There is an irony here, in that General Motors has what should be considered the single most advanced fuel cell/electric platform in the world. Nobody, repeat, nobody, has anything even remotely close to it. It is a flat out engineering marvel. Its called the skateboard platform. Google it.

The sad part is that GM has had this platform for years, but shelved it because they were addicted to the profits they earned on SUVs. Its time to dust off the skateboard platform and start building cars on it.

The 2088 video was interesting, but what they forgot to mention was virtual reality. It is highly likely that by that time we will all be so plugged into our mighty-mini-computers that while we will still have domestic lives and enjoy local physical interactions, anything farther than a walk will be virtually accessible- work sites, vacations, conferences, etc... it will all be immersive, total virtual reality, Matrix-like. All the frenetic traveling that we now do will be a thing of the past... something for documentarians and adventurers.

I've never watched a car commercial before without feeling like a few moments of my life had gone to waste.

Aside from a very lucky few, anybody who is any good at anything sucked at it first. A failure is only such if one doesn't learn anything from it. Hence, fewer failures = less learned.

I love and hate Honda. We own two. Both compared to similar Toyota's are noisy inside, but otherwise have about the same performance, reliability and high re-sale value.

Honda came to market first with a hybrid some five years ago (longer?), but has really not made any significant progress across their product line. On top of that, all the vehicles in their Acura line are overweight gas guzzlers that require premium fuel.

Honda is a good company, but I see it and Toyota (Nissan hasn't made any progress at all) getting lapped very soon unless they equip their lines with something other than the underpowered hybrid engines they have now. Hybrids are a good idea whose time passed about fifteen years ago, and because none currently available will run more than 20mph on their electric motors (who travels anywhere except out of their driveway below 25mph?) all they are at this point are really expensive environmental window dressing.

Perhaps not the response you were expecting, but with the Tesla company in LA able to produce battery powdered sports car as fast as any Porsche and our government, the Big Three, and the Big Three in Japan apparently ignoring their technology, I have little hope for improving our motoring future, regardless of how attractive the advertising.

"Perhaps if Detroit had more aggressively attempted to develop hybrids and electric cars..."

No doubt in my mind, none at all. It's not just that they didn't do that, it's their whole mindset of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result - that so contrasts with what Honda are espousing. Over and over again we see companies make the fatal mistake of slashing innovation and development when times get hard, when those are just the things that will pull a company out of the mire.

"The only person who never made a mistake is the person who never did anything significant"

(That's the cleaned-up version).

"Be creative: Make a different mistake each time."

"If nobody does it that way, there may be a very good reason".

"Nothing is ever difficult for the person who doesn't have to do the work"

That's great. Thanks for posting them.