Dubai Auto Show Diary Day Three - GM goes Green in the Middle East?

General Motors held a press conference Monday November 11th, 2007 at the Madinat Jumierah Arena meeting rooms to show off  the Tahoe Hybrid to the Middle East. GM also previewed their road map to energy diversity and described how they plan to  reduce dependency on oil, build more vehicles that have a lower impact on the environment, and  create less emissions overall.


 John Ferris: E-Flex Program Planning Manager and Mike Duhamie: Chief Engineer of Advanced Hybrids for GM fielded some pretty heated questions after their informative presentation. Think about the reaction from this group of 50-plus media and press positioned dead center in the area of the world that produces the lion's share of crude oil for fuel products.

Here are a few of the more challenging questions from the Middle East Media and Press:

1. Is the Chevy Volt electric car REAL technology that will go into production?

2. Where does diesel fit into the GM road map?

3. Is a solar-powered vehicle on the GM road map?

4. With much of electricity generated by oil-driven generators, how does an electric plug-in vehicle 
reduce the carbon footprint and reduce emissions and dependency of oil?

And the real banger question was: Is GM trying to displace the oil industry with electric vehicles?

Someone from the Middle East press HAD to ask this one....and the answer was no from GM. I think the press in  their flurry today over this hot topic forgot that PEOPLE will need to buy, drive and/or replace around 800 million cars in the world today with electric/hybrid or other fuel efficient designs before oil-based-fuel driven vehicles become obsolete. This would take a while so the oil companies can relax. 1.2 billion is the estimated number of vehicles on the planet by 2030 and the percent of electric cars will depend on the buyers not the producers.