I think the plug in hybrids are the way to go for most people. They tend to have about 30 miles of all electric range and also have a big enough fuel tank for the ICE for panic-free highway travel.

Most car related environmental issues are due to traffic congestion. If these dipshits had any genuine environmental concerns, they'd be pushing PHEVs as a viable solution. They don't want solutions though. Most of these greenies hate PHEVs since they still use gas engines.

There are other technologies that can reduce the emissions of gas engines to even lower numbers. Variable valve timing is one of them. A couple of companies out there have had some success using pneumatic solenoids to control valves (you can do all sorts of really neat shit with that tech ... like virtually shut down some cylinders if the demand for additional power isn't there ... MPGs go thru the roof :-) ), but it's still not reliable enough to go into mass production ... yet. Hyundai has recently engineered a mechanical variable valve timing solution that looks really cool ... I believe that has entered production already. Their solution is really elegant and it doesn't look like something that will be prone to failure.