Even with ~80% of electricity coming from coal power plants, driving electric vehicles puts less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than does driving gasolene vehicles. Also, it will be much easier removing carbon dioxide from at a power plant than at the exhaust pipe of millions of vehicles.
Hybrid cars can travel further between refueling than pure electric cars. Electric cars will be used for local transportation, but consumers will purchase hybrid cars for both local and long-distance travel.
The ICE for a hybrid car will need to run on biofuels. The best biofuel is biodiesel, not ethanol. Biodiesel hybrids will eventually become the personal car of choice.
The ultimate car for personal transportation will be a plug-in biodiesel hybrid.
As of 24 September 2010 there were 62,114 hybrid vehicles registered in Virginia; 98 of which were registered in Blacksburg. That is, 0.16% of hybrid vehicles in Virginia are in Blacksburg. Blacksburg has about 0.54% of the population of Virginia.
L. David Roper, http://arts.bev.net/roperldavid/