It also plans to offer more hybrids, including an electric plug-in in the U.S. next year.
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As long as the federal government is handing out money to encourage the development of plug-in cars in the U.S., General Motors says it will invest in the necessary technologies.
Unless Fiat-Chrysler has a secret plan to power cars with giant, watch-like mainsprings, electrification (along the spectrum of hybrid, plug-in, and battery-electric vehicle designs) will be a growing part of the product story in the U.S. Why curse it?
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So it makes some sense on paper for Ford to attempt to get C-Max into the same consumer conversations as Prius, which still absolutely dominates purchases and consideration in the combined U.S. market for conventional hybrids, plug-ins and EVs.
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For example, the venerable Toyota Prius line of hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars continues to handily beat all comparable comers across the U.S., with combined sales among its four model variations registering 236, 659 units last year, representing a 73.4 percent increase.
She is currently driving a 2012 Prius Plug-in on a high school and college book and speaking tour across the U.S., sponsored in part by Toyota Motor USA, through May 2012.
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The good news is that Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche and Volkswagen are all supporting the combo plug, so that bodes well for the future of U.S.-Europe compatibility.
Nissan North America Inc. will deliver its first all-electric Leaf today to a young tech executive who happened to be the first U.S. resident to reserve one of the new plug-in hatchbacks.
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About 3.2 million plug-in electric cars will be sold worldwide by 2015, with the portion of U.S. sales largely concentrated in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Chicago, according to auto industry analysts at Pike Research.
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At issue is whether a heart-plug procedure to repair a birth defect that is common in about a quarter of the U.S. population can prevent strokes in young people.
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Once the majority of domestic cars become plug-in hybrids, we could displace most urban gasoline use, or nearly one-half of current U.S. oil imports.
While Earth-Policy says that hybrids could slash U.S. gasoline use in half, it also points out that the same usage of plug-in hybrids over the same period of time could result in gasoline usage being cut by 70 percent.
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