But in practice there is some tension. Perhaps the most horrifying thing I heard at the conference was from Honda VP John Mendel, whose presentation was full of canned auto industry weaseling and dissembling. After reviewing all of the technological options Honda is pursuing, he said that the one they're most committed to is fuel cells, because (paraphrasing from memory) "fuel cell cars most accurately replicate the characteristics of internal combustion engine cars."
Is that really the extent of our ambition? To switch out the internal combustion engine for some other widget and otherwise keep on motoring as usual? To maintain the patterns of land use and development we have, simply with cars that emit less pollution? The poverty of that vision is tragic .
Grist
