[HCDATE] Nissan announced this week that it will produce a hybrid gas-electric version of its Infiniti M luxury performance sedan, to go on sale in 2011. The Infiniti M35 Hybrid represents the brand’s first hybrid—and provides one more example of the curious relationship between luxury and hybrid vehicles.
It looks like Mercedes has caught hybrid fever. In August, the company launched its Mercedes S400 mild hybrid—the first hybrid from a European automaker and the first hybrid vehicle to use a lithium ion battery. Even more impressive, Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler, is promising a hybrid version of each of Mercedes’s high-volume cars and a plug-in hybrid in 2012.
Soaring demand for Volkswagen’s clean diesel Jetta Sportwagen TDI has left VW dealerships unable to keep up with demand. Waiting lists for the $24,000 vehicle—with MPG ratings of 30 city / 42 highway—are as long as 45 days in some Southern California dealerships. “We’re almost selling them off the trucks,” said Tom Wegehaupt, Volkswagen PR specialist, in an interview with HybridCars.com. “As soon as they’re on dealer lots, they’re gone.”
The hybrid market disproportionally benefited from the Cash For Clunkers program in July and August, and therefore disproportionally fell in September. The overall vehicle market dropped by about 41 percent, and hybrids plunged by about 48 percent.
Paice LLC, a small Florida-based hybrid car technology company that won a patent infringement case against Toyota in 2005, has now brought a related case to the International Trade Commission. The ITC has the power to ban all Toyota hybrids from the United States. Will Toyota hybrids really get banned from the US? Does Paice's Dr. Alex Severinsky deserve more compensation for his hybrid inventions? To find out, HybridCars.com spoke with Michael Murphy, a N.C.-based intellectual property lawyer and former electrical engineer, with a deep understanding of both patent law and hybrid electrical systems.
If ever there was an automotive brand that embodied the spirit of hybrid cars—urban, progressive, outdoorsy, family-oriented—it would be Subaru. But the company continues to trot out cool hybrid concepts, like the new gull-wing Subaru Hybrid Tourer Concept, and procrastinate on delivering a real hybrid to US showrooms.
There was a long parade of plug-in cars at last month’s Frankfurt Auto Show. This month, it’s Japan’s turn to unveil a new crop of plug-in hybrids at the Tokyo Motor Show, which opens to the public on Oct. 24. Mitsubishi and Suzuki are the first two companies to announce plans to unveil plug-in hybrids.
Honda CR-Z Hybrid
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[HCDATE] First unveiled two years ago at the Tokyo Motor Show, the sporty two-passenger Honda CR-Z Hybrid is back again in Tokyo in 2009. This time, Honda is closer to a production model—about “95 percent” of the way according to company officials. Could the attractive and compact CR-Z Hybrid, expected to hit the US as a 2010 model, help seduce Americans to downsize their vehicles?
Toyota said on Tuesday it will recall some 3.8 million vehicles, including the Toyota Prius, because of the risk a floor mat could keep the accelerator pedal forced down. As an immediate remedy, the Japanese automaker urged drivers of a range of recent models to remove driver's-side floormats until it could issue a recall in consultation with federal safety regulators.
According to Fox News, the US Department of Energy threw away nearly $1 billion in loans to Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors—two Calif.-based auto startups trying to produce the next generation of American-made energy-efficient cars. On several of its shows, including America's Newsroom and Your World, Fox News criticized the loans because Fisker and Tesla currently produce expensive cars that are made in Europe.
