Yes, the Volt is green, but it costs $41,000, requires premium gasoline and "looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius"

GENERAL MOTORS introduced America to the Chevrolet Volt at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show as a low-slung concept car that would someday be the future of motorized transportation. It would go 40 miles on battery power alone, promised G.M., after which it would create its own electricity with a gas engine. Three and a half years — and one government-assisted bankruptcy later — G.M. is bringing a Volt to market that makes good on those two promises. The problem is, well, everything else.

For starters, G.M.’s vision turned into a car that costs $41,000 before relevant tax breaks ... but after billions of dollars of government loans and grants for the Volt’s development and production. And instead of the sleek coupe of 2007, it looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius. It also requires premium gasoline, seats only four people (the battery runs down the center of the car, preventing a rear bench) and has less head and leg room than the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze, which is more or less the non-electric version of the Volt.

In short, the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build. Unfortunately for this theory, G.M. was already committed to the Volt when it entered bankruptcy. And though President Obama’s task force reported in 2009 that the Volt “will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term,” it didn’t cancel the project.

Nor did the government or G.M. decide to sell the Volt at a loss, which, paradoxically, might have been the best hope for making it profitable.

Energy prices falling; world may be "awash in oil

From UK Telegraph

"...you have probably missed one of the biggest pieces of good economic news to emerge recently: energy prices are coming down, in some cases to record lows. Furthermore, even if prices start to recover, they are not likely to return to the ridiculous levels of 2008 any day soon.

This is excellent news, of great import. The trend for gas and electricity bills is downwards; diesel is back at the same price as regular gasoline; the world is practically choking on gas, and is potentially awash with oil.

The main international gas price has this week fallen to a record low, due to a surplus of new resources from North America. Even the stubbornly high oil price has dropped. On Tuesday next week, the main energy suppliers are going to have to explain to the energy regulator why they have not passed this on to consumers. The answer, they tell me, is that they are about to do so, just as soon as they have worked through old gas bought at last year's higher wholesale prices."