On January 19, 2011, The Auto Channel received an e-mail from Douglas Pelmear president, founder and chief engineer of HP2g, an Ohio grass roots company that developed a 110 MPG E85 V8 Hybrid Mustang. He told us that “due to his inability to raise additional working capital he would have to abandon his good work.”

He couldn’t raise capital despite the fact that his Mustang actually gets 110MPG, and despite the fact that his vehicle uses 350x less gasoline than a Toyota Prius, and despite the fact that for the past 3 years he has been trying to get an OEM interested in his breakthrough technology, despite all of this he told me “he had to close his company”.

Well, quiet frankly, this really pissed us off and in response published an open letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu (See Shame on you Steven Chu) that took him to task, for not supporting Pelmear’s American Solution for our gasoline addiction, while spending billions of dollars on fairy-tale EV development, a diversion from E85 the real drop-in replacement for gasoline.

Apparently others felt the same way as we did and after being on the NBC morning Show talking about the HP2g plant closing, he was invited to the Washington DC Auto Show.

Here is what Doug had to say: The HP2g car was driven to the show in the middle of the snow storm last Wednesday night. We, along with several other people, were caught 60 miles out of town stuck in traffic waiting on the plows to get through to clear the roads. This was no ordinary snow storm. There were layers of ice, slush and snow. As cars were forced off to the side of the road, people began to walk home.

Others were not so lucky. As we drove closer to DC, it looked as though a bomb had gone off. Cars, trucks, semis were tossed everywhere you looked. There were miles of traffic in front of us and behind us with all the exit ramps snowed in. Sitting in my car, I knew we had to do something. I grabbed our shovel out of the car, went car door to car door gathering people to help move a Semi that was stuck in the middle of the road in front of us. Together, we pushed the Semi to move down over to the road and drove on to the show.

HP2g is in the Washington, DC Auto Show Advance Technology Super Highway Hybrid section. It was left with the salt on the car to show it is a REAL car!

I want to Thank everyone who helped out on Highway 270 on January 26, 2011. Together, we pushed though the storm to arrive just in time to the show.

I am telling people to write their senators and congressman that banks are closing small business by not loaning the money and I am an example. (This is my Hail Mary pass to try to stay in the game.)

Hang in there Doug, maybe the good guys can win after-all.



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