I drove a Prius from 2001-2004, then I was hoping for a North American hybrid - are you kidding; I was derided and discouraged by dealers from trying to buy a hybrid - trying to sell me a bigger car or CUV; now they're hurting, they thought who wants economical cars. Then I got a Focus, because they still were not ready; now I have Cobalt, because they still don't have one! And I will not buy one anymore from them until they have a plug-in hybrid! (when I'm working again) I loved the Prius.
I've read bunch of books like 'The Electric Dreams', 'The Car That Could' and many more car history and conversion books. I am mad at the oilies, the big 3, and government policies; rather politics or money greediness versus planet health.
I feel guilty running these short trips around town polluting with a cold engine mostly because they're short trips. A Cobalt is too heavy and uneconomical - so are others, never getting the rated fuel economy in city or on highway. When you try hard by accelerating slower and driving speed limits, even in town, I hate it when you are constantly being tailgated by angry impatient SUV and large pickup drivers. It doesn't make sense to buy a recent car, paying for all the ICE and everything else that goes with it and then (throw) it out. I'm trying to find a recent upto ~10 year old small light car (upto 1200kg curbweight) with good body, chassis, suspension manual transmission, bad or blown engine or expensive ICE (internal combustion engine) repair so that I'm not paying for what I don't need as much as possible.
I know it is a big project, and I may pretty much 'trade' in a 2006 Torrent or 2007 Cobalt to get EV done.
Electronis, electrical controls is what I know and I have time now to do it. I hate to know that US and Canada have the worst fuel economy in the world and 200 million CO2 spewing boxes running around aimlessly and increasing. Thank God it finally slowed down.
An Inconvenient Truth is that we are recking the planet for our kids and grandkids as if we didn't care!
So why buy another foreign car when there are so many domestic cars sitting around, not being repaired or E-tested because its to expensive to do so. There are just too many parts prone to brake in ICE car, too much maintenance, too much pollution. I'm going to take one of those and stop it. It will help but not be enough to curb the wasting of earth, but together we can make a difference.