WP,pg1: Automakers Tout Hybrids, but Power Rules Showrooms

[DeepModem Mom]

Automakers Tout Hybrids, but Power Rules Showrooms

By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 29, 2004; Page A01


General Motors Corp., which sells the gas-gobbling Hummer, urges Americans to "Get Green" on a special Web site and is producing advertising campaigns trumpeting hydrogen fuel and gas-electric hybrid vehicles.

Ford Motor Co., with the poorest average fuel economy of any major automaker, markets its new hybrid sport-utility vehicle in Mother Jones and other politically left magazines and has planted energy-saving grass on the roof of its newest truck plant.

After years of pushing power and performance, the U.S. auto industry has begun to view conservation as a marketable quality. But the companies are stepping cautiously, and so far, the green marketing is far outpacing the manufacturing of energy-efficient vehicles....

***

And for all the talk of change, the U.S. market continues to be dominated by power and style. The Chrysler Group has made far less noise about its green technologies, which include small electric "neighborhood vehicles" as well as super-efficient diesel engines. But Chrysler is also the only one of the Big Three automakers to gain market share over the past few months, thanks to its powerful "hemi" engines, racy Dodge Magnum wagon and big-grille 300 sedan.

Still, Detroit is moving to respond to the success of Toyota's popular Prius hybrid and the realization that higher gasoline prices are here to stay. The automakers believe Americans finally seem willing to pay for alternative technologies that have long been confined to the laboratory or test track....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18474-2004Nov28.html

[Gore1FL]

1. I don't get teh power part at all

There are diesel electric train engines that produice 15,000 hp apiece. Diesel electric engines do exactly what hybrids do.

Gratned 15,000 HP frieght engines are huge, but then -- who needs 15,000 hp?

[Champion Jack]

3. Figuring out the power thing is easy

there are a lot of guys with really small dicks out there.

[goddess40]

2. That's because the average American believes the media

That all is fine and dandy here in the USA, that we really aren't spiraling downward economically. The fact that paying our bills has gotten harder, we've bought into the just put it on credit syndrome but the day of reckoning is coming up fast.
We also seem to believe that the worlds resources are ours first and that the supply is endless.
We as a nation are selfish and arrogant and it's about to bite us in the ass.
I hope I'm wrong but I don't see another scenario as long as bush is allowed to continue to strip this country of our morals and money.

When we bought our Toyota Prius a few years ago a man asked my husband why he would buy a hybrid. When my husband responded that the world needed to look for ways to conserve gas that man said that was foolish because god would just fill up the world supply of oil. Scary isn't it?