I’m no different from anyone else.

Increasing gas prices put a burden on my monthly budget and leave a gaping dark void in my wallet. As someone who travels the highway, byways and back roads at times for my job, watching the numbers on the pump whirl by while I’m filling my tank makes me as dizzy as a third-grader on an out-of-control merry-go-round.

For financial reasons and with Al Gore haunting my environmental conscience like Scrooge’s ghost from Christmas past, I’m curious about hybrid vehicles, but unlike picking up a loaf of bread a couple of times a week, buying a new car isn’t a purchase I make frequently or take lightly.

It will probably still be a couple of years before I purchase my next auto (barring a lottery ticket miracle), but it’s never too soon to start dreaming about and checking into the ever-changing upgrades in green technology.

The latest news is a blast from the past. Make that a blast from World War I. How does that saying go, “Everything old is new again.” General Motors isn’t reinventing the wheel, they’re just using changing the power that turns the wheel.

It seems most hybrids use the rechargeable battery-powered electric engines as a supplement to the gas engine. In the GM concept car called the Volt (aren’t they clever, these car naming folks), the electric engine will actually turn the wheels. The gas engine can recharge the batteries or they can be plugged into a 110-volt outlet.

That process, minus plugging into a wall outlet of course, was used by U.S. submarines during the first big war to power through the deep blue sea. Who knew Woodrow Wilson’s men behind the scenes in the defense department would be influencing a greener future?

Granted zero to 60 in 8.5 seconds isn’t going to blow John Force off the drag strip, but a full recharge will average about 88 cents instead of a gasoline fill-up for the equivalent of one week’s salary. A fully-charged battery and with the tank filled to its 12-gallon capacity, the Volt is supposed to be able to travel 640 miles. Do the math on that and you get 53 miles per gallon. Nothing to sneeze at.

General Motors is hoping for a 2010 rollout with its Chevy models.

Image: iOffer

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