More reasons for hybrids than good P.R.

http://www.autonews.com/news.cms?newsId=11176


Edward Lapham is the executive editor of Automotive News. He writes commentaries for Automotive News online every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. His commentaries for WJR radio, 760 am, in Detroit appear online every Tuesday and Friday. [/i]

There is a clear fuel economy dichotomy at the North American International Auto Show. Automakers displayed more alternative fuel vehicles but they also showed bigger, more-powerful engines.
Ho hum, you say. So what's new?

Well, there's nothing new about automakers trying to get a marketing advantage. They're trying to give us the horsepower we crave, while also cashing in on the market for fuel-efficient vehicles. Especially the gasoline-electric hybrids popularized by Toyota, and to some extent, Honda.

General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said it all, when he admitted that GM missed an opportunity to market itself as a technologically adept company by not pushing ahead with hybrids, which allowed Toyota reap praise and honors because it didn't hold back on hybrids.

GM didn't see a business case, Lutz said, but could have taken $100 million from its ad budget and treated hybrid development as an ad expense.

That's a fairly cynical view of what Toyota did and why it did it. Whatever the motives, Toyota is on a roll with hybrids.

But let's not forget that there are other reasons for pushing ahead with hybrids.

Let's put aside the cynicism, the debate over hydrocarbon emissions, the projections about whether hybrids will ever account for more than 5 percent of sales, the diesel vs. hybrid argument and prognostications about the advent of a hydrogen economy.

There is a consensus that when the price of gasoline hits $3 a gallon on pumps and stays there, Americans will begin to demand more fuel-efficient vehicles. Some say the government ought to impose more taxes to push the price that way, in effect weaning us off horsepower.

But that may not be necessary. One oil expert thinks the price of petroleum will more than triple, and sooner rather than later.

In an interview in Forbes magazine, Stephen Leeb of Leeb Capital Management projects that the price of oil could hit $100 a barrel in three years and $150 a barrel in five years, based on growing demand in China and India. And that's without any major disruptions in supply due to war or other factors.

That is sobering. It has obvious implications for inflation, national security and international relations.

If true, it also means that in about one normal product cycle, consumers could be demanding a completely different fleet of vehicles and power trains. Does that sound pretty much like what happened 30 years ago?

You bet it does.



http://www.autonews.com/news.cms?newsId=11176