“What I don’t get is why, with all of the crazy things our taxpayer dollars get spent on, Romney keeps beating the Tesla drum,” observed Tom Saxton of Plug-In America on Facebook. In attacking Tesla, he said, the governor is “beating down a company that’s developing new technology, creating American jobs, reinvigorating the American auto industry, and maybe leading us to an opportunity not to be so totally dependent on the world oil market.

“Thanks to Oregon’s new ‘electric highway’, it’s now possible to charge an electric car every 25 miles down a 200-mile stretch of Interstate 5.

“A123’s breakthrough battery is an example of why government investment in RD&D, and not subsidizing existing technology through modest tax credits, is more important to the long-term viability of EVs.

“It says Chevy Volt owners collectively have saved a supertanker’s worth of gas since the extended-range plug-in went on sale. That would be about 2.1 million gallons of gas, based on Volt owners driving more than 40 million miles on electricity alone (GM should know, since it monitors the operation of all Volts through their OnStar connection).