the assembly line for 2010. Maybe another dozen or two produced in 2011 - and the entire time, we'll be inundated with advertising of their claim of selling the cleanest car the world has ever seen. Will you or I be able to acquire one? No. Much like the fabled Honda Clarity.

ne2d:
That's what we call "projecting."

I call it a wild ass guess.

Guido thread?

Farkn Yaj Yenrac: The first 5 comments in this thread farking crack me up.

I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN!

/cries

The tears of the clown make the whole world laugh.

Why is this a surprise? Not only do they get more money to distill more oil in order to make all the fancy polymers required by these high-capacity electric car batteries, but they also sell more fuel oil in the long run to the electric power plants, to burn in their generators so the cars can be recharged, than they could selling it directly to the drivers.

Best of all, they get to proclaim themselves all the greener for it. A win-win for the oil industry!

Um... I think a New Jersey beach would be pretty barren in March. Being winter and all. Or is the submitter trying to infer that there are oil spills along the east during spring break? I'm confused.

/pope shiat in the woods?
//make like a banana and leave?

Really Subby? A greasy Guido joke? Just because they are grease ball douchebags doesn't mean you have to rub it in.

Tatterdemalian: Why is this a surprise? Not only do they get more money to distill more oil in order to make all the fancy polymers required by these high-capacity electric car batteries, but they also sell more fuel oil in the long run to the electric power plants, to burn in their generators so the cars can be recharged, than they could selling it directly to the drivers.

Best of all, they get to proclaim themselves all the greener for it. A win-win for the oil industry!

That's a great idea, except for the part of having no basis in reality. Oil sourced energy represents 0.8% of total US electricity generation. And a large majority of that is for Hawaii.

DOE Source (new window)

Quick question - is New Jersey the Staten Island of America, or is Staten Island the New Jersey of New York City?

/okay, two questions - can it be both?

Houston could have a flagship energy company with a name like:
Engeryinc
EnergyOnly
EnergyOnly
EnergyOnly

Yeah, EnrOn, that'd put Houston on the map.

raygundan: Awwww, we're not talking about Los Angeles. Really, Houston is the electric car capital now? Huh.

As far as energy dominance, yeah, Houston has been the leader for awhile now and they're only becoming more-so especially near the energy triad, it's were the big money and funding's at. It's where all the moneys at, well... in normal times, right now, like LA, or any in large USA city, Houston's experiencing some major unemployment pains. Knowing some people in BP, and that their building a huge trading building in their business park right now, and further that they're actively moving people from their former dominant northern establishments down to Houston, it seems Houston's future looks pretty bright, LA not so much.

It's only natural to assume that these people want the same oligopoly on green energy as they have on oil and other gases. The biggest expanding departments of Shell, BP, and other major energy players and the many many large companies separate from the triad that deal with transportation energy distribution, gas station manufactures for pumps and and the like, is green energy, the thought that they seem someone like Betterplace establish a working business model in their field with tech that's inevitably a computer to their typewriter, and be working on nothing themselves is utterly silly.

In fact while I was growing up my friends Dad's company based out of Houston, was selling the first, and had patents all over the first, hydrogen and electric filling market test-stations in California. I've grown up around this stuff, my own dad had one of the first hydrogen pump nozzles in his office because he had to use it in demonstrations, it's no surprise to me at all. Hell, in the 90's I remember walking around their building looking at model cut-away of hydrogen storage tanks.

So, surprising, no, maybe to crackpot people who like to think of those in the energy triad industrial/business complex as dogmatically anti-progressive super-greedy industrialists, and forget that the first truly economically feasible means of green transport has as much money in it or more than the original oil boom did. There's some cognitive dissonance in holding those two things true, also, at large, businessmen are nihilists relative to money making potentials not dogmatically anti-progressive, you need to think that these guys got were they are by being bad at seeing fore-trends.

Hell, we all know T-Boone Pickens will be for anything like this considering the larger plan involves his windmills and burning through his and other gigantic reserves of Texas natural gas to produce the energy. That's also something to make all the "small" (not really at all, just compared to the major players) drillers and exploratory companies, and utility energy companies happy. Sure there are some companies which don't see a sustainable future for themselves in green tech and they'll fight against it, but change is inevitable and the majority of the players understand and wish to take as much advantage of this as possible because they see a $better$ future in it for themselves.

subby fail


headline fta: Will Houston Become an Electric-Car Capital?