第2篇
Ford Abandons Electric Vehicles
The Ford motor company’s abandonment of electric cars effectively signals the end of the road for the technology,analysts say.
General Motors。and Honda’ceased production of battery.powered cars in 1 999, to focus on fuel cell and hybrid electric gasoline engines, which are more attractive to the consumer.Ford has now announced it will do the same.
Three years ago.the company introduced the Think City two—seater car and a golf cart called the THINK, or Think Neighbor.It hoped to sell 5,000 cars each year and 10,000 carts.But a lack of demand means only about l,000 of the cars have been produced,and less than 1。700 carts have been sold so far in 2002.
“The bottom line is we don’t believe that this is the future of environment transport for the mass market.”Tim Holmes of Ford Europe said on Friday.“We feel we have given electric our best shot”
The Think City has a range of only about 53 miles and up to a six-hour battery recharge time.General Motors’EVI electric vehicle also had a limited range。of about 100 miles.
The very expensive batteries also mean electric cars cost much more than petrol-powered alternatives.An electric Toyot~RAV4 EV vehicle costs over$42,000 in the US, compared with just $17,000 for the petrol version.Toyota and Nissan…are now the only major auto manufacturers to produce electric vehicles.
“There is a feeling that battery electric has been given its chance.Ford now has to move on with its hybrid program“,and that is what we will be judging them on,”Roger Higman,a senior transport campaigner at UK Friends of the Earth,told the Environment News Service.
Hybrid cars introduced by Toyota and Honda in the past few years have sold well.Hybrid engines Offer Greater mileage than petrol—only engines , and the batteries recharge themselves. Ford says it thinks such vehicles will help it meet planned new guidelines“on vehicle emissions” in the U.S.
However,it is not yet clear exactly what those guidelines will permit.In June,General Motors and Daimler Chrysler won a court injunction,delaying by two years Californian legislation requiring car—makers to offer 100,000 zero-emission and other low—emission vehicles in the state by 2003.Car manufacturers hope the legislation will be rewritten to allow for more low--emission,rather than zero—emission,vehicles.
1. What have the Ford motor company.General Motor’s and Honda done concerning electric cars?
A)They have started to produce electric cars.
B)They have done extensive research on electric Cars
C)They have given up producing electric cars.
D)They have produced thousands of electric Cars
2. According to Tim Holmes of Ford Europe,battery-powered cars
A)will be the main transportation vehicles in the future
B)will not be the main transportation vehicles in the future.
C)will be good to the environment in the future
D)will replace petrol—powered vehicles in the future.
3. Which auto manufacturers are still producing electric vehicles?
A)Toyota and Nissan
B)General Motor’s and Honda
C)Ford and Toyota
D)Honda and Toyota
4. According to the eighth paragraph,hybrid cars
A)offer fewer mileage than petrol driven cars
B)run faster than petrol driven cars
C)run more miles than petrol driven cars
D)offer more batteries than petrol driven cars
5. Which of the following is true about the hope of car manufacturers according to the last paragraph?
A)Low-emission cars should be banned.
B)Only zero-emission cars are allowed to run on motorways.
C)The legislation will encourage car makers to produce more electric cars.
D)The legislation will allow more 10w.emission to be produced.
第3篇
Early or Later Day Care
The British psychoanalyst John Bowlby maintains that separation from the parents during
The sensitive“attachment” period from birth to three may scar a child’s personality and
I predispose to emotional problems in later life.Some people have drawn the conclusion from
Bowlby’s work that children should not be subjected to day care before the age of three because of the parental separation it entails,and many people do believe this. But there are also arguments against such a strong conclusion. Firstly,anthropologists point out that the insulated love affair between children and parents;found in modem societies does not usually exist in traditional societies.For example,in some tribal societies,such as the Ngoni,the father and mother of a child did not rear their infant alone—far from it’.Secondly,common sense tells US that day care would not be so widespread today if parents
care-takers found children had problems with it.Statistical studies of this kind have not yet been carried out,and even if they were,the results would be certain to be complicated and controversial.Thirdly.in the last decade there have been a number of careful American studies of children in day care,and they have uniformly reported that day care had a neural or slightly positive effect on children’s development.But tests that have had to be used to measure this development are not widely enough accepted to settle the issue.
But Bowlby’s analysis raises the possibility that early day care has delayed effects.The possibility that such care might lead to,say,more mental illness or crime 15 or 20 years later can only be explored by the use of statistics.Whatever the long—term effects,parents sometimes find the immediate effects difficult to deal with。.Children under three are likely to protest at leaving their parents and show unhappiness.At the age of three or three and a half almost all children find the transition to nursery easy,and this is undoubtedly why more and more parents make use of child care at this time.The matter,then,is far from clear-cuff,though experience and available evidence indicate that early care is reasonable for infants.
词汇 :
psychoanalyst n.精神分析学家一心理分析学家 insulate vt.隔绝
rear vt.抚养 predispose引起易感性
care taker n.照顾者,看管人 entail vt.蕴涵
infant n.婴儿 anthropologist n.人类学家