Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Atrios writes about the new Chevy Volt:

Plug-in hybrid car goes on sale next year. I don’t think “pure” electric vehicles will really be viable until the range goes up a bit and fast charging stations are more widely available, though an exception would be for certain government and business fleets. Obviously some people might want one!

Atrios gets this right: the Volt is basically a hybrid, though not of the same type as a Prius.  I’m not sure why I care about this, but for some reason an awful lot of people think the Volt is a “pure” electric vehicle.  It’s not.  It’s got a gasoline engine that kicks in when the battery gets low, charging the battery as you drive.  It’s true that the drivetrain is pure electric (the gasoline engine is there purely to charge the battery), but the range of the Volt is far more than the 40 miles you usually hear about.  Basically, if you do, say, 90% of your driving around town, there’s a good chance that 90% of your driving will be purely electric.  When you take longer trips, though, the gasoline engine will kick in to keep you going for as long as you want.  That makes it a pretty versatile car.

Of course, it still costs $40,000.  That’s probably a bigger drawback than the technology.  Still, if you do most of your driving locally, and then add in a government subsidy that you might get, the Volt could end up being a decent deal in the long run.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate