Car Makers Increase Focus on Green in the Face Of High Oil Prices

If you're like a lot of people, you probably thought – the first few times – that sky-high gas prices were a fluke. After Hurricane Katrina, when U.S. gas prices reached $4 per gallon or more, people reassured themselves it was temporary. The spikes last summer were assumed to be just a worse version of the usual summer gas price increase. But as pump prices creep up and over the $3.37 gallon mark – over 20 cents per gallon in the past week alone – perhaps Americans are finally starting to wonder if it isn't worthwhile to ditch the giant SUV and go somewhere more affordable. Maybe even – dare we say it? – someplace hybrid or electric.

Car companies may (finally) be hoping for it, too.

Mass-market automakers like Toyota, Fiat and Ford say the green technologies they have on display at the Geneva Auto Show will help them weather the impact of skyrocketing fuel prices, according to the Associated Press. Companies rolled out a host of new models — including many electric, hybrid and more efficient conventional engines — as a sign of renewed confidence following the economic crisis that bottomed out auto sales and put a freeze on new models.

“I remember the auto show of two years ago. Pretty grim,” said Stephen Odell, the chief of Ford Europe, on Tuesday. “I think we are in a better place.”

Not everyone agrees with that happy-go-lucky assessment.

General Motors's (News - Alert) CEO Dan Akerson thought it was too early for optimism as oil prices continue to rise due to spreading unrest in energy-producing nations in the Middle East. He also seems to believe that car makers, like car buyers, were convinced that previous gas price spikes were temporary and that auto buying would return to businesses as usual.

“I don't think the industry learned a lot of lessons from 2008. They will this time around,” Akerson said to AP reporters on the sidelines of the motor show.

Nick Reilly, chief of German automaker Opel, said fuel costs would make the situation “clearly more difficult” if they remained elevated, while Daimler's Dieter Zetsche estimated that an oil price of $150 a barrel “would be very heavy.”

The recent surge in oil to around $100 has pushed up gasoline prices in the U.S. by nearly 20 cents per gallon in the past week. That's the sharpest increase since 2005, according to the Oil Price Information Service. Americans are now paying roughly $75.6 million more per day to fill up than they were a week ago.

So sure, the Chevy Volt may look like something out of a bad Hollywood sci-fi action movie. But since many think high gas prices are here to stay, perhaps it's time to realize you can live with a little B-movie sci-fi in your life.