The environmentally friendly tag has been banded around as a marketing gimmick in the motor industry for years however it seems that now there are some major companies that are really investing in the technology. I doubt whether it is time for the oil executives to start sweating however there are is some good eco news and this article gives an overview of the latest environmentally friendly developments to hit the motor trade.

One of the biggest companies in the world is General Motors and uses the UK branding of Vauxhall Motors. There has been a campaign in the United States by a neurotic neurologist to rally up support for the latest GM model of electric car. The Chevrolet Volt was initial unveiled as a concept car however the website set up by the number one Volt fan has drawn in 33,341 signatures claiming they would purchase the car.

With everything in eco news it is all about feasibility. GM will not mass produce the car unless they can guarantee a return on it. The price tag GM is requesting is 40,000 dollars however on the website the prospective buyers have listed a maximum price they would expect pay at 31,261 dollars. With the GM price tag and assuming that all the prospective buyers actually buy GM would accumulate 1,336,440,000 dollars however there is no mention of how much the car would take to build and market.

There was a meeting between GM execs and the Volt car fans earlier in 2008 to discuss the issues and the car is suspected to arrive in 2010. Another major company that has been given the eco makeover is Range Rover. It must be made clear however that this is not done by the manufacturer who seem to be content churning out gas-guzzling Chelsea tractors, but by another company called Liberty Electric Cars.

They work on a build to order basis and are completely sold out until 2009. They have two different models which are priced 125,000GBP and 95,000GBP accordingly which come with all the trimmings including one years free electricity. This is a price tag that would usually appear on the balance of a mortgage, certainly not the price tag of a car but as with many innovative technologies is it is a success then it might well get picked up in more affordable formats.

Most manufacturers seem to be more interested in unveiling the next electric supercar which can achieve the most eco-friendly 0-60 acceleration record. Someday when they are finish flexing their design power then maybe the technology will leak through into the mass market in more cost effective models such as the NICE Megacity electric car which has a price tag of 10,000GBP however can only achieve 40mph.