[sheepdog 44]

^Thats a good idea Pete C about direct drive and serial battery charging! It would eliminate the poor highway mpg notorious of serial hybrids running on gas.

Along with Serial, i think there'll also be a gas (or diesel) version. High efficiency at low cost makes an even better return on your investment. That is if they can source a good engine. The automatic smart engine version can get 89mpg highway and leave other cars in the dust. Though i think a Prius like hybrid version with -1kwh hybrid pack wouldn't make sense. If you add $5,000 worth of hybrid electronics and batteries you will save so little gas by volume, that you won't make it up for a decade.

Say 50/89/70 mpg city/highway/combined on a Gas version, and an astronomical 120mpg combined on a hybrid version. At 15,000 miles a year it's $863(gas) - $500(hybrid) = $363 savings a year, making the return 13.6 years at 206,000 miles. If you drove cross country regularly, and therefore accumulated astronomical miles, a diesel would still be best as a hybrid still can't touch the mpg of a diesel cruising on the highway. One of Oliver Kuttners blogs even said that a 2,000lb gasoline Prius would get the same mpg as the hybrid version.

However, in 200,000 miles you would have used 58% less fuel and saved 1,400 gallons of gas from being burned.

The point being that a primarily electric serial hybrid would fill the niche for someone who wanted to burn nearly zero foreign oil, save the environment, and drive high technology. A simple, cheap and reliable gas or diesel option would suffice for everyone else.

The good thing is that the car literally sells itself! It's a given your going to need a car, but a VLC will literally save you over $1,000 a year over a similar conventional car. Who doesn't want a free vacation every year? Nearly a years worth of free groceries?

And once you can actually buy the thing, the Big 3 are going to be in Big trouble.