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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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

The idea of spending less on gas seems to be driving far more people into the green car ranks than the idea that you are doing something good for the planet and those who occupy it.

We can see this pretty clearly in the astonishing growth of small car sales in the U.S. – hardly anyone was buying them a few years ago and last month they accounted for a record 22.6 percent of the new car market, according to Edmunds.com's market analysts.

Meantime, large trucks' market share plunged to just 11 percent, down from a high three years ago of 19 percent.

Small used to mean cheap. Now it means fuel efficient (although not all small cars are particularly miserly with gas). And as compacts and subcompacts continue to capture market share, look for automakers to start piling high-margin luxury goodies into their small cars as they seek ways to replace the profits they used to book from truck sales.

Hybrids Rising Too

We can also see concern about fuel prices in the steady rise of hybrid sales – they accounted for a record 3.2 percent of the market in April, with Toyota's Prius the month's 10th best-selling model of any type.

That hybrids are increasing their market penetration even though they cost more than comparably equipped conventional versions of the same models (except the Toyota Prius, which has no conventional counterpart) is testimony to people's desire to pare their fuel bills.

Just a year or so ago, the Prius was the only hybrid with a reasonable chance of providing sufficient fuel savings to pay back the so-called hybrid premium – the price a hybrid purchaser pays to get a car or SUV with two powertrains and enough complex electronics to make a NASA engineer jealous.

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Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday that it plans to double by the end of next year the number of fuel-saving six-speed automatic transmissions it is putting in its vehicles.

The new front-wheel-drive 6-speed transmission offers 4 percent to 6 percent better fuel economy, improved acceleration and smoother shifting than four- and five-speed automatics, Ford said in a statement on its website.

The Dearborn-based automaker said the new transmissions will debut early next year in the 2009-model Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner crossover SUVs, their sibling '09 Mazda Tribute, and two unidentified vehicles.

Ford said it plans to use the advanced transmission, which will be made at its Sterling Heights, Mich., plant, in 98 percent of its North American vehicles by 2012.

Ford Vice President Barb Samardzich, head of the company's North American transmission operations, said the new transmissions are key to Ford's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions form its vehicles by 30 percent by 2020.

The announcement comes five months after Ford unveiled a direct-injection technology it calls EcoBoost that will enable the gasoline-powered cars and trucks that use it to deliver up to 20 percent better fuel economy with 15 percent fewer carbon-dioxide emissions than versions equipped with standard fuel-injected engines of similar output.

Scott Doggett, Contributor

Hyundai Motor Co. says it can use existing technologies to boost fuel economy for its U.S. market cars and trucks by about 10% over the next few years as it moves to meet new federal gas mileage rules.

"There is really no home run [solution] out there," Timothy White, the company's senior U.S. powertrain manager, said in an interview with the trade publication Automotive News. The needed improvement will have to be made by applying dozens of individual technologies.

About half the needed fuel economy improvements in the company's fleet will come from power train improvements and half will come from using lightweight structural materials and energy-saving technologies -- such as LED lighting and electric power steering -- that reduce mileage-robbing parasitic drain on engine output, he said.

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German auto parts giant Continental Corp. says it has developed a new piezo-electric fuel injector system for diesels that can help lower fuel consumption and reduce emissions of the nitrogen oxides that now require expensive exhaust treatment.

"When considering the overall cost of engine production, the new injector offers further potential savings by simplifying other emissions-related components such as sensors and control algorithms," said Wendelin Klügl, Continental's senior vice president for powertrain systems and technology.

"Even vehicles in higher weight categories will now meet the Euro 6 emissions standard without nitrogen oxide after-treatment," he said.  The Euro 6 standard permits almost twice the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from diesels than does the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Tier II emissions standard, which is to be fully implemented next year.

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Only two days after introducing a diesel version of its TT sports car, Audi announced Thursday that it will be expanding the line with coupe and convertible TTs featuring gasoline-powered 1.8-liter TFSI (Turbocharged Fuel Stratified Injection) engines offering European driving cycle fuel economy of 35 mpg and 34 mpg, respectively.

The highly compact, four-cylinder direct injection engine weighs just 297 pounds yet produces 160 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque, Audi said. It also features various measures to reduce parasitic energy drain on the engine, including a demand-based oil pump.

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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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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

The nation's automobile manufacturers would have to raise fleet-wide fuel economy standards by 25 percent – to 31.6 miles per gallon – by model year 2015 under a proposal announced today by U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.

The standards mark the Transportation Department's initial response to the energy bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush last year that requires the nation's new cars and trucks to collectively average 35 mpg by 2020.

Peters' proposal would move the industry halfway there. Because the department is limited by federal law to setting the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standard for only five years at a time, a new proposal will be needed  for the 2015-2020 period to bring the fleet up to the 35 miles per gallon level.

Today's interim rule would raise the CAFE standard for new passenger cars to 35.7 mpg by model year 2015 and increase the standard for new light trucks to 28.6 mpg for the same model year.

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