Lee Iacocca, who used to work for Ford, talked about the American auto makers.
Mr. Iacocca, who was asked to run Chrysler when Chrysler was acquired by DimalerBenz (oopsie, it was a merger of equals), as well as ran Chrysler during its recovery from near bankruptcy, talked about about the auto industry on NPR's Morning Edition this morning. You can hear the audio at about 10:00 am over the internet
He said that plug-in hybrids will be the next big thing. It makes sense. To me, this makes sense. We already have the infrastructure, charging the batteries in the middle of the night, when electrical use is lowest, would help decrease our dependence on foreign oil, and could improve overall efficiency. Most trips many people make are short trips. This means that you can go around from home to the store, pick up the kids at school, and take them to soccer practice. If you need to pick up your wife after her business trip, you can pick her up, and if the batteries run low, the engine and generator will step in. This will help reduce pollution, although coal and oil power plants produce pollution, and coal, oil and natural gas plants all produce CO2.
I think it will take more than five years to really get going, though.
Anyway, it was an interesting interview.
Jeff