So with all of the 7000 of these dedicated scribes to inform you, you certainly don't need me to add to your confusion.

However, GM pulled off a major coup at the NAIAS (Not All Industries Are Survivors).

It managed to introduce the Volt and managed also to bamboozle the general media into believing that the day when you
would be able to drive (up to) 45 miles without using any gasoline were actually around the corner.

There's a whole host of barriers to this kind of car hitting the streets very soon.

Firstly,  the batteries required to drive a car of that size, that far, on electricity alone have not yet been developed.
In fact, the Americans having fallen so far behind that they are now trying to persuade the besotted Bush to ante
up 500 million large to try and catch up.

Listen, if the man fell for the Cheney con-job, maybe he can be persuaded to do this too.

Secondly, no one bothered to point out that batteries that need to be recharged every night, have a tail pipe emissions problem.
The tail pipe is 300 miles away at a power station, but it's still there - nothing has been solved, or even improved upon.

Thirdly, if you have a battery of that size being charged by a plug in charger, your electric bill is going to make your gasoline costs
look like  your last dollar store receipt - very small by comparison.

Somehow or other diesel engines almost disappeared off the radar at this show in favour of these pie-in-the-sky projects.

Ford said that we can forget diesels for their non commercial vehicles, I guess because they are so cash strapped that they don't
have the wherewithal to market them here.

In the meantime, Toyota, smiling graciously as the Yanks try desperately to catch up with the Japanese hybrid technology,
introduced a 500 horsepower sports car. This makes sense for a company that already invested several billion dollars in a
Formula One car, with which the average race fan can have no connection, because Toyota has nothing but motorised shopping
carts to offer at this time.

However, Toyota should wipe the smarmy smiles off their faces, as they pretend to be green.

Along with all the bad guys, they now have some of the largest and most wasteful trucks and cars in the world.

To paraphrase Bob Lutz:
Please make your mind up, Mr. and Mrs. Consumer.
Do you want 100 mpg, or 0-60 in five seconds, you can't have it both ways.

Just to make the point a little clearer, here's what the New York Times had to say on the very same subject,
two days after my blog was written:

THE front-page headline of The Detroit News last Monday blared “GM Powers Up” in letters of a size usually reserved for
bulletins like “WAR ENDS.” For a day at least, General Motors owned industry bragging rights with its introduction of the
Chevrolet Volt electric car at the North American International Auto Show. Investors were happy; G.M.’s stock price rose a bit.

There was, however, one problem: The Volt does not run. The batteries it requires to deliver the driving range and economy G.M.
promised have not been developed. Granted, G.M. was candid about this shortcoming, and the Volt is at least as close to reality
as many of the so-called concept cars that appeared at the show in the past.

So why do carmakers push ideas that don’t quite work, or innovations that aren’t quite finished, into the bright global spotlight
of the annual auto show here?

Fact is, for decades automakers have used exhibitions like this to showcase dream cars with dreamed-up powertrains wholly
incapable of their advertised feats. Putting wings on the fenders may not make a flying car, but it may be enough to get some
publicity for your company. Journalists on the auto beat quickly learn to take the more outlandish claims — cars with
soybean-based bodies, or those said to have lightning-quick acceleration while achieving 100 miles a gallon
— with several grains of salt.

The people who create such dream machines say they are just continuing a long tradition of using auto shows as idea factories.
With their concept cars they are testing the waters, thinking out loud, exploring the outer edges of what might be possible
— or playing a game of liar’s poker, trying to psych out the competition.

In the book, “Modern Chrysler Concept Cars,” the author Matt DeLorenzo noted that from 1987 to 1999, Chrysler produced
nearly 50 concept cars. Of those, more than half were powered by pie-in-the-sky engines that Chrysler lacked the means,
intent or technical know-how to produce, including those propelled by hybrid electrics, fuel cells and propane.
A breakthrough promised by the 1992 Cirrus — a supercharged two stroke V-6 Fury engine — was said to produce 400
horsepower. The engine later proved to be mockup made of wood.

As word leaked out that these and other concept car engines were less than sincere efforts by manufacturers perhaps
more interested in headlines than making real products, reporters began to ask tougher questions about powertrain feasibility.

In 2000, in response to skeptics who wondered whether the current crop of concept cars would really run, G.M. invited the press,
to drive the cars at its Michigan proving ground. The test was tightly regulated: a G.M. employee was to accompany the driver
and the cars could not be driven above 25 m.p.h.

The results were not persuasive; the Buick LaCrosse, a retro-themed concept bristling with electronic controls, trapped its
occupants inside because an electrical failure prevented the experimental Quiet Servant voice-command system from obeying
a crucial spoken command, “Open doors.”

The engine froze up on another concept car, the Cadillac Imaj. When I asked the engineer assigned to the GMC Terradyne
pickup to accompany me on a drive, he muttered something like, “I told them this wasn’t a good idea.” After about 100 feet
of slow-speed chugging, the Terradyne’s engine (said to be a 6.6-liter turbodiesel V-8) seized up and the pickup was towed away.

And while G.M. was forthright this year that its Volt wasn’t yet a running vehicle, not all manufacturers seemed inclined to full
disclosure. Many of today’s concepts, unveiled amid great fanfare, still don’t have roadworthy engines. Some have no engine at all.

For example, Nissan is showing off its engineless (and hoodless) Bevel concept car at this year’s Detroit show.
Nissan says the Bevel’s power would come from a hybrid electric version of a “small, efficient V-6,” although Nissan has not made
that powertrain. Obviously, the Bevel isn’t going anywhere — literally or figuratively.

The engine almost seems irrelevant with two of Mazda’s 2007 design studies, the Nagare and Ryuga, which appear to have
been styled without considering where the mechanical bits might be installed.

Ford’s Airstream concept, in theory at least, would be a plug-in electric-hydrogen hybrid car using a system that remains
unperfected even after years of technical exploration.