On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:27:24 -0500, Peter H. Granzeau <pgranzeau at cox.net> wrote: > At 21:10 03/21/2005, Howard Brazee wrote: >> Hybrid cars are currently popular, but what's needed is hybrid diesel >> cars. >> Then we will get much better mileage and still be able to have safe >> power. > > Hybrid Diesel might have a few technical problems with all the starting > and stopping in city driving. In hybrids, gas engines are turned off at > every stop and on again when motion is resumed (which is one of the > reason they get better mileage in city than in country driving). > Diesels can't just be switched on and off that way. That's what trains and many busses are. They just don't turn off all the way. Googling, I see that current prototypes of cars such as the Civic hybrid aren't much more efficient than gasoline models, and not as efficient as natural gas. But diesel is available at the pumps. When you need to charge batteries, a constantly running generator has advantages over one that starts and stops a lot. -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/