"the most enviormently friendly solution is obviously leg power and more healthier too. That and public transport is how i get around."

Unfortunately most of the US landscape is optimized for and centered around cars. Public transport is too often a bad joke. In many cities walking or taking a bike is pretty close to suicidal. I rode a bike for several years, and this in a city with a considerable number of amenities for bike riders, and every few months the combination of roads lacking room for bikes and drivers unfamiliar with bikes meant I had another 'bump and grind' dance lesson. Nice road cherries and my girlfriend lovingly combing the gravel out of my hide. The joy. It was only luck and paranoia that prevented my getting seriously hurt. In the same time two friends, who also rode bicycles, had life-threatening accidents.

I tried the busses but after I was late twice, and my boss told me if I was late a third time not to come in, I gave up on that unreliable system. A lady who used the busses told me the only way to make it work here was to always plan on catching the bus before the last one you wanted. That way odds were you either arrived an hour ahead or just in time. I wasn't willing to invest the extra hour each way. To this day I see her waiting, and waiting, for a bus to take her where she wants to go. One day she waited three hours before giving up. The bus had broken down and it wasn't replaced. Such is the way of smaller bus systems. They often lack spare busses. I now have a vehicle and give her a ride when I can.

Funny, tragic really, how things work out. We created a car culture and road design and architecture adapt to accommodate cars while, in effect, excluding other means of transportation. Have you ever tried to do some banking or get a meal after hours? Drive-through on a bike can be entertaining.

Go to Europe and most cities are bike friendly. Most locations have multiple modalities. If you don't want to use a bike there are walkways, trolleys, busses and trains for longer trips. And, of course, a car if you have one. In the US you either have a car or, in most locations, your a second-class citizen.

For the time being I think that individually owned cars are the only practical solution. I would love to see it more humane and adapted like in Europe but it isn't happening and it doesn't look like it will any time soon.

I really think that until the American people are willing and able to make major changes what we really need is a cheap, simple, easy to work on, efficient, people transporter optimized for two people and a sack of groceries. The EV-1 would just about fit the bill to get you work-home-shopping. You just remember to plug it in at night, when the electric load is lighter. If you want to go out of state or haul cargo you rent a truck or car.

Hybrids are OK but they seem to me to be overly complicated. Trying to do it all they lose a lot of efficiency. If the trip could be done on battery power alone the hybrid is hauling around an engine. If it needs an engine to get he range it is hauling around a heavy battery bank. Electrical generation plants are quite efficient at producing power. It makes sense to use them when they aren't otherwise overloaded. Like at night when you car could be recharging. But the hybrid needlessly repeats the effort in most cases by hauling around it's own generation station. A cord and plug would be much simpler and far lighter.