Mary Ann Wright
Director, Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Programs, Ford Motor Company
Hybrid technology will be on every new vehicle within 10 years. There's a shift going on, and people are realizing that hybrids really are the future. Consumers want better fuel economy and low emissions, but they don't want to give up anything they're used to. Ford's building 20,000 hybrid SUVs this year, and we won't have enough to meet demand - because in addition to being green, they're just flat-out great trucks.
Robert Graham
Area manager, Electric Transportation, Electric Power Research Institute
Ten years sounds right. Any company that's not making hybrids by then will be seriously struggling. About three to five years after that, we should start seeing plug-in hybrids on the road. That's what I'm most excited about. For short-distance drives, plug-ins will operate as purely electric vehicles and won't use any gas at all. For longer trips, they'll automatically switch to a hybrid system.
Frank Markus
Technical director, Motor Trend
Unless fuel becomes incredibly expensive, it's going to be a slow ramp-up. People don't care very much about fuel efficiency and don't mind paying a premium for poor gas mileage, as long as they get the space and power they want from their car. Still, I do expect significant growth in the SUV hybrid market. The models we're seeing from Lexus, GM, and Toyota are changing people's minds about hybrids, because in many cases they actually outperform their nonhybrid counterparts.
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