Car Finance / Will GM Win the Great Plug-In Hybrid Race
The father of the plug-in hybrid has his doubtsI'm driving up the California coast to visit two key players in the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) world. Appropriately, I am making this trip in a hybrid vehicle, the Lexus RX 400h SUV. It's not a plug-in hybrid — which could be recharged by household electricity or an onboard gas engine — but at least it saves fuel and reduces emissions. On this 800-mile trip I'll average 26 mpg. Not bad. But if I was driving a plug-in hybrid I could be getting 100-plus mpg.
A week earlier, in the State of the Union address, President Bush told the nation that we need to achieve energy independence by, in part, developing PHEVs. GM has already taken an exciting step in that direction, a kind of one-two punch. Not only did GM announce its intention to bring the Saturn Vue Green Line to market as a plug-in hybrid, but it also said it would develop the sleek and very cool, second-generation PHEV, the Chevrolet Volt.
When I first heard GM's announcements, my patriotic spirit soared. "Yes! We can do it!" I thought, fist pumping like Tiger Woods. "Detroit is going to win the plug-in hybrid race!"
But then memories of GM's EV1 debacle flooded my mind. Those electric cars were aggressively pulled back by GM and crushed as depicted in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?. Was Detroit really serious about putting another electric car — a plug-in electric car, at that — in the hands of Americans? Or would GM talk big and, once again, let the Japanese steal its lunch money?
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