The US President Barack Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden are expected to make important announcements that will provide stimulus for a greener future. An Obama administration official has said that the President will make announcement regarding Smart Grids during his visit to Florida. Obama’s announcement of a Smart Grid will be the government’s largest investment of economic stimulus funds in clean energy.

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General Motors (GM) is set to launch a plug-in sport-utility vehicle (SUV) in 2011 notwithstanding having recently canceled its Saturn brand.

Tom Stephens, Vice Chairman of General Motors, said in an interview that that the company also could consider launching an all-electric small car for crowded cities. This plan will, according to Stephens, mark GM’s return to a technology that it had abandoned in 2003.

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GM will soon loose all its subsidiaries-Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC to a government backed company and in the process will shed its debts, dealerships, other brands and its former labor obligation.

What once belonged to General Motors would now compete with it in the open auto market. This is the curse of bankruptcy, and had GM not opted for it, even this ‘privilege’ wouldn’t have been available. Moving on from here, GM has a lot to achieve in order to gain firm footing, but the road ahead is tough and the once largest automobile manufacturer in the world, needs a lot of inspiration to reinvent itself.

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General Motors Corporation says it will do the “heavy lifting” to help achieve the grand goal set by United States President Barack Obama of having 1 million plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on the US roads by 2015.  Major US-based makers of automobiles, including General Motors, have been planning an array of electric-drive vehicles aimed at meeting higher fuel-economy standards and also an expected rise in the demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Chevy Volt

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Green technology is not just great for the planet, but most often its the ultra-cool and futuristic solutions make for a great and stylish alternative for everyone. And General Motors in partnership with Segway try to do so. They’ve just unveiled PUMA.

PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) is a prototype for an urban two-wheeled electric scooter that is covered with an enclosed compartment which offers safety and protection from the sun and the rain.

The vehicle is not just going to be a sleek and ergonomic commuting option for urban users of tomorrow, but it will also be a pollution-free option with an in-built, electrically charged battery that gives it a mileage of 35 miles on a single charge and ensures that it cruises at a top speed of around 35 mph.

Apart from the fact that the PUMA is an extended, protected and powered-up form of Segway, it is a two-seater that makes it a lot more viable. With its price tag being projected as one-fourth of a normal commercial vehicles, it sure saves some green stuff; money and the environment. [via WSJ]

Uh Oh!

President Obama is expected to grant a waiver that will allow California to enforce their own greenhouse-gas emission standards. Yeah, I live in California. Good for me, right?

“That would completely change the landscape for vehicle regulation and obligate automakers to produce cars that are far more efficient than those called for under current federal standards,” the Los Angeles Times noted.

The move is aimed at the cars that are believed to create about a one-fourth of U.S. carbon emissions. The operative word in that sentence is ‘believe’ – they really don’t know.

“This is an essential piece of the nation’s environmental strategy,” says the president of the Coalition for Clean Air, said.

I wonder how much he gets paid to say that.

California’s Air Resources Board will implement and enforce the regulation.

“Environmentalists and state regulators have demanded that they be allowed to enforce their own greenhouse-gas emission standards on autos, saying the rules are key to combating global warming.”

Um, facts, please!

Until now the Bush administration has refused saying only the federal government can set car emission rules.

Automakers are calling it a nightmare scenario. They argue that compliance would create regulatory headaches and a technology burden that comes to $1,000-$5,000 more for each vehicle.

Asking carmakers to comply with California’s rules would be tantamount to forcing a cancer patient to “finish chemo and then go run the Boston Marathon,” General Motors Corp. spokesman said. “Right now, we’re just trying to make it through the current situation.”

Does anybody feel sorry for GM or any of the Big Three?

The 2009 Detroit Auto Show just opened gates to press and there’s good stuff for eco-minded people. GM just officially unveiled their beautifully styled, sleek, and clearly aerodynamic Cadillac Converj.

It’s a two-door front-wheel-drive coupe extended range electric concept that uses E-Flex technology – now known as Voltec, that is expected to deliver a 40-mile range from a set of lithium ion batteries (16-kWh T-shaped battery that takes less than 3 hours at 240V/8 hours at 120V to charge) and a four-cylinder gasoline engine-generator.

As for how powerful it is, consider 120 kW and a 273 lb-ft torque. There’s no word on production yet, but our guess is it won’t hit the streets before 2012.

Hit the jump for a big gallery with the new Cadillac Converj, and the press release.

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The current economic recession that is taking over the planet could see the story of the electric car turn from a fairytale comeback into a haunting curse, as car makers and automobile industry is experiencing its worst period ever in 25 years. With companies like GM standing in queue for a bailout, it seems that the green cars line-up that is being lead by the Volt might roll back from their scheduled deadline in 2010.

GM's 2011 Chevrolet Volt production show car

It was in the beginning of last century that fossil fuel put the electric car out of business and into museums and it seems that almost exactly 100 years down the line the revival will be killed by economic downfall.

The curse of the electric car seems to be haunting the greener vehicle as marquee projects such as GM’s Volt could be put on hold if the congress decides not to bail the automobile industry out of the present cash crisis. GM has put everything behind the Volt and so have many other companies with their smaller electric cars scheduled to hit the roads in next few years.

While some see the crisis as a potential plague for electric cars, others believe that this would force automobile industry to quickly and completely go green. In fact, some experts claim that the current situation would have never cropped up if car makers switched to greener alternatives 10 years earlier, when the first signs in that direction were clearly out on view.

Irrespective of Congress’ decision and the status of cars like Volt, one hopes that this time around, the electric cars are here to stay as the ailing planet desperately needs them. Meanwhile, should we just let Detroit go down?

Source: Reuters