The Nissan LEAF promises to be the first affordable all-electric car on the market when it hits showrooms around this time next year. With a target price in the $25,000 range it is affordable, anti-petrol, and kinda cute too. The production model makes its North American debut next month in Los Angeles. It will be the first chance for the American public to see this car in person. [ed. note: Gas 2.0 will be there for the unveiling in L.A.]

After making its debut, Nissan will take the LEAF on a countrywide tour, giving the denizens of 22 cities a chance to sit and drive an important part of our electric future.

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At the 2009 Detroit Auto Show, Audi announced that their Clean Diesel A3 TDI would be available in US by early 2010.

The Audi A3 is by far one of Europe’s cleanest and most fuel-efficient cars, and Audi is hoping the car will kick some major Prius butt. Pitching the car as a hybrid-fighter, Audi is pairing it off against both the Prius and the Honda Insight.

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At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Volkswagen showed off its latest roadster — the BlueSport Concept. The BlueSport features a 177 hp diesel engine with rail injection and a downstream NO_x storage catalytic converter, all in a 6-speed DSG dual clutch transmission.

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Download Coskata Announcement

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Apologies for not getting this up sooner… was in bed at 8:30 Wednesday night, and yesterday was traveling home day…

I spent a good part of Wednesday afternoon talking to GM executives. We’ve got audio files that we’ll be sharing with you as soon as we get some glitches smoothed out, but I wanted to give you a quick overview.

GM scheduled a group interview/conversation with the bloggers at the show and our colleague Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of Global Product Development. If you follow GM’s FastLane blog, you know that he’s pretty outspoken — that was clear in our discussion, too. It was a fascinating meeting — Lutz addressed not only environmental concerns (even what he thought would happen to vehicles like the Hummer with GM’s stated commitment to “reinventing the automobile”), but also the history of design at GM (and how it’s come back into prominence), and even the perils of blogging with a PR team watching what you say!

I also met with Saturn’s Director of Brand & Product Development Lisa Hutchinson. With the unveiling of the Astra, the Saturn folks were clearly in demand — I was originally supposed to meet with Saturn GM Jill Lajdziak, but the radio folks kept her for themselves. Lisa was clearly in demand, also, so we kept it short and sweet. Essentially,

• Saturn believes that small cars like the Astra will continue to grow in demand.
• The VUE Hybrid will be going through several manifestations, from the current hybrid, to GM’s dual-mode hybrid, to a plug-in. No dates, however, for the last stage.
• Saturn believes that green is a good bet, and sees it as a major part of their “evolution.”

The last interview I did, with GM’s VP of Research & Development and Corporate Strategy Larry Burns, was a blogger’s dream (even when it’s a green blogger meeting with a high-level executive of a major auto company). I was impressed not only with Larry’s passion for his company and its products, but also his command of that company’s environmental impact, and its efforts to address them. When I brought up the Rainforest Action Network and JumpStartFord’s assertion that GM is focused on green concept vehicles and dirty production vehicles, he answered very thoroughly and very candidly. It’s a wonderful discussion, and I can’t wait to bring it to you.

I’ve got to admit I came away from these meetings pretty impressed with GM’s ideas about “greening” the automobile. Of course, we’ll have to keep a close eye on them, as well as other car manufacturers — everyone’s talking green now, but the proof will be in the actions they take. We should probably keep the Wal-Mart standard in mind — judge them by their actions. But we also shouldn’t take the relatively easy step of writing GM off because it killed the EV1 and builds the Hummer. If they really get it, the potential for positive impact is tremendous — and we’ve got to encourage that. I hope you’ll listen to the interviews once I get them up here… lots and lots of food for thought.

Crossposted at Green Options.

Categories: gm, automobile, cars, chicago, autoshow