While the latest news surrounding the U.S. auto industry continues to be focused on slumping sales and production cutbacks, automakers continue to turn out cars that highlight the latest technologies in the areas of safety, engine efficiency and performance, and alternative fuels. The U.S. “Big Three” — Ford, General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler — along with Toyota, Honda, and other Japanese automakers, are introducing more models with hybrid or alternative-fuel engines, and safety features that enable parents to track their teenage drivers and cars to talk to each other.

Hybrid and Alternative-Fuel Engines

E85 is a fuel blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline — a completely renewable fuel made in the U.S. primarily from corn. The Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory’s Center for Transportation Research estimates that on a per-gallon basis, corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 18 to 29%.

“If all of the nearly six million flexiblefuel vehicles now on America’s highways operated on E85, more than 3.6 billion gallons of gasoline could be displaced a year,” said Sue Cischke, vice president of environmental and safety engineering for Ford. “That would be equivalent to saving a full year of gasoline consumption in a state like Tennessee or Missouri.” Ford has committed to making half of its entire vehicle fleet flexible-fuel-capable by 2012, and recently delivered 20 Escape Hybrid E85 SUVs as research vehicles for use in six different states.

According to Ford, the Escape Hybrid E85 is the world’s first hybrid vehicle capable of operating on blends of fuels containing as much as 85% ethanol. General Motors currently has more than two million of its FlexFuel vehicles on the road that run on E85 ethanol.

The Ford Escape Hybrid E85 is the world’s first hybrid capable of operating on ethanol-based fuel produced from corn. (Ford Motor Co.)

Engineers and specialists from all three automakers staff a development center in Troy, MI devoted to bringing together the hybrid system and its components. The center is designing the electric motors, electronics, wiring, energy management system, and the hybrid system control units, and will integrate the system. The three companies will incorporate the hybrid system into the design and manufacture of their own vehicles. GM announced late last year that they are incorporating the 2-mode hybrid system in their 2008 Saturn Vue Green Line SUV.