All this talk of fuel prices has me freeked out!  Even though my 1.9td gets a consistant, and documented, 27mpg at 65 mpg and probably about 29-30 at 55mpg, with fuel that costs $4.59 a gallon...and rising...I'm giving serious thought to yanking the engine out...and putting in an electric motor and a whole lot of 6-volt batteries.  I know the van wouldn't have a lot of range...probably 100 miles tops.  But as it is now I can't afford to drive it much more than that without taking out a bank loan.  The conversion would cost lest than $8k (maybe) and I would have someting I could drive until electricity became obsolete! And if I put a solar array on top of my roof I could 'fuel' my van for free every day.
  mark