The green bandwagon rolls on. Today, AutoNation, the largest car retailer in the U.S., called on Detroit and Tokyo to start rolling plug-in hybrids off the assembly line.
“These new hybrids would offer consumers a 50-mile all-electric range, get the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon, be fully recharged at night and deliver all the performance and comfort of traditional gasoline-powered vehicles without the damaging emissions,” said AutoNation chief executive Mike Jackson in a statement. “We believe Americans will buy these vehicles, which is why we want to sell them.”
AutoNation signed on to the Plug-In Partners campaign, a group of enviro activists, cities, companies and utilities trying to create a national market for plug-in hybrids. To create a plug-in Prius, for instance, you swap out the car’s battery for a rechargable lithium ion version.
The car retailer’s move is good news for the campaign but problematic for startups like EDrive and Hymotion – see Business 2.0’s July article – that sell plug-in conversion kits. If automakers heed the call for hyper-efficient hybrids, the conversion kit market is sure to run out of gas.
Green Wombat 
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