By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Spurred by factory incentives, replenished stocks and the relative freshness of several models, sales of hybrid-electric cars and SUVs soared in October, easily outperforming the market as a whole.

Compared to October '08 - a month with six fewer hybrid models available - sales of Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan and Toyota hybrids were up 12.1 percent, while sales of conventionally powered cars and trucks were flat.

The one-month picture was even rosier, as October hybrid sales jumped 22.5 percent from September's, versus a 12.1 percent hike in sales of conventional models.

Nissan, which has only one model - the Altima hybrid, - and sells it in just the nine states with the toughest emissions standards, was the only hybrid maker to record a sales decline for both periods, dropping 46 percent from a year earlier and 13 percent from September.

As with most hybrids - Toyota's Prius excepted - Nissan's actual numbers are quite small because of low sales volumes. October's sales drop represented just 46 fewer Altima hybrid sales than in September.

Toyota's redesigned 2010 Prius, sweetened by a small factory incentive, remained by far the segment leader, accounting for 55 percent of all hybrid sales for the month.

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Fisker showed off his upcoming Karma plug-in hybrid Thursday evening to a crowd of about 200 close friends, and future customers, at an event in Santa Monica highlighted by presentation of the Danish-American Chamber of Commerce's  2009 innovation award to Fisker.

The native of Denmark, now CEO of California-based Fisker Automotive, was honored for "providing outstanding contributions and innovation addressing critical issues" with is work to bring a new line of highly fuel-efficient luxury automobiles to market. 
 
The $88,000 Karma, which initially will be built in Finland while Fisker readies a former GM plant in Delaware for production in 2012 of line of less-expensive, "family-oriented" plug-in hybrid sedans, is slated to begin arriving for customer delivery in mid-2010.

Pictured from left at Thursday evening's award fete are Friis Arne Petersen, Danish Ambassador to the US; Torben Aaskov, President of Danish American Chamber; Fisker; and Johs Worsoe, Executive Vice President of Union Bank, which sponsored the award.

Adding E85 (ethanol) capability is part of the GM calls the brand's "evolution to offer responsible ... more efficient" models that don't sacrifice any of the big trucks' all-terrain capabilities.

The 5.3-liter, 300 horsepower flex fuel V8 is a new engine that, GM says, will be a standard offering across the entire 2010 Hummer Alpha series performance lineup.

GM no longer lists Hummer as one of its models - anticipating completion of the brand's sale early next year - but a slightly higher horsepower version of the same engine in the Chevrolet Tahoe is rated at 14 MPG in the city and 19 MPG on the highway - 16 MPG combined - using gasoline. You can figure a 25 percent drop in fuel economy - but lower CO2 emissions - when using E85.

The larger H2 Hummers got their flex-fuel engines with the '09 model launch and fuel economy for the 6.2-liter V8 got a combined city-highway rating of 14 MPG on gasoline, dropping to 10 MPG on E85.

We're not sure the new H3 powerplant will help that much - if Hummer's got a good market anywhere in this country it's Southern California, and there are only 10 ethanol stations in the entire region.

With sales down more than 60 percent this year after falling 50 percent last year and 20 percent the year before that, adding a biofuel-capable, high-performance engine to the Hummer H3 lineup is sort of like trying to patch the Titanic's hull with bandages from the infirmary.

Oh, wait - there also are three new exterior colors for 2010. That ought to help.  

SAIC's chairman, Hu Maoyuan, said the money would be equally divided among research, product development and component and vehicle manufacturing programs from now though 2011.

The company plans to launch a line of hybrid and all-electric cars in China under the Roewe brand by 2012 and reportedly has begin testing a plug-in hybrid system of its own design.

The effort is part of a drive to fulfill the government's request that 5 percent of all passenger vehicles built in China by 2011 use alternative powertrains and that each Chinese automaker have at least one electric, hybrid or other alternative model in its lineup.

Let the horse-trading begin.

The Obama Administration, seeking to boost development of all-electric and plug-in hybrid-electric cars, is suggesting that automakers be given CAFE credits that would let low and zero-emission vehicles count for up to two cars when annual fleet fuel efficiency averages are calculated.

That standard would mean that an automaker seeking to meet the 35.5 MPG fleet average required by 2016 could use a single battery-electric car rated at, say, 100 miles per gasoline-gallon equivalent, to offset seven 12 MPG pickups and SUVs, as the average fuel economy of the eight vehicles - with the ZEV's rating doubled - would be 35.5 miles per gallon.

"The ability to earn, bank and trade credits," Alliance spokesman Charles Territo told the Wall Street Journal, "is essential to meeting the goals of the national [CAFE] program.

A credit program that enables automakers to bank and trade excess fuel economy credits also could be a huge boon to companies such as Tesla Motors, Coda Automotive and Fisker Automotive, which have -or will have, in the case of Fisker and Coda - nothing but zero- and extremely low-emissions vehicles in their fleets.

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Think City electric cars on the road at Valmet Automotive production plant in Finland.

As it prepares to move its manufacturing operation from its own facilities in Norway to a contract builder in Finland, a post-bankruptcy Think is cranking up its publicity engines.

The 18-year-old company, which has an agreement with investor Valmet Automotive to have the Finnish engineering and auto manufacturing services provider take over production of the plastic-bodied "urban EV," is showing a ready-for-market model at this weekend's Helsinki Electric Motor Show.

The car, primarily sold to utility and government fleets participating in electric vehicle test programs, is intended for public sale once Valmet production begins.

Think - once owned by Ford Motor Co. - also has plans to launch sales and manufacturing operations in the U.S., where battery supplier Enerdel and its parent, Ener1, are headquartered (Ener1 is also Think's largest single stakeholder).

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Electric Vehicles International, a manufacturer of electric delivery trucks and low-speed neighborhood electric vehicles, has moved its factory and corporate headquarters back to the U.S. after operating in Mexico for several years.

The company, founded in California in 1989, moved to Toluca, Mexico, after spending years developing its drive system because it saw a bigger market for its work trucks south of the border, a company spokesman told Green Car Advisor.

The move back - the new facility is in Stockton in California's Central Valley - has been planned for almost a year, spurred by growing U.S. interest in electric vehicles.

The company launched U.S. sales this spring.

EVI manufactures and markets all-electric Class 3 through Class 6  (5- to 13-ton) delivery trucks, and has recently begun marketing a low-speed NEV for businesses.

It also uses a proprietary electric drive and control system to do custom plug-in hybrid conversions for private business fleets.

The company says it has sold more than 1,000 of its electric trucks to date through sales offices in Mexico and Texas.

The feds have published a detailed list of trade-ins and purchases under the summer's Cash for Clunkers program and some media have picked up on an item we cautioned about before the program became law.

It allowed owners of some older pickups and vans to trade them in for new trucks with lower fuel economy.

We don't know the details of every one of the 150 or so "worse gas mileage' trades that were made (according to an Associated Press analysis), and some may have been approved in error or even through outright fraud, but they really shouldn't have taken anyone by surprise.

Way back in May, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began considering the "Car Allowance Rebate System" or CARS bill with language that clearly approved of those "worse mileage" trades.

It specified that owners of pre-2002 work trucks could trade them in and get a $3,500 voucher for new trucks in the same or lighter weight classes, with no requirement for improved fuel economy.

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Under the old, pre-bankruptcy plan, there was to be a Dodge EV in 2010 and a Chrysler extended-range plug-n hybrid in 2011, with more to follow. Maybe even a Chrysler 300 with all-electric drive.

Chrysler's new corporate website has a nice feature and Q&A about electrification and the work of the 2-year-old ENVI (stands for ENVIronmental) group that's developing EV and PHEV concepts and prototypes for Chrysler.

We did hear that Chrysler will bring the  popular Fiat 500 subcompact (right) to the U.S. late next year as a  2011 model, to be sold in major metropolitan areas - hooray!

But discussion of its activities and plans for its future and for future electrified vehicles was glaringly absent from today's product plan session under Chrysler's post-bankruptcy bosses from Fiat.

But we're optimists at heart, and keep hearing our Chrysler friends telling us not to worry, that ENVI's still part of the company plan and still working on vehicles and systems that eventually will see the light of day.

So we cross our fingers and wait for Sig. Marchionne and crew to honor us with that information. Sooner, please, than later.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor.

Video explains Fiat Multiair system that will be used in many of Chrysler's new models to improve fuel efficiency, reduce emissions and boost power.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Chrysler's new powertrain chief, Paolo Ferrero, says the company will begin widespread adoption of gas and diesel engine technologies from its new owner, Fiat Group, with the first of a family of more fuel-efficient engines due next summer.

The company believes that hybrids and electric vehicles are a longer-term strategy and will concentrate in the "short-to-medium" term on internal combustion engine improvements and downsizing, and introduction of fuel-efficient clean diesels and engines using alternative low carbon fuels such as compressed natural gas.

Chrysler also will be adopting the start-stop system, also called a micro-hybrid system, that is used in some Fiat models to shut down the engine at stop signs and when idling. It can reduce emissions and improve fuel economy by as much as 5 percent, Ferrero said.

The first model in the Chrysler lineup to use it will be the the 2011 Jeep Wrangler. 

By 2014, Ferrero said during a morning presentation at the day-long Chrysler product plan meeting, 38 percent of Chrysler vehicles will use small, four-cylinder engines, up from 19 percent today, and 14 percent will use diesel engines, up from 9 percent now.

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The company, which has been involved in waste-to-energy programs for nearly 40 years, has installed a $15.5 million biogas collection and refining system at its Altamont Landfill near Livermore in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The German-made system removes impurities from the methane and chills it to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit to liquefy it so it can be pumped directly into the trash trucks' tanks.

We can't help but wonder how many gallons a weekly residential curbside garbage can would be good for and whether there's any future in, say, neighborhood waste-to-gas programs? Perhaps a monthly voucher good for your garbage's equivalent of LNG at the local dump pump?

The company, which so far has announced 45 U.S. dealership agreements and two smaller European distributorships, said this morning that it has now signed the 100-plus dealership Emil Frey Group to handle much of its European sales and service.

The Swiss company has outlets in six countries - Switzerland, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic - and handles premium brands.

Fisker previously signed GP Supercars in Italy and the Nellerman Group in Denmark as distributors and is working on a deal in China.

While the Karma initially is to be built in Finland by Valmet Automotive, Fisker last week agreed to acquire and outfit an idled GM plant in Delaware to build a second line of less-expensive plug-in hybrids and said that Karma production eventually would be moved to the U.S.

The company is financing its U.S. production and R&D in large part with proceeds of a $528 million federal loan.

How will the Hemi company meet the 35.5 MPG federal CAFE standard by 2016?

Will there finally be Chrysler EVs? Hybrids? A Chrysler-branded version of the Fiat 500? More trucks, or fewer, from Dodge?

Is Chrysler's muscular styling (when it has styling) out the window, to be replaced by a sleeker, more European look?

We presume all those questions, and more, will be answered during the session as Fiat's sergio Marcionne unveils the new Chrysler 5-year product plan.

It starts at 11 a.m. Eastern (8 a.m. Pacific) and wraps up at 6 p.m. and you can watch all, or parts, by registering on the Chrysler Website.

Think of it as a sort of government insurance to guarantee smooth operation of a fuel-efficiency contest that's funded by a private insurance company.  At least there's no public health care program involved.

The grant to the X Prize Foundation, which describes itself as an educational nonprofit prize institute, will be used in part to provide funding for technical experts who can properly judge the contest to develop a marketable passenger vehicle that delivers fuel economy of at least 100 miles per gallon or the alternative-fuel equivalent.

Federal funding, from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,  also will pay for on-board computer systems that will be able to accurately measure and display real-time fuel economy as the finalist vehicles go through their paces, and for consultants who can do safety and emissions testing on the entrants' vehicles.

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GM, which has been working on energy recovery from exhaust heat for decades, has just received a small federal grant to develop a prototype exhaust-hear generator using a class of material called Shape Memory Alloy.

SMA, as it is called, is a metal that shrinks when heated and returns to its original shape when cooled. That activity is motion and motion is energy.

The idea of an SMA "heat engine" has been around for 30 years, said   Aase, "but the few devices that have been built were too large and too inefficient to make it worthwhile."

That apparently includes a bulky exhaust-heat generator prototype GM showed off for a brief time last year.

It used metal plates that were welded  in a multi-sided collar around an exhaust pipe and created electricity when electrons on the exhaust side of the metal plates were heated and began vibrating, flowing through to the cooler outside of the plates where they were collected by electrodes.

The $2.7 million grant SMA from the Energy Department will enable GM and several partners to develop a working prototype of an exhaust-generator that can provide power for air conditioners, heaters, power windows, stereo systems and other electrical devices on board a vehicle that now drain valuable juice from the battery.

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