By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

LAS VEGAS, Nevada --Energy gazillionaire T. Boone Pickens has been singing a variation of the same song for several years now, but it's a tune worthy of repeat play:  The planet, says a man who made billions in petroleum exploration and ought to know his stuff, is using more oil than it produces, the situation isn't going to improve and nobody's doing much of anything about it.

"America is in a hell of a bad spot," he said in a presentation Tuesday at the Alternative Fuels & Vehicles annual conference here.

Without a radical reduction in the nation's appetite for imported crude, which now accounts for 72 percent of our total daily consumption, "we are going to be reduced to something less than the superpower we are now."

For Pickens, who has become one of the country's biggest backers of wind energy and of natural gas as a transportation fuel, the cure is painful but necessary.

We must cut back on the use of oil for automotive fuels and shepherd in a rapid and widespread adoption of domestically produced alternative fuels, he said,

Pickens, who left the oil exploration business in 1996 to set up his BP Capital Management investment company and, it turned out, to become one of the nation's biggest alternative energy boosters, has big holdings in natural gas and, not coincidentally,  believes it to be the best interim solution on the transportation side of things.

"Everything" from propane to biofuels will have a place in the effort to reduce oil consumption, he said, but available supplies of domestically produced natural gas are the largest "alternative" energy source around and, if used entirely for transportation fuel, could reduce oil imports by 38 percent.

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Gorton Vallely stands with his company's prototype battery-electric, medium-duty truck at Alternative Fuel Vehicles show.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada --The Detroit Auto Show this year had a herd of diesel concepts, a few hybrids and a host of muscle cars, typical fare these days for a mainstream auto show.

Absent was much of anything to do about other "today" alternatives to gasoline, leading people who are concerned about the auto, the energy sector and the environment to wonder what the automakers are up to and why they aren't moving faster to throw off the yolk of demon oil.

Can't answer that question. If I could I'd be out making millions as a highly paid consultant and seer instead of sitting in front of my computer in a 'Vegas hotel room overlooking the scenic roof of the power plant that keeps the casino chilled.

But I can suggest that for every innovation we don't see coming from our mass market automakers there's a small business out there somewhere hoping to offer up a solution.

Many of them are serving the fleet business – the trucking, bus and taxi companies that buy lots of relatively expensive equipment, are subject to strenuous emissions regulation in most states and bleed profits every time the price of gasoline or diesel goes up even a penny a gallon.

Walk around the showroom floor at the annual Alternative Fuel Vehicles national conference here this week and you see that can do spirit everywhere.

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By Robert E. Calem, Contributor

General Motors Corp. says it has achieved a new milestone in the development of an experimental fuel combustion technology called homogenous charge compression ignition, and can now operate an HCCI engine at much lower speeds than previously possible.

HCCI technology mimics a diesel engine, igniting a mixture of fuel and air by compressing it in the cylinder, but it works with gasoline like a traditional spark ignition engine.

And unlike either of those other engine technologies, HCCI burns the fuel at a low temperature and throughout the entire combustion chamber – yielding the power of a gasoline engine and the torque of a diesel with greater fuel economy and lower carbon dioxide emissions than either.

GM, which previously was unable to operate an experimental engine in HCCI mode at speeds below 15 miles per hour,  demonstrated operation in the fuel-saving mode at idle this week in a specially modified Saturn Aura test vehicle.

Demonstrations in Washington, D. C. and White Plains, N.Y., also marked the first time journalists were permitted to drive a vehicle with an HCCI engine on public streets.

The prototype engine operates in both HCCI and regular spark-ignition modes, but did not operate in HCCI mode at idle when initially demonstrated to the press last August at a GM test track.

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Nissan Micra convertible is example of fuel-efficient cars we can't get in the U.S.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

I'm in an airplane winging its way to Los Angeles from Amsterdam (by way of Lisbon, Portugal) as this is being posted – returning from a two-day event called Nissan 360.

It was designed to give journalists the opportunity to drive all of the company's motor vehicles (a 360-degree view, get it?), from the same Altimas and Maximas and Titans and Zs sold in the U.S. to passenger vehicles and even light commercial vehicles that we never see here -- the Micra and Cube small cars and  Elgrande maxi-van, for instance, and the Atleon 15-ton delivery van.

Nissan's GT-R on track at Estoril, Portugal, delivers world-class power.

We also got to drive the rather fantastic GT-R on the track at the Estoril Autodrome outside of Lisbon – two laps as a passenger and three behind the wheel. But my colleagues at Inside Line have far better credentials than I do to tell you about that insanely powerful but incredibly well-mannered speed machine, and I'll leave that task to them. Suffice it to say that no one who enjoys automobiles should ever say no to the opportunity to drive a GT-R at speed.

The gist of what I am carrying away from the event is that Nissan's motors, gas and diesel remain some of the best in the business. Its interiors are improving tremendously and in some cases are world class, and  its designs are – well, very Japanese and subject to a lot of interpretation. I loved a few, hated others and was ambivalent about many.

I didn't drive all 61 vehicles available to us – regardless of the hype from Nissan in the invitation, two days is not sufficient time to do that.

I tried instead to experience cars (and trucks -- that big Atleon is a gas to maneuver – and it has a better interior than many passenger cars) that we don't get a chance to drive in the U.S.

My favorite? The Micra, gas and diesel.

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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

CASCAIS, Portugal – Nissan Motor Co. which has promised to introduce an electric vehicle in North American in 2010, now sees enough market potential for battery-powered electric cars that it is planning a second model for as early as 2012.

The Japanese carmaker was late to the game with gas-electric hybrids and doesn't intend to get caught with a bare product portfolio as cheaper and more reliable batteries make EVs an economic and practical choice in coming years, product planning chief Tom Lane told Green Car Advisor in an interview at Nissan's global vehicle show-and-drive program in this coastal resort town just west of Lisbon.

Lane said that while Nissan began its green planning half a decade ago with a broad slate of possible technologies, economic and scientific changes have pushed battery-electric vehicles to the forefront as a near- and midterm market strategies to meet increased political and social demand for cleaner, more efficient vehicles.

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Volkswagen's Jetta BlueTDI was developed specifically for North America.

Just weeks after shelving plans for a production version of its 69-mpg Golf TDI Hybrid concept, Volkswagen says that a diesel-powered Jetta capable of 60 mpg on the highway is coming.

At the International Vienna Motor Symposium, which started today, Volkswagen announced that it will introduce the production version of BlueTDI – the automaker's next-generation turbo diesel engine – and that it will initially be available in the U.S. version of the Jetta before being used in other models globally.

The Jetta BlueTDI will come to North America sometime in the middle of this year, the company said, followed at some point by the Touareg BlueTDI.

The four-cylinder BlueTDI engine displaces 2.0 liters and generates 140 horsepower. It will also be 50-state legal as it meets California's toughest emissions standards, the company said.

Scott Doggett, Contributor

Could fuel-slurping Nissan Titan's appetite shrink as a Chrysler-built truck?

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

It wasn't long ago that most auto industry consultants – and auto industry insiders, at least those in the truck departments --  were poo-pooing the idea that rising gas prices and oil shortage concerns would bring big hurt to the full-size pickup market.

But sales of those trucks are off by 12.5%, and the first casualty has just been announced as Nissan Motor Corp. said Monday it can no longer justify building its slow-selling Titan pickup – a truck launched in 2003 with hopes of making Nissan a significant player in what some company insiders cheerily referred to as the BFT market ("B" for Big and "T" for Truck and you can fill in the rest).

The Titan isn't leaving the market – at least not yet – but it is leaving the billion-dollar assembly plant Nissan built in Canton, Miss., to handle its new big trucks.

Under a deal announced Monday, Chrysler – whose Dodge Ram proves its mettle in the big truck segment -- will build the next-generation Ttitan for Nissan at a plant in Saltillo, Mexico.

In return, Nissan – which does small cars a lot better than Chrysler – will supply a new small passenger car that its new "partner" will sell in the U.S., probably under the Chrysler brand.

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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

The retail price of diesel fuel hit an all-time high today, averaging $4.108 per gallon nationally, according to the AAA's daily fuel gauge report.

The rising price has been miserable for truckers, farmers and others who operate diesel-fueled equipment.

Consumers haven't escaped either, as the impact – higher prices at the store because of increased production and delivery costs of everything from breakfast cereal to bedroom furniture – sweeps through the economy.

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Indiana high school team's fuel economy record-setting 'cheese wedge.'

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

Smart motoring, a cheese-wedge design and high winds propelled a $3,500, gasoline-fueled 3-wheeler built and driven by a team of high school kids past a pack of much-pricier supermilers crafted by collegiate engineering students to win the 2008 Shell Eco-marathon Americas fuel-efficiency competition Saturday.

The team, from Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Indiana, took home the $10,000 grand prize with a fuel-efficiency run equivalent to 2,843.4 miles per gallon.

Strong, sustained winds in Southern California over the weekend, often gusting to 50 miles per hour, plagued all of the teams and rolled several of the lightweight vehicles competing at the California Speedway in Fontana, better known as the home track for the Auto Club 500 and other NASCAR races each year.

The purpose of the Eco-marathon is not speed but high mileage. Teams build ultra-lightweight, streamlined, one-seat vehicles that use tiny internal combustion engines or alternatives such as solar powered or hydrogen fuel-cell powered electric drive—and make repeated solo runs on a flat, 9.7-mile track course.

In a twist some competitors viewed as dumb luck and others grudgingly decided was brilliant design, the vertical air foil shape (think cheese wedge) of the two gasoline engine vehicles entered by Mater Dei benefited immensely from the hair-blower conditions.

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We've been saying it for a long time, it's the reason Edmunds.com began Green Car Advisor in the first place, and now auto industry insiders are agreeing: Environmental concerns are the principal issue driving the industry these days.

Although a new survey asked only about this year, we believe it will be the case for decades to come.

Read on for contributor Scott Doggett's report on what the survey found.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor
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Green Concerns Emerge as Chief Challenge

Environmental factors have replaced cost considerations as the U.S. auto industry's top challenge, according to an annual industry survey.

The result marks the first time in 14 years that costs haven't been the industry's No. 1 concern.

"Green" issues such as fuel economy and emissions regulations were cited by 53 percent of the 300 automotive designers and engineers responding to the survey, as the chief challenges facing the industry. Only 32 percent cited cost concerns.

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