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2011: The Year of Green Car Competition

The Green Market Oracle

2011: The Year of Green Car CompetitionHybrid and fully electric vehicles have been steadily growing inpopularity and 2011 is going to be the biggest year yet for greenercars. Most major manufacturers have announced plans to electrify theirvehicles. Some are designing from scratch, while others are electrifying their gas powered platforms.

The Nissan Leaf and ChevroletVolt may be the two best known 2011 green cars, but they will have tocompete with up to three dozen electric or hybrid vehicles that areexpected to hit the market by 2015.

Some of the newentries into the green car market include offerings from Honda, Toyotaand Tesla. Honda is making an electric version of the Fit, its popularfive-passenger hatchback, which it says will have a range of 100 milesand will fully recharge in six hours. Toyota is making an electricversion of its RAV 4. Toyota has also joined forces with Tesla, toprovide a sleek new sedan.

Other 2011 hybrid vehiclesinclude the Volkswagen Touareg Hybrid, the Lexus CT 200h, the Kia Optima Hybrid, the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid, and the Infiniti M35h Hybrid.

Many of these cars are capable of extraordinary performance.The Tesla hasbreathtaking acceleration that includes a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.9seconds. The Touareg has a top speed of 150 mph. These cars also gethigh mileage and offer low or no emissions.

Electricand hybrid cars are increasingly popular. The electric Tesla roadster is one of the electric cars that you will soon be able to rent from Hertzat airports and in their car-sharing program in New York City,Washington, D.C. and San Francisco.

The diverse electric and hybrid car offerings in 2011 demonstrate that greener cars are becoming mainstream.

Richard Matthews is a consultant, eco-entrepreneur, sustainable investor and writer. He is the owner of THE GREEN MARKET, one of the Web’s most comprehensive resources on the business of the environment. He is also the author of numerous articles on sustainable positioning, green investing, enviro-politics and eco-economics.

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Richard Matthews is a consultant, sustainable investor, writer and owner of The Green Market Oracle, a leading sustainable business blog that covers the convergence of sustainable capitalism and the global environment.The Green Market is one of the most comprehensive resources for information and tools on sustainability. Follow The Green Market's twitter feed and see the Facebook Fan Page. Richard is a contributor to more than 50 publications. Find him on Facebook and Linkedin.

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