American Car Imports of London one of the UK's leading American vehicle importers are taking orders now for the new 2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid. The latest luxury SUV from Cadillac will be in the showrooms at the end of summer 2008 and initially just the standard wheel-base version will be available as a Hybrid.
This is an American Car that is a luxury SUV powered by an all new 2-mode Hybrid system, GM quotes figures improving the fuel economy of 45% in urban driving conditions. In GM’s view customers will now be able to enjoy all the benefits of a large luxury SUV whilst at the same time be happy in the knowledge that they have an environmentally friendly vehicle that is fuel efficient with an advanced vehicle Hybrid system.
General Motors Corp. will sell its first gas-electric hybrid cars in China in July, introducing a model created in part by GM's Shanghai design center, the company said Saturday.
The Buick LaCrosse will be the second hybrid to enter the Chinese automobile market following Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius in early 2006.
The LaCrosse is due to be unveiled Sunday at the Beijing auto show, GM managers said. They said it would be priced under 300,000 yuan ($43,000; 27,000 euros) — comparable to the Prius.
A third generation of the Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid car has been eagerly anticipated. Though Toyota has not officially announced when the redesigned Prius would appear, unofficially, automotive journalists had been tipped to expect it sometime in 2008, as a 2009 model.
However, news reports from Japan last week said the car has been delayed by at least six months, to early 2009.
A Toyota spokesman said the company would not comment. The reason? Because no official launch date had ever been confirmed, there was no way to officially confirm a delay.
Know how special the Zenn electric car is? Here in New York, a cabdriver let me cut him off - actually waved me ahead.
That would never happen in a normal vehicle. I was behind the wheel of a tiny, electric blue, $16,000 electric Zenn intended for low-speed city use with "ELECTRIC" stenciled on the side. Zenn has the potential to change how you think about cars. My first drive was impressive. However, it helps if you don't feel the need to by surrounded by vault-like doors, rich leather trim, and 10-speaker audio systems.
Zenn is a low-speed city car that runs on six 12-volt batteries today and possibly, in 2009, a new energy storage system based on capacitors. Zenn owes its existence to a careful reading of federal safety laws: If you cap the top speed at 25 mph, you are exempted from crash-testing the vehicle and you can get by with shoulder belts and no airbags, the idea being: How much trouble can you get into in a 25 mph crash?
