Miles Driven

Technology may be improving, but motor vehicle fatalities are increasing.

Naturally, more miles driven also means more roadwork is needed.

The US Department of Transportation reported that in February 2015 Americans drove 221.1 billion miles, the second-highest February total ever and the biggest jump in 11 years.

Just a few weeks ago, Nissan announced that its customers have driven over a billion electric kilometers in the four years that the world's best-selling EV has been on the road. That heady milestone means, Nissan says, that the Leaf has saved 180 million kilograms of CO2 emissions around the world.

So, the US metropolitan areas with the largest percentage jump in commuters that bike to work are Portland, Madison, San Francisco and Denver. Now that we've gotten the "no duh" portion of the US Public Interest Research Group's (PIRG) recent study on urban driving habits out of the way, we can dig further into a report that argues that we're about nine years past the year when "peak car" happened.

When it comes to the country's two most popular plug-in vehicles, a premium-gas-powered security blanket can make the difference of about four all-electric miles a day. That's the crux of the US Department of Energy's EV Project Vehicle Summary Report for the second quarter of 2013 on how drivers use the Chevy Volt

While the debate over peak oil rages on, a new yardstick has emerged: "peak travel."