From Detroit, MI to Los Angeles, CA, every car exhibition buzzes on hy-brid, the quiet but wise consumer trend. Toyota, Mitsubishi ― see our post on their i-minicar ―, Honda, all these Asian car makers give good impressions with their new models. What happened to American big three (Daimler-Chrysler, GM and Ford)?
Hybriding hybrids. Well, the last one start coping with national demand. At the Washington Auto Show, Ford unveiled its Escape Hybrid E85, painted in a recent press release as “the world’s first hybrid vehicle capable of operating on blends of fuel containing as much as 85 percent ethanol.” Ethanol could be produced from domestic corn. This would take the SUV a huge step closer to the all clean emission point?
Well, nope. Ford admits its Hybrid E85 is not the silver bullet to auto design. “No flexible-fuel vehicles has yet been certified to this extremely clean standard, because of the evaporative requirement in the PZEV standard.“
And the other biggest hurdles remains the simple fact that only 500 American gas stations provide E85 — there are 170,000 stations in the US in total.
Huge Marketing. Anyway, Anne Stevens, Ford’s executive vice-president and chief operating officer for the Americas, said to the Toronto Star that a commercial should air during the next week’s Super Bowl.
In the same time ― and at the same auto show ―, General Motors introduced its Saturn Vue Green Line sport-utility hybrid and announced a very imminent national ads campaign for its E85 FlexFuel models.
Wow. A week plenty of green ads and I don’t still have my car driver license.
Tags: car design redesign hybrid electricity ethanol i minicar i+minicar iminicar transport transportation mitsubishi honda general motors general+motors generalmotors gm washington auto show exhibition salon america usa united+states unitedstates ford daimler+chrysler daimler chrysler escape e85 fossil fuel oil pzev clean emission pollution gas marketing super+bowl superbowl saturn vue green suv sportutilityvehicle sport+utility+vehicle advertissement advertising ads commercials proper
But something told us that you will be the first to add a comment to this story. Simply click on the button 'Add your comment' to start expressing your opinion.