We’ve said it before, but it’s still true that when people think of electric cars, they picture - with no offense intended to electric car hobbyists - hopeless tragedies like the dorkmobile to the right of this sentence. But the basic idea of a plug-in electric vehicle still has some promise; San Diego Gas & Electric conducted a yearlong study that, in the end, “confirmed the viability of electricity as a clean and low-cost transportation fuel.”

More specifically, the study showed impressive reductions in tailpipe emissions and in tailpipe emissions and overall fuel costs with a plug-in hybrid compared to a standard hybrid model. The study converted two 2007-model standard hybrid vehicles to run on lithium-ion batteries; the modified cars “achieved a 60% increase in gas mileage, a 37% decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) tailpipe emissions, and an 18% reduction in fuel costs.” By the time these things hit showrooms in 2010, the efficiencies are projected to be even higher than they are now.

And that’s compared to a hybrid. You can imagine how it must look next to a regular car. Actually, you don’t have to, because the study shows that fuel cost savings can jump as high as 57% when compared to a standard gasoline-fueled vehicle.

This is exciting news for consumers; not only has hybrid vehicle technology resurrected the left-for-dead idea of the electric car, but the aesthetic advances made since the electric car’s heyday could change its stock image from that Easter egg up top to something like the Tesla Roadster, or even something from our list of suggestions (pts. I and II).

Occasionally we remember that there’s a world beyond America. Not only that, but it’s a world that looks at things like ethanol differently than us. Brazil, for example, has seen ethanol overtake gasoline as their automotive fuel of choice, and by a significant margin. The Wall Street Journal reports that “gasoline is fast becoming the country’s alternative fuel…thanks in part to consumer demand and Brazil’s automakers.” It helps that ethanol is much cheaper than gas there, and flex-fuel cars are very popular with Brazilian consumers.

We’re wondering what effect Brazil’s success with ethanol will have on America - Brazil is already badgering us to lower our Brazilian ethanol tariff. We here at Corn Car aren’t so sure about that one, though. Not to sound too isolationist or anything, but relying on currently inexpensive foreign ethanol might be a retread of our relationship with the Saudis, where they made oil so cheap that we let our plans for energy independence wither on the vine. It’s also worth noting that the human and environmental cost of their progress has been largely ignored by Brazilian agribusiness.

However, Americans are still timidly chugging along. U.S. corn growers are mostly in favor of mid-level ethanol blends for flex-fuel cars. Blender pumps, which “adjust the mixture of fuel at the gas pump, drawing ethanol…and unleaded gasoline from separate underground tanks and mixing them according to the driver’s selection,” are gaining popularity in South Dakota and Kansas, where there’s currently a big push to install them in service stations. Check out Driving Ethanol for more information about it, and try to spread this around where you live. Unless you live in Brazil. You guys don’t need the help.

Add Gulf Ethanol to the list of companies expanding into third-generation feedstocks; Marketwatch reports that “Gulf is now expanding…beyond sorghum and corn to sawdust, switchgrass and grass clippings,” and plans to open a full-scale processing plant by November. As we all know, most food doesn’t have sawdust or grass clippings in it (the jury is still out on Treet), so the current oil industry chestnut of greedy ethanol advocates twirling their handlebar mustaches as food prices soar ever higher won’t work once cellulosic ethanol production gets going.

Another benefit to new, inedible biofuel sources will be the end of baseless smartassery like this cartoon. Not that political cartoons have ever been considered the height of reasoned discourse, but cheap emotional appeals bother us, especially when they take the issue as far afield as the “OMG STARVING CHILDREN” brigade does. We prefer the much more subtle, refined image of hot girls when we need to apply a visual element to an otherwise abstract or complex idea. But maybe that’s just us.

But we digress. Excelsior to Gulf for keeping the ethanol party going, and hopefully they’ll be rolling out quantifiable results by year’s end.

While the rest of the country freaks out about Obama’s stupid but ultimately inconsequential “lipstick on a pig” comment, we’d like to mention that he, unlike John McCain, supports the ethanol mandate. Obama has plainly stated his views on the subject, noting that he is “strongly committed to advancing biofuels as a key component of reducing our dependence on foreign oil.”

Now, we understand that ethanol is kind of our bag here at Corn Car, and we don’t want to come off like single-issue voters who can’t see the big picture, but almost the entire aim of our foreign policy over the last fifty years has been about access to fuel. It’s gotten us into some trouble recently, and the disgusting contraption of profiteering and corruption beneath it has been exposed in the process.

And not only that, but the inevitability of global warming and its effects on the weather could very seriously impact fuel imports. When Ethanol Producer Magazine’s Mike Bryan says, referring to Hurricane Gustav, that “the fact that a hurricane could disrupt 25 percent of the energy supply of an entire nation is troubling,” he’s raising a candid point that few others have brought up, and is underlining why we can’t base our entire fuel supply on imports. And, less directly, why we can’t depend on just oil anymore. So the ethanol mandate represents, to us anyway, a willingness to accept our fuel crisis for what it is and build towards a longterm plan to fix it. And as we see it, Obama comes the closest to commanding that kind of vision.

Anyway, enough of all that. Time for a cartoon.

Happy September! You all just missed one of our birthdays, but - believe it or not - there are more important things to discuss than cake and our Rex Tillerson-shaped pinata. This is an election year, by God, and while we’re not telling you to vote for Obama, we’re definitely suggesting you steer clear of John McCain. It’s bad enough that he’s a crazy, warmongering old man who lives in a primordial swamp of ignorance regarding most social issues and is shedding integrity by the day as he bends over backwards for the same people who called him a disgrace and a (*gasp*) miscegenator in 2000. And we’ll leave his snowbilly, aging-prom-queen VP nominee out of this, too.

What really pushed us away from McCain is his energy policy, which includes ending the ethanol mandate despite overwhelming proof that it’s not really affecting food prices. Apparently the market will settle our fuel crisis, because it’s been doing such a bang-up job lately.

Thankfully, not all Republicans are lockstep behind him on this one. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa noted that “if we didn’t have mandates, we wouldn’t have the vibrant energy business we have right now.” Even President Bush, a man who built his reputation on catastrophic judgment, disagrees with McCain here.

It isn’t enough to just throw alternative fuels out into the wilderness and expect to build the momentum we need. Real time and real money and real policy have to be invested into weaning ourselves off oil. That McCain refuses to understand this exemplifies why he shouldn’t be president. Ever.