Amid crisis, automakers look green in L.A.

Making certain to keep consumers thinking about the potential of new technologies in the future, Honda also showed the FC Sport design study, a two-seat sports car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. The object is to not only show that future green cars can be exciting, but also to show the packaging advances Honda has made that permit the company to squeeze a fuel cell into such a small car.

Hyundai unveiled its hybrid strategy for the United States, showing an efficient new turbocharged, direct-injected gasoline engine that it says will form the foundation of its hybrid-electric drivetrain, scheduled to debut in 2010 in the company’s Sonata midsize sedan.

The company said that the hybrid Sonata will rely on lithium polymer batteries that are smaller and more powerful than the nickel metal hydride batteries that have been used to date, while being cheaper and more durable than lithium ion batteries planned for use by other manufacturers.

Of course, Toyota is the darling of the California green crowd, so any great effort expended at the Los Angeles show would have amounted to costly preaching to the choir. Instead, the automaker demonstrated the potential of combining two technologies — its well-known hybrid-electric drive system with natural gas fuel for its internal combustion engine.

Natural gas has gained interest recently because of its lower price than gas, its domestic availability which reduces dependence on foreign oil, and its cleaner-burning characteristics. Natural gas produces virtually zero smog-forming pollution, which is important in Los Angeles basin, which originated smog controls in the 1960s. And natural gas carries much less carbon than gas, so burning it releases less carbon dioxide.

A key challenge to natural gas vehicles has been driving range — a critical factor considering the dearth of fueling stations — but adding the hybrid drive system extends that range in the case of the Camry concept vehicle to 250 miles.

Ditching the gas engine altogether, the “Mini E” also debuted at the show. While the silent minicar will whirr down the street like the radio control versions that will be under Christmas trees next month, don’t stock up on C-cell batteries for this one.

The Mini E carries a lithium ion battery pack in place of its back seat, producing spirited acceleration, a top speed of 95 mph and a driving range of 150 miles. An in-home charger will re-power the Mini E in just two and a half hours.

The performance specifications are the good news. The less good news is the lack of a back seat, making the Mini a two-seater. The worse news for most people is that the company will only build 500 of the cars, and they’ll only be available to what the company calls “a select group of private and corporate customers in California, New York and New Jersey.” That leaves out just about everyone, but the car will provide a useful test bed for parent company BMW as it refines its electric-drive know-how.

Of course, going green doesn’t mean you have to abandon oil-based products completely. Diesel cars have been the unwelcome equivalent of stained oilfield roughneck work boots in California’s Birkenstock country, detested for their heavy production of smog-forming emissions, but a continuous effort to develop exhaust treatment technology has begun to bear fruit, with BMW and Volkswagen introducing new diesels in Los Angeles that will be available in all 50 states.

Volkswagen added a V-6 clean turbodiesel to its Touareg mid-sized SUV that the company says will return 30 MPG on the highway, while BMW introduced a twin-turbo straight-six in its segment-leading 3-series luxury sedan and X5 midsize SUV.

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