I'm glad to see the big auto makers are finally digging into what they can do if they try. The potential has always been there, but cheap fuel never incented the industry to strive for anything better.
If they're allowed to do it, I can hardly wait to see what's next. The future for Hybrids could really benefit from factory "tuned" diesel. I had a chance to chat with an R&D lead for one of the big 3 while on a flight to Hong Kong a couple years ago and they were playing with some really good ideas. The one that made the most sense to me was to retune the existing 8 cyl diesels to apply the principles used by diesel locomotives where the engine is simply used to generate power for the electric motors. If you extract the weight to fuel efficiency, he hypothesized solid 3 digit MPGs.
If it could go fast, quickly, and get great MPGs, I might even have to think of trading up.
