This is a big shift in our energy balance. With car manufacturers desperately trying to "counter a backlash" against the fuel guzzlers, by capitalising on the run away success of Toyota's Prius, they are articulating their solution to emissions problems, a flick pass to the electricity providers. Bob Lutz, GM of Product Planning puts it bluntly, "If people want an electric car, we can deliver it. Now go and get your electricity from a clean source."
The implications are huge. If we plug 'er in, rather than fill 'er up, then what was once a petrol station will become a local area green electricity generator. All because the market demands it.
Oil companies will lose their mainstream passenger vehicle market, but sell their oil to plastics manufacturers, which keeps the carbon sequestered.
JAPANESE car-makers have led the way on environmentally friendly
vehicles but they're about to take frugality to new levels and
shift the pollution debate onto electricity providers.
At the opening of the Tokyo motor show yesterday Toyota, Japan's
biggest car-maker, unveiled a model that sipped fuel at half the
rate of its petrol-electric Prius. There are two catches: it has no
doors and you can't buy one. Yet. The 1/X is a concept only but is
a pointer to a shift in Toyota's view on "plug-in" hybrid cars that
can be charged overnight on a home power point.
Car-makers' increasing dependence on electricity could produce a
fundamental shift in the energy debate. At the Detroit motor show
in January, the product planning boss of GM, Bob Lutz, told the
Herald: "If people want an electric car, we can deliver it.
Now go and get your electricity from a clean source."
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