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Currently, hybrid vehicles
make up a miniscule amount of overall automobile sales,
but GM believes hybrid vehicles could ultimately make up
15 percent of worldwide auto sales.
Why won't all vehicles
be hybrids?
GM considers hybrids to
be a bridge to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, an
opportunity to perfect future powertrains that will one
day offer pollution-free propulsion
"Together we will
jointly develop what is essentially an electronically
variable transmission with two hybrid drive modes, said
Tom Stephens, group vice president of GM Powertrain.
"This system will
reduce fuel consumption at highway speeds much more
effectively than available single mode systems and
achieve at least a 25 percent improvement in composite
fuel economy in full-size truck applications."
Still, the venture will
not produce any new vehicles until at least 2007.
Furthermore, some aspects of the development, such as
hybrid Mercedes-Benz, will not hit the market for at
least 5 years.
While GM and Daimler
are largely focusing on SUVs and trucks, the move will
still leave them several years behind not only Honda and
Toyota, but also Ford.
Earlier this summer,
Ford released the world's first hybrid SUV, the Escape
hybrid.
Additionally, Toyota
will be releasing several new hybrid SUVs later in 2005,
such as the Highlander
hybrid SUV, and the Lexus
RX400h hybrid SUV.
Potentially, Toyota
alone could be selling more than a million hybrids per
year before the first hybrids from this joint venture
hit the market.
Even more interesting,
the announcement seems to indicate quite clearly that
Detroit, as well as the rest of the world's automakers,
are very able to meet California's new global warming
requirements, in contrast to the statements made by
their PR campaigns and lawsuit against the California
regulation.
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