2011 Chevrolet Volt Production Show Car
American consumers will find a wider selection of fuel-sipping cars and small trucks - including plug-in rechargeable hybrids, conventional hybrids, electrics and clean diesels - to help ease the pain if, as some experts expect, gasoline prices rise back above $4 as the recession eases and demand recovers.
Spurred by new government fuel-economy requirements to phase in by 2016 and by last summer's record fuel prices - and a resulting surge in consumer interest in small cars - the new models are in the pipeline headed for American showrooms over the next two years.
And, depending upon how high fuel prices rise, many others are possibilities for sale in the United States. Since December, crude oil has risen from about $33 a barrel to $69.45 Tuesday amid signs that the economy might be bottoming. "We assume that prices will continue to grow," said Dave Cutting, senior manager of North American forecasting at the market research company J.D. Power and Associates.
Power forecasts that 60 new hybrid and electric car models will be launched in the United States by the end of 2011.
New vehicles in the next two years might include the first in the United States from India - a diesel-powered small pickup truck. Tata Motors, also from India, has said it hopes to export to this country a version of its new Nano small car, which has attracted worldwide attention for its incredibly low price - about $2,500 to start in India.
Scheduled new models also include a plug-in version of the Toyota Prius, whose batteries can be recharged on household current so the vehicle uses less gasoline. Toyota will import 150 of them late this year and lease them to electric utilities, government agencies and others to road test them. It has not yet set a sale date for the public.
Due late next year is the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt with a gasoline engine on board to recharge the batteries. And Buick said it will sell a plug-in hybrid SUV starting in 2011.
Toyota also is promising a small electric-powered "urban commuter" by 2012 and might also produce a gasoline-powered urban commuter.
The popular Ford Focus compact is to be offered in an electric version in 2011. Chrysler has promised an electric vehicle next year but has not confirmed the name Dodge Circuit or confirmed Power's forecast that it will be a two-passenger, rear-wheel-drive sports car.
One technology not expected in showrooms within two years is the fuel cell. Except for some being tested, the vehicles appear to be at least five years away from sale to the public, Power says.
Conventional gasoline-powered fuel sippers are to include the Ford Fiesta, a four-cylinder model smaller than a Focus and now offered abroad; and the small "500" produced by Fiat, which merged with Chrysler.
Other models under consideration for U.S. sale include the Audi A1, which is smaller than the A2 now offered; an Americanized version of the Fiat Grand Punto; a hybrid Honda Fit; the Mazda 2, which is smaller than the 3; and the Volkswagen Polo, a model smaller than the Golf and Jetta.
source: newsday
