Twenty-four hours after Ford's PR man Mark Fields declared battery research a "national priority," the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced it's giving $30m in research money to General Motors, Ford and General Electric. (Don't despair Mopar fans, as GE is already working with Chrysler on a plug-in hybrid.) Each company will work on a different aspect of battery technology. GM will focus on lithium ion packs and their integration with vehicles and homes. Ford will attempt to tackle the manufacturing process. GE will concern themselves with "dual-battery" technology, whatever that may mean. While the DOE's grant isn't exactly the $500m Fields declared necessary to secure our technological borders, it's still a hefty chunk of change. Expect the initiative to bear PHEV fruit in 2016, some six years after the plug-in electric gas hybrid Chevrolet Volt's supposed debut.

Toyota recently declared that it would begin building Camry Hybrids in Melbourne, potentially reversing the industry's decades-long decline. The announcement vindicated the Australian government's half-billion dollar initiative to encourage local production of full-sized eco-friendly cars. PM Kevin Rudd and the Victoria provincial government each cut a $35m check to Toyota in return for its promise to build 10k Camry Hybrids per year. Win-win for all concerned, right? And then Toyota Australia spokesman Mike Breen opened his big mouth. Breen told The Australian an inconvenient truth: Toyota would have built Camry hybrids in Melbourne with or without the taxpayer-funded incentives. This prompted howls of outrage from the opposition, claiming the handout "amounts to nothing more than a $35m photo opportunity for the prime minister." Of course, Toyota has since backpedaled, disingenuously demurring that "Toyota's decision to build a hybrid Camry in Australia was based on various business considerations… however, the Governments' support was a critical factor in securing local production." Ford and GM reps are sure to learn the lesson when they meet with Australian Industry Minister Kim Carr this week; there's still $465m in taxpayer dross to be hustled Down Under.

Tesla Chairman Elon Musk recently told Fox Business Network [via just-auto.com, sub] that the EV startup has inked a deal with Daimler. With its Roadster safely at "good-enough" status (says them), the California firm is turning its attention to its planned WhiteStar sedan. With full-EV and serial hybrid versions of WhiteStar planned, Tesla needs some help with the various technical elements– such as an internal combustion engine. "We have a deal right now with Daimler," boasts Musk. But like much of Tesla's efforts (transmission, batteries, deliveries), the details haven't quite been ironed-out. "[The deal is] still in the early stages," Musk admits. "We have a small deal that could potentially lead to a very big deal." Autoblog speculates that WhiteStar's serial-hybrid ICE could use a Daimler-sourced SMART three-banger. But just as there are no Roadsters available for delivery at Tesla dealerships (or anywhere else), there's no firm info on this hook-up, including its actual existence. 

With the autoblogosphere going ape over Toyota's hybrid three-fer, ToMoCo reps are tamping down the hype. Advanced Technology Group guru Bill Reinert tells Automotive News [sub] to chillax on the mpgs. "When we see the (claims of) 100 mile-per-gallon stuff, not everybody's going to get 100 miles per gallon." Toyota isn't backing away from its 40-mile, EV-only range for its forthcoming plug-in hybrids. But Reinert warns "the demands of real-world driving, such as rapid acceleration on freeway entrances, could dramatically reduce the all-electric range of plug-ins… just as some consumers have been disappointed by the real-world mileage of regular hybrids, plug-ins may not live up to those high hopes." Meanwhile, GM's "moon shot" plug-in electric – gas hybrid Hail Mary appears to run solely on media attention. In Jonathan Rauch's feature in the Atlantic Monthly, GM PR maven Steve Harris reveals that the Volt project came about because "The PR guys want something more sexy and dramatic, a singular point for our message. This issue of the environmental image was hurting the company substantially." Which will be as nothing compared to the hit to GM's rep if or when the Volt fails to meet its expected launch date or [as yet unspecified] price point.

The Scotts invented Free Masonery, Scotch and Golf. They then kicked back, cursed the English and watched their American cousins play with the world. Until now. Edinburgh-based Artemis is claiming that they've doubled an internal combustion powered car's mileage. Their new tech– officially launched in 2005– replaces the port and swash plates in a typical slushbox with hydraulics and a computer-controlled solenoid valve system. According to cleantech.com, a "third party" compared a brace of BMW 530is. One sported a five-speed manual, the other Artemis's hydraulic hybrid system. The HEDDAT equipped Bimmer achieved 41.1 mpg (Euro city cycle) and 39.6 mpg on the highway (Euro highway cycle). The system also reduced all-important CO2 emissions by 30 percent. Instead of storing regenerative energy in a battery, hydraulic hybrids store the power hydraulically. That makes "charging" faster. Discharging, too. Also, the harder you drive, the more energy gets stored for later. Exactly the opposite of an electric hybrid, where hard driving tends to create much more energy than can be fed into the battery. Artemis is also claiming their HEDDAT system is cheaper and more durable than an electric hybrid. Artemus has already inked a deal with Bosch to get the Digital Displacement system into on-highway vehicles.

You may recall that GM recently blamed Saturn's rapidly sinking sales on the brand's "awareness problem." The spin that started there has spiraled over to GM's two-mode hybrids. Automotive News [AN, sub] earnestly reports that "so far, the word isn't getting out… Marketing to build awareness, and move the metal, has to be kicked up." Ah, that MUST be it! 'Cause… GM says so! "There's very little awareness that we even have these products," GM marketing maven Mark LaNeve tells an entirely credulous Jamie Lareau. "We're going to be constrained by battery availability, but we still think that we could work it up to 5 to 10 percent of our full-sized SUV sales." Constrained? As in "we can't get them?" To be fair (hey, it's Monday), AN points out that the mondo-expensive hybrid SUVs are a gigantic flop: they've sold just 1,540 Tahoe and Yukon hybrids  compared to their 8k to 12k annual sales target. This may have a little something to do with it: "The top-end, four-wheel-drive Tahoe LT starts at $40,460. The hybrid starts at $50,490. The Yukon starts at $36,245 and the top-end, all-wheel-drive Yukon Denali at $50,380. The hybrid starts at $50,945. All prices include shipping." Ouch.

Once it was big shiny convertibles that caught the ladies' eyes. Then it was Corvettes, Lambos or anything else low, fast and expensive. But the times they are a-changin'. Yahoo! Green reports that hybrids are this generation's automotive codpieces. A survey done by GM during this year's Challenge X competition reveals that 88 percent of women say "they'd rather chat up someone who owns the latest fuel-efficient car versus the latest sports car." On top of that, 80 percent of American car buyers would rather talk with someone at a party who has the "latest fuel-efficient car" than someone with a sports car. And for the fashionists out there, 45 percent of "18- to 43-year-olds say it's a fashion faux pas nowadays to have a car that's not green or environmentally friendly." But does that now mean that those who buy the highest mileage cars are overcompensating? And what does that say about all those who put down deposits on Teslas and Volts? The mind– or something– boggles. 

That RenCen money tree must be producing a bumper crop this spring. The custody battle over Cobasys between parents Chevron and Energy Conservation Devices (the loser gets custody) has reached the point where GM feels obliged to intercede (i.e. throw money at it). Cobasys makes the batteries for GM's mild hybrids. No other batteries will work in the vehicles, at least until they're redesigned in (all together now) 2010. Automotive News reports "three sources" told them GM is preparing to buy the floundering battery company. The irony: GM helped found Cobasys, then sold its share to Texaco (which later merged with Chevron). Just as spin-offs Delphi and American Axle continue to sap GM's waning resources, Cobasys now returns to haunt them. No one's saying what this acquisition will cost The General, but not to worry… they have plenty of money to get them to the end of the year.

I was wrong. In spite of indications to the contrary, the GMC salesman blogger defending your right to suck-up fuel and clog the roadways with oversized trucks didn't have a change of heart about hybrids. In his latest anonymous posting on the Commercial Auto Dealers web site, the same person who warned us about the dangers of hybrids (so quiet we'll all fall asleep behind the wheel) is "irked"  about environmentalists who "who think hybrids are God's gift to humankind" because of "Al Gore's half-truths and theories."  And he's specifically "annoyed" with those of you who've commented about his views on trucks vs. hybrids. Just to make sure you understand where he's coming from, he states "I'm sticking with my truck and I'm not going to feel guilty about it." Neither should anyone else "feel guilty about going to your local GMC truck dealer and getting the biggest, baddest truck you can find and driving it for no reason at all." Gas prices be damned. After all, "when [hybrid owners] need a tow, the guys with the big trucks are the ones they're going to call first."

Not only does GM want the U.S. taxpayer and the Chinese government to subsidize development and sale of the Volt, now they're reaching into Michigan taxpayers' pockets to subsidize the production. GM insists they want to produce their electric-gas wundercar in Detroit to show how much they support the city and state– but only if the city and state support them by giving them tax breaks. The Detroit News reports GM met with the Detroit City Council yesterday to discuss their plans for the Volt. But no one will say just what kind of extortion "tax incentives" they demanded are seeking. With the magical year 2010 just a short time away, it seems to me they need to stop their fund-raising activities and get on with aligning their webbed-footed waterfowl. That is, if they really do plan on getting the Volt to the market in 2010. Otherwise, they can just keep on playing "poor poor pitiful me" and blame production delays on the government. 

Toyota and Honda want to drive down then total cost of ownership of their hybrids. Autobloggreen reports that the Japanese automakers are dropping the price of replacement batteries for their hybrids, from stroke-inducing to somewhat painful. Replacement batteries for the Honda Insight are now $1,968, down from $3,400. Toyota lowered the cost of the Prius' power pack from $5.5k to a mere $3k. (Or you could buy them for $550 on eBay.) Still, though, the hybrid manufacturers are keen to stress the fact that battery replacement isn't a common procedure. Honda brags that they've replaced fewer than 200 battery packs out of warranty, out of 100k hybrids on the road. Toyota says their post-warranty replacement rate is 0.003 percent. What I want to see, though, is what their replacement rate is during the warranty period. I'm sure it won't approach GM's rate after their problems they had with Cobasys batteries. But you know they're all doing it. What they're not saying is how often.

GM's plans to sell 27k light hybrid vehicles this year have hit a snag. They've had to use one third of the battery packs earmarked for new car production to replace leaking battery packs in their 2007 model year mild hybrids. Automotive News [sub] reports the leaking nickel-metal hydride batteries, made by Cobasys, caused the hybrid system to shut down; the vehicles still ran in gas-only mode. A123-Cobasys is one of the companies developing the lithium-ion batteries for the Volt and plug-in hybrid Vue. If they can't build NiMH batteries that work, the more complex LiIon batteries could be something of a… challenge.

Everyone's familiar with New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., right? Also known as NUMMI, the plant is a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. Why would the number one and number one two car makers team up? The old answer was that GM wanted to learn about Japanese "lean" manufacturing techniques and Toyota wanted to use the plant as a beachhead to establish North American production. The new answer? We'll leave it to the historians. That said, ToMoCo is thinking about maybe building their hot selling hybrid at NUMMI. Motor Authority is reporting that as American demand for the Prius remains high, the potential move is making a lot of sense to (some) Toyota suits. Like all of their corporate decisions, Toyota will be thinking long on hard on this one. Not mentioned in the article is that due to the weakness of the dollar, American workers can now be paid in chicken feed, or the equivalent there of. Hey, it's not all bad news. Maybe GM can learn a thing or two about what makes a Prius before the 2010 "launch" of the Chevy Volt.

Chrysler is strangely intrigued by those "hybrid" cars you keep hearing about these days. And by cars, we mostly mean trucks and SUVs, as that's all Chrysler will be offering any time soon. Because… well, we're not actually sure why. The Detroit Free Press reports that this summer's launch of the two-mode Hybrid Aspen and Durango SUVs has Chrysler curiously optimistic about its chances in the hybrid game. Up next will be hybrid versions of the Ram, employing the same two-mode hybrid Hemi as the Aspen/Durango. And come to think of it, Chrysler doesn't really have any other hybrid options in its bag of tricks (which is mostly full of unbelievably cheap interior plastics). Although the Aspen/Durango launch has Chrysler saying it is also considering making hybrid versions of the Journey CUV and Avenger sedan, one can't help but wonder what Chrysler would put under the hood of such whips. Is there a mysterious non-V8 hybrid drivetrain hiding somewhere in Auburn Hills? If so, wouldn't we be hearing more about it, given the disappointing sales of two-mode V8's by GM? Or is the truth really that Chrysler overpaid for its hugely expensive two-mode V8, and can't afford to develop a hybrid that might get better than 30mpg? Either way, when your offerings make GM's current lineup of hybrids look fresh and innovative by comparison, you know you're in trouble. 

Apparently the GMC dealer unknown writer posting on the Commercial Auto Dealers web site had a change of heart about hybrids. After warning everyone about the dangers of driving a too-quiet, electromagnetic-field-generating deathtrap, now he wants everyone to know that "GMC is the leader in hybrid vehicles if you're looking for trucks or full-sized SUVs." He goes on to brag "during the first quarter of 2008, the automaker sold nearly 850 hybrid vehicles and about 80 percent of those were large trucks." I'm assuming by "the automaker" he means GM, not GMC division, as the only hybrids GMC sells are monstrous Yukons and pickups. So let's see… they sold a total of 850 hybrids in three months. That works out to an average of what, 293 hybrids per month, 234 of which were trucks? In the month of April, Toyota sold twenty-one thousand Priora. Not fair, you say? Ok, let's look just at trucks. Try 1,624 Lexus RX 400h's. Or 2,578 Highlander Hybrids. Ford even sold 1,682 Escape Hybrids. All in one month. If, as he claims (citing Eric Fedeva without identifying exactly who he is or why what he said is important), "GMC is going to be a serious contender in the hybrid market in the next few years," someone at GM better get serious and produce a full hybrid the average buyer can afford. Oh, and that won't bombard its hapless passengers with the "type of magnetic field [that] has been linked to leukemia in children."