December 15, 2011 If you’ve decided your next vehicle will be a hybrid but you don’t want one that stands out like the Prius – and also wouldn’t mind increased luxury and fun-to-drive quotient – the 2012 Lexus CT 200h could be the one for you.
The CT 200h is Lexus’s fifth hybrid offering – the most of any automobile nameplate – and with a combined city-highway mileage of 42 mpg, it is the only vehicle in the luxury segment to top 40 mpg.
December 15, 2011 Ford’s updated Escape line due early next year will lack a hybrid option but yesterday the company said its pending 2012 Focus Electric and 2013 C-Max Hybrid and C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid will offer best-in-class efficiency. Citing “expected” mileage figures, the Focus Electric is said to achieve 100 MPGe. Of the C-Max Energi, Ford says it is expected to beat fuel economy delivered by the Prius plug-in hybrid in electric mode and top the Chevrolet Volt in range with 500 miles estimated. Similarly, the C-MAX Hybrid is supposed to achieve better fuel economy than the Prius V in both city and highway driving.
December 13, 2011 Honda Motor Co. has confirmed it will bring back the Acura NSX as an efficient but powerful hybridized challenger to larger displacement conventional supercars. People are speculating what it will look like, and short of an artist's rendition, we're showing an earlier NSX above, but greater clarity will be offered this January at the Detroit auto show when the NSX concept is revealed. Some eco-minded people may not care that an uber-powerful and likely uber-expensive car will be launched, but it does send a signal that Honda is going greener even with its most conspicuous car. Also potentially positive is the market forecasters at Honda think the economy is approaching a time to make such a project worthwhile. The original NSX was canceled after a 15 year run in 2005. Plans to launch a new concept were scrapped after the autumn 2008 Lehman Brothers failure.
December 12, 2011 Energy giant Exxon Mobil has released its annual energy outlook, which predicts major growth for hybrids and other alternative-drivetrain technologies as the world seeks to lower carbon emissions and limit oil dependency. By 2040, Exxon says it expects that half of new cars will come equipped with some form of alternative propulsion system―be it hybrid, electric, fuel cell, natural gas or other.
December 12, 2011 China has big plans for the electrification of its cars. After spending a whole day at Beijing’s airport a week ago, waiting for the smog (not the “fog” as it was officially called) to clear, all I can say: “Get on with it.” (Unless the electrification results in more smoke-belching coal-fired powerplants.) Better Place, the company that wants to swap the battery in your EV in the same time it would take to pour gas in your car, always wanted to have a piece of the Chinese action. Now, at least there is a first step into China. Today, China’s Southern Power Grid (CSG) and Better Place opened their “Switchable Electric Car Experience Center” in China’s southern city of Guangzhou.
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