Parade of hybrids zips through Detroit
The common theme out of the North American Autoshow in Detroit can be boiled down to one word: Hybrid.
More hybrid gas-electric vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles, b
attery-powered cars and even a little hydrogen has been thrown into the fleet mix of the future.
To wit:
- Ford to invest $450 million in electric hybrid rollout
- Toyota plots electric car in 2012; Prius family of hybrids
- Toyota FT-CH hybrid concept (photos)
- GM hits Volt battery milestone; What’s the car’s magic price?
- Tesla, Panasonic eye next-gen electric vehicle batteries
- Audi shows off second e-tron electric car concept
- Audi e-tron II concept (photos)
- Blue-Will: Hyundai's plug-in hybrid concept
Hyundai shows plug-in hybrid Blue-Will (photos)- Honda's hybrid CR-Z to arrive in months
- Honda touts sporty hybrid CR-Z (photos)
- VW shows off hybrid coupe concept
- VW's New Concept Coupe hybrid (photos)
Add it up and you can see the day where all cars will be hybrid or at least feature some sort of electric or alternative power riding shotgun.
How can the mileage per gallon of the U.S. fleet not go up?
The big rush to hybrid and green vehicles could wind up being timely. Oil prices are moving higher. And oil, which is priced in U.S. dollars, is weak. Unless you think the U.S. is suddenly going to go to a strong dollar policy, pay off its debts or gain in strength relative to other currencies it's likely that oil will just become more expensive.
An oil spike through 2011 and 2012 may just stoke demand. For once the automakers may just find some good timing with their product cycles.
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com