ELECTRIC CARS GRAB SPOTLIGHT AT FRANKFURT SHOW

       Sales have plunged, general Motors has emerged from bankruptcy, and Chrysler has been taken over by Italy's Fiat.
       The past year's turbulence will be reflected this week in a smaller US presence at the Frankfurt Auto Show, along with the new electric vehicles (EVs) many hope will secure the auto industry's post-recession comeback.
       The show, traditionally the "start" of the auto show season, is one of the most important auto-industry exhibitions in Europe.
       GM's Cadillac brand did not have apresence in the sprawling Frankfurt Messe exhibition Centre when the show opened to the news media yesterday, and Chrysler's Dodge and Jeep had moved to the Fiat stand.
       GM's European brands - Opel and Saab - will serve only to remind customers that GM is selling them. Other notable absences include Mitsubishi, Honda and Nissan's Infiniti, which are focusing instead on the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show.
       Industry Observers and the public will focus on advances in EVs and hybrids - and for improvements that may bring the vehicles into the mainstream.
       They will also be looking for clues about forthcoming small-car offerings from US carmakers aimed at improving their line-ups of fuel-efficient vehicles.
       Top new product offerings include four new EVs from Renault, with one headed for consumers by 2011 and another with no internal-combustion engine at all; a hybrid Mercedes B-Class called the F-Cell, which sports a fuel cell and an electric motor", and the first plug-in version of Toyota's Prius hybrid, meaning its batteries can be charged from a household outlet.
       GM will tout its Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in EV that uses an internalcombusion engine to extend its range beyond the standard commuting distances its batteries are designed to handle.
       All of these cars are headed for consumers soon, but BMW gives a look further down the road with its low-slung super-coupe, the Vision Efficient-Dynamics. It is a high-performance, plug-in diesel-electric hybrid powered by a three-cylinder 1.5-litre turbo engine and not one, but two electric motors: one for the rear wheels and one for the front.
       The BMW coupe is a concept car intended to show designs and technology that may or may not be reflected in production models in coming years.
       Those looking for an idea of small-car offers from US auto-makers can look at Ford's C-Max, aimed at replacing the Focus with a US debut sometime next year, while Opel has a new version of its Astra, its mainstay in European markets.
       The Astra will also give a preview of GM's plans for small cars in the United States. While GM has announced plans to sell 55 per cent of its European subsidiary to parts supplier Magna International, it will keep a minority stake, so it can keep on developing small and medium-sized cars with Opel. The Astra uses an architecture Opel developed for GM to use in small cars worldwide, including the Volt.
       "There will be an electric car at almost every stand [at this year's Frankfurt show]," said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, an auto-industry expert from the University of Duisburg-Essen, adding, however, that it would be some time before they were on the production line and in dealer showrooms.
       "Like in hybrids, the Japanese are ahead of the Germans in electric cars," he said. "One of the reasons is the battery technolgoy, which in Japan is systematically further developed. Another reason is the German auto-makers' strength in diesel. Large parts companies like Robert Bosch, for example, are behind the curve in batteries and electric cars (compared with the Japanese]".
       He said Toyota built its 2-millionth hybrid car this year-an important link in the EV chain - while fewer than 200 of Daimler's Mercedes S400, the only German hybrid in the market so far, have been built to date.
       Last month, Japan's Nissan unveiled the Leaf, an EV scheduled to go into mass production for global markets in 2012. And in the US, President Barack Obama has committed US$2.4 billion (Bt81.63 billion) in federal grants for the development of next-generation EVs and batteries.
       Also last month, Germany's government said it would spend about Euro500 million (Bt24.84 billion) over the next three years on a plan to put 1 million EVs on the road by 2020, including Euro170 million on battery research.
       The heavy batteries that take the place of internal-combustion engines and countries like South Korea and Japan are far ahead in terms of research and development
       Improving these batteries has become vital.