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20-02-2008 Beijing
Olympic Games is coming soon. Hybrids, advanced diesels and green alternatives
are pushing aside the traditional displays of speed, a nod to a new fuel-efficient
reality for automakers. At present, the industry all together has to show further
and faster improvements on the fuel-efficiency side. For example, Toyota Motor
Corp. and General Motors Corp., which has dominated the gas-electric hybrid market.
They also will extend their hybrid lineup, which are expected to boost fuel economy
by about 50 percent. Automakers
have been testing advanced vehicles for several years, including hydrogen fuel
cells and plug-in hybrids, with the hopes that the technologies will improve and
become more viable. Sandy Stojkovski, a fuel economy expert and director of vehicle
engineering at Ricardo Inc., estimated that more than half of the vehicles by
2020 would need some kind of hybrid configuration to meet the new standards.
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