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Why Honda's Unloading Electric Cars for Cheap - Businessweek

When Honda Motor (HMC) introduced its all-electric Fit EV in July 2012, it set a modest goal of delivering 1,100 of the lease-only cars in two years. Yet through May, the company had found just 176 takers for the plug-in. Consumers didn’t leap to pay $389 a month for a subcompact that can go only about 82 miles before it needs recharging, especially when the gas-powered version gets 30 miles a gallon and costs half as much. General Motors (GM), maker of the plug-in Chevy Volt hybrid, and Nissan Motor (7201), which makes the all-electric Leaf, have also seen sales fall short of their goals.

This is a problem for automakers under increasing pressure to push zero-emission vehicles on skeptical consumers. Nine states, including New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, have followed California’s lead in requiring that electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen-powered models make up 15 percent of new-car sales and leases by 2025. They’ve got a long way to go: About one-third of 1 percent of the 6.4 million new vehicles sold in the first five months of 2013 were zero-emission, says the National Automobile Dealers Association...One thing that’s working: leasing the cars at fire sale prices. With a two-year supply of Fit EVs sitting on dealer lots, Honda cut its 36-month lease rate in June by about one-third, to $259 a month, with no down payment and unlimited mileage.

NWF: Climate Change Threatens North Carolina Birds

Longer summers and shorter winters are also impacting most of the birds studied, because of the time they have to reproduce and the amount of food available.  [Longer summers give birds less time to reproduce?  Really?]

NO! Conservatives are NOT making an argument for a carbon tax | JunkScience.com

Neither Eli Lehrer nor Bob Inglis are not any sort of conservative that we recognize.

One of the worst Antarctic storms to hit New Zealand in decades

“Metservice principal scientist Dr Mike Revell said the storm would be “up there with the one or two worst snow events” he was aware of since becoming a meteorologist in 1976.