Green cars to take floor at Detroit auto show [View All]

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.eetasia.com/ART_8800498290_765245_NT_b8c65cfa.HTM

Green cars to take floor at Detroit auto show

Posted: 18 Jan 2008

When the public enters the 2008 North American International Auto Show on Jan. 19, they'll find cars as green as spring. Every major automaker is swearing its allegiance to green technologies this year, and in some odd instances, green meets classic Detroit mean.

Alternative fuel
Take the Hummer HX biofuel concept, on display during this week's press preview of the show, which looks like what would happen if a miniature tank mated with a Jeep. The HX is much smaller than the gas-hungry H3 2008 gleaming on display next to it, and it runs on E85, fuel that's 85 percent ethanol.

General Motors Corp., in fact, was the most verbose automaker on its alternative energy efforts during the press preview. GM launched its environmental bent with an announcement that it's investing in Coskata, a start-up that says it can make biofuel out of agricultural and municipal waste for less than $1 a gallon.

But the green message still suffers from clarity of vision, with GM and other automakers introducing concepts, and in some cases in-production vehicles, that are all over the place in their approaches to alternative energy. So if gasoline isn't the standard in 10 years, what will be: hydrogen, ethanol, electricity, some sort of hybrid, or something like Coskata's waste-based biofuel? Don't ask the automakers; they don't have a clue, either.

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