Plug-in Hybrid Cars Zooming Ahead | KIDK CBS 3 - News, Weather and Sports - Idaho Falls - Pocatello - Blackfoot, ID - Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Blackfoot - Idaho | Technology: "Even long trips won't drain wallets, with plug-ins averaging 80 to 100 miles per gallon (mpg), cutting fuel costs about 40%, including the cost of recharging.
General Motors and Toyota will get their souped-up hybrids into showrooms first, within two years, followed by Ford. Virtually every major automaker plus niche manufacturers such as Fisker Automotive and Visionary Vehicles have a plug-in entry in the works.
Within a decade, plug-in cars will account for around 20% of all new U.S. vehicle sales, largely replacing their lower mileage gasoline-electric hybrid forebears. By 2025, that share will be about 30%.
Automakers have little choice but to go electric. They're already being forced to boost fleets' average fuel efficiency to 35 mpg by 2020, a 40% jump. The auto companies also don't want to be caught flat-footed by enactment of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions restrictions by Congress. Lawmakers are inching toward them and may enact such restrictions as soon as next year. Although carbon caps will be phased in over several years, Detroit car makers and their foreign cousins fret that their vehicles will have to exceed 35 mpg fuel efficiency in order to slash CO2 tailpipe emissions.
Automakers are under the gun from states, too. California's zero-emissions vehicle program mandates nearly 60,000 plug-in cars be sold in the state between 2012 and 2014. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont have adopted similar requirements, and other states will follow."
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