I will buy a Google car!

Tuesday June 19, 2007 | | Permalink | Digg It

Now that Google has solved our mail, RSS reader, mapping, web analytics, calendar, and search issues (to name a few), I’m extremely hopeful that they will solve our fuel issues:

Google said Tuesday it is getting in on the development of electric vehicles, awarding $1 million in grants and inviting applicants to bid for another $10 million in funding to develop plug-in hybrid electric vehicles capable of getting 70 to 100 miles per gallon.

The project, called the RechargeIT initiative and run from Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, aims to further the development of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles – cars or trucks that have both a gasoline engine and advanced batteries that recharge by plugging into the nation’s electric grid.

“Since most Americans drive less than 35 miles per day, you easily could drive mostly on electricity with the gas tank as a safety net,” Dan Reicher, director of Climate and Energy Initiatives for Google.org, wrote on the organization’s Web site. “In preliminary results from our test fleet, on average the plug-in hybrid gas mileage was 30-plus mpg higher than that of the regular hybrids.”

Meanwhile, Ford is currently running TV commercials saying that all of their vehicles (including trucks) have gas mileage above 25mpg. Well, whoopty frickin doo! I had a 1972 Datsun 510 that got 40mpg, and a 1984 Honda CRX that got nearly 50mpg. And in case that doesn’t impress you, the 1908 Model-T Ford got 25mpg. Some quick math tells us that Ford has done absolutely nothing to improve gas mileage for the last 100 years. Makes you wonder if they have been in collusion with the oil companies for all of these years, no? American auto companies are going to disappear if they don’t pull their heads from their asses and stop touting their failures.

Commenting is closed for this article.