Major Carmaker to End Production of Gas-Fueled Vehicles?

I'm glad to be able to be here, and glad to read the writings of our more dedicated and serious blogger-journalists, particularly at the sad moment in American journalistic history, when the news is dumb, compromised (don't want to make anyone angry!), and even stupidly, conservatively spun by the newsreaders. Here's where I get some of the more important news the mainstream news programs seem unable and unwilling to report (*Gasp! Controversy?! *Gasp!!!)

So, after searching the tags, I'm happy to report this evolution in the world of automaking, which i first caught wind of via Wired.com: Mercedes-Benz sees the writing on the wall for the fossil-suel age, and rather than falling into a dangerous, petty, greed-based cucyle of denial, as so many other automakers have, they're taking steps to prepare for the emerging reality of the market.

Mercedes-Benz is ending its production of gasoline-fueled vehicles.

More sources:

The Christian Science Monitor.

The Sun.

AutoBlog Green.

It's smart, it might pinch a little, retooling the company's production lines to produce electric vehicles, predominantly, and end gas-powered vehicles, but they're doing it.

From Techblorge:

Mercedes Benz has announced the official end of their gas car manufacturing within seven years. That’s right, Mercedes Benz, maker of some of the world’s best, most reliable cars, has declared they will move their automobile focus away from the fossil fuel powered automobile.

Currently, Mercedes Benz makes a car called the SmartForTwo that is electric. They will focus on this electric line of cars, as well as other alternative fuel sources like bio fuels and fuel cells. Hopefully they will also bring their stunning eye for design to the alternative fuel auto market. It may be completely shallow of me, but half the reason I haven’t gone the way of the hybrid or electric car is how horrible they look.

So: Can American automakers find the stones to follow suit?

I honestly believe that they'll have to. The generations of denial, of pollution, of Global Climate Change, and of American dependance on foreign oil must end. We've known for more than 30 years what we need to do, and Americans simply have not stepped up. Perhaps with the end of the Bush-Cheney administration, a new kind of thinking will become more possible. Perhaps.

In any event, the move to a post-fossil-fuel future on the part of Mercedez-Benz is one we should welcome. It is possible to get off our addiction to foreign oil and, I think, to get away from fighting wars over oil and destabilizing the Middle East, as we have for decades, for the same reason.

Cheers!