Unfortunately, I think the only thing that will really push the global industry to a cleaner model is a high gas/diesel price. We saw in the first half of '08, when oil topped $144/barrel, that people actually started driving less. It took gas to be averaged above $4/gln in the US to have that effect. Sadly, the government has taken the tack that the best way to achieve better fuel economy is to regulate the average mpg of an automaker's fleet, in what might be one of the dumbest pieces of regulation that currently exists in the industry. If you've ever wondered why Ford stopped making the Ranger, or GM stopped making the S10/Sonoma, which were cheap, reliable pickups that sold like mad, while getting better mileage than the full size trucks, look no further than that rule. The companies no longer can introduce a low mileage car without a high mileage car. It's a perverse incentive that the Obama administration has forced on them, because all the companies are doing is trying to engineer their way to such and such mpg average. Consumers need to drive the change (no pun intended).

Again, I like Teslas a lot, but I don't think that they're the endgame in fuel efficiency. The electric car model has too many holes to take more than a set slice of market share. What we need as a society is for the government to stop subsidizing gasoline, and start taxing it to reflect the true price, with all its ugly warts and externalities. I think about $5/gln would be a nice start. Or better yet, a progressive tax where the price of gas was anti-correlated with the efficiency and age of your car. Obviously this is a pipe dream.