Automakers will turn to a mix of fuel-efficient vehicles and technologies _ from advanced hybrids and clean diesels to lightweight materials _ to respond to tougher fuel efficiency standards approved by Congress, industry leaders said Tuesday.

Amid rising fuel prices, car makers have been expecting the more stringent requirements and emphasized their choices of vehicles that get more miles to the gallon.

But the energy bill, which will require the industry’s fleet of new cars, sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and vans to average 35 miles per gallon by 2020, will help shape the lineup of new cars appearing in dealers showrooms during the next decade.

President Bush is expected to sign the legislation Wednesday.

Gas-electric hybrids, which account for about 2 percent of the new vehicle market, are expected to become more widely available in larger vehicles, and companies will likely broaden their portfolio of other fuel-saving alternatives such as diesels and vehicles running on ethanol blends.

“We now know what the rules are of the game. Each manufacturer now will be able to play its hand in its unique way,” Chrysler LLC Vice Chairman Jim Press said in a phone interview.

“We’re in the best position to marry technology and not make people make sacrifices or compromises on the product they want,” he said.

Majority Democrats helped push through the energy bill in the context of $90-a-barrel oil, $3-plus gasoline prices and concerns about the nation’s dependance upon fossil fuels and global warming.

The new standards will boost fuel-efficiency standards by about 30 percent under the first upgrades by Congress in three decades. New vehicles currently must meet a 27.5 mpg average for cars and 22.5 mpg for light trucks.

“We will focus our engineering and technical resources to attain these standards, and we remain hard at work applying the innovation and developing the advanced technologies that will power tomorrow’s cars and trucks,” said Rick Wagoner, General Motors Corp.’s chairman and chief executive.

Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said in an interview with journalists last week that the company was testing plug-in hybrid vehicles and would continue to expand its offering of hybrids.

“We’re a hybrid company,” he said.

Auto companies said the energy bill will help bring more focus on fuel-efficient engine technologies such as cylinder deactivation systems, which help the engine seamlessly operate on a reduced number of cylinders.

Ford Motor Co., for example, announced during the Los Angeles Auto Show in November that it would implement turbocharged gasoline direct-injection engines capable of providing fuel savings of 10 to 20 percent. The Lincoln MKS sedan will be the first Ford vehicle with the technology in about a year.

The industry is more likely to experiment with lightweight materials on the vehicle’s body, such as aluminum, high-strength steel and carbon fiber, said Erich Merkle, vice president of auto industry forecasting for IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids, Mich.

But Merkle noted that all of these alternatives will not come cheaply. Clean diesel and hybrid technology typically adds several thousand dollars to the cost of a vehicle, and more lightweight parts will also carry additional expenses.

Which leads to one of the big questions emerging from the energy bill: Will consumers want to pay more to enjoy the benefits of long-term fuel savings?

“You can build them,” Merkle said. “But it doesn’t mean they’re going to want to buy them.”

The star of the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Lamborghini Reventon raced against a fighter aircraft at the picturesque Ghedi military airport in Brescia in the last week of November 2007.

This extraordinary acceleration race between a Tornado aircraft (A200-A) and the Lamborghini Reventon driven by an official Lamborghini test driver was a magical spectacle. As the aircraft and the Lamborghini challenged each other on the 3000 m-long runway, the Reventon took the lead in the first leg of the race. However, the Tornado caught up in the last few meters, taking off and flying over the Reventon that was racing at a speed of over 340 km an hour.

The military runway was also the venue for Lamborghini to present its super car to international TV channels. According to an auto news report, the Lamborghini Reventon has been designed by the Centro Stile Lamborghini and perfected down to the finest detail in close collaboration with Lamborghini’s R&D management. The Reventon which has drawn inspiration from the world’s fastest aircraft in modern aviation brings to the world’s roads features like precise and technically impressive style, clean surfaces and a grey-green exterior.

Priced at not less that Euro 1 million plus taxes, the company has rolled out only 20 Reventon cars available. Incidentally, all these 20 machines have been sold, though they will be built and delivered only in 2008.

At the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, the Lamborghini Reventon had won the Most Beautiful Automobile in the World 2007 award in the special models category. Car buffs had then said that the vehicle was destined to become a new legend in the fascinating history of Lamborghini.

Honda is all set to bring in the 2008 Civic Hybrid edition to the Indian car market.

Significantly, when this happens, Honda would become the first company to launch a hybrid car in the Indian market. According to a report, the hybrid Civic would come loaded with a combustion engine integrated with an electric powered motor. The car would switch between the two engines as and when required to save on fuel. This model is likely to give a fuel efficiency of around 20 kmpl.

Targeting added volumes, Honda looks at launching the hybrid version with a view that the Indian customers would go for it. The company aims at bringing in an environment-friendly technology to India. It already sells the Civic Hybrid globally. It has been reported that Honda Siel Car India, the Indian arm of Honda Motor Company, is trying to make bring in the Civic hybrid in 2008.

Reports added that the Civic hybrid will be the first mass produced hybrid car to hit Indian roads. The Japanese car maker had launched the hybrid version of the Civic in 2003, and the version that will debut on Indian soil would be the 2008 Civic Hybrid. The car which burns less fuel and provides a mileage which is double of the petrol version at around 20 kmpl, when compared with the petrol version which turns out a 130bhp, will give around 110bhp, said automobile writers.

Honda is expected to import completely built units of the model. A steep import duty will push the price of the car to nearly Rs 20 lakh, it is believed.

The auto industry and its allies in Congress are lobbying congressional leaders and the Bush administration to back fuel efficiency increases that would maintain separate standards for passenger cars and trucks.

The industry opposes a plan that was approved in the Senate last June that would increase fuel economy standards on new vehicles to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. In 2008, cars must average 27.5 mpg and trucks need to reach 22.5 mpg.

Auto executives have been making their case to the Bush administration about the energy bill and a regulatory plan on vehicle emissions being developed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department.

The industry, along with agriculture and recreational groups, back an alternative led by Reps. Baron Hill, D-Ind., and Lee Terry, R-Neb., that would seek a combined standard of 32 to 35 mpg by 2022 along with separate standards for cars and Trucks.

Environmental groups say the proposal does not go far enough to reduce oil consumption and want the final energy bill to include fuel economy standards passed by the Senate.

“Any energy bill that has the Senate fuel economy compromise in it guarantees oil savings,” the Sierra Club’s Ann Mesnikoff said Friday. “The Hill-Terry bill is a weaker goal.”

General Motors Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner on Tuesday met with Al Hubbard, director of the National Economic Council, Nicole Nason, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and EPA officials to discuss energy issues.

Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally is expected to be in Washington next week to discuss the energy bill and fuel economy regulations.

“It’s quite clear that there are a variety of efforts both legislative and administrative that are under way and could potentially come to a close this year,” said GM spokesman Greg Martin. “So it’s important that we clearly state what our positions are and our concerns on the details.”

In a letter to White House chief of staff Josh Bolten on Friday, Hill and Terry and 62 other lawmakers urged the Bush administration to support their alternative.

They said their approach was more realistic and would “protect good-paying American manufacturing jobs, preserve consumer choice in auto vehicles and set achievable timetables for compliance.”

In a separate letter, 13 Senate Democrats, led by Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, urged Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to ensure that the energy bill includes job protections for small car production.

The Senate measure would eliminate the so-called “two-fleet rule,” which keeps different mileage standards for cars and trucks and end the different calculations used for vehicles made overseas and in North America. The United Auto Workers union has said eliminating the separation would lead to a loss of 17,000 jobs involved in small car production in the United States.

“We believe that these policies should be aimed at promoting - and ultimately expanding - manufacturing jobs in the United States,” the senators wrote. It was signed by Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois, Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Joe Biden of Delaware.

A group of senators, including Michigan Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, wrote congressional leaders earlier this week in support of the alternative.

Leading frozen food distributor Yearsley Group is trying a new Trucking flavour in the shape of five Mercedes Actros tractor units.

The company runs a fleet of over 200 temperature-controlled vehicles. Although it has long experience of running Mercedes Atego rigids at 12 and 15 tonnes, Yearsley has traditionally favoured Swedish-built tractors.

It chose the Actros on this occasion after an impressive performance by a trial unit. All 460hp 2546 models, its five new Mercedes were supplied by dealer Enza, of Trafford Park, Manchester.

“We’ve always been happy with our Mercedes rigids, and the Actros demonstrator proved fuel-efficient so we decided to try these Mercedes tractors,” says Operations Director Edward Yearsley.

“We will now assess them over the longer term against the rest of our fleet,” he continues. “We’re also looking into a fleet management system for our Trucks, to monitor deliveries and collections and provide detailed information on fuel use, braking, acceleration, engine idling time and other factors. That should help us build a more detailed picture of the vehicles’ cost-effectiveness, as well as helping us to work more efficiently overall.”

The new Actros are all fitted with Mercedes PowerShift 12-speed automated transmissions. “We favour auto ’boxes as they make the drivers’ lives easier and help reduce running costs,” says Mr Yearsley.

“We’ll also be monitoring the performance of the dealer. Enza have invested heavily in their premises and the Trafford Park site is conveniently located for us, so we wanted to give them a chance and see how well they look after us.”

The Yearsley Group is based in Heywood, Greater Manchester, and operates a network of depots nationwide. The Actros are all double-shifted, seven days a week, typically trunking between depots by night and delivering to RDCs during the day.

In what could be a sign of the troubled times for Ontario’s auto dealers, the new car inventory of Sarnia Nissan is being put up for public auction next weekend in London.

“There are a lot of car dealers finding it difficult, especially in the border cities with the strong Canadian dollar,” said Kingsley Gardner of Gardner Auctions, handling the Sarnia Nissan sale.

It will be the first time Gardner Auctions has auctioned off brand new vehicles, Kingsley said.

Sarnia Nissan went into receivership, closing its doors Nov. 7.

Vehicle sales in Canada have gone into a skid, dropping nine per cent in November compared to a year earlier. Nissan’s dropped by 13 per cent in November.

Jeff Prossler of Probart Mazda in London, a member of the Ontario Automobile Dealers Association executive, said the high Canadian dollar has created the expectation with consumers that car prices on this side of the border will fall in the future.

“They are holding off buying because they think the Canadian prices will come down. They are stalling,” said Prossler.

Most buyers won’t actually cross the border to buy a car in the U.S. because they don’t know what they’ll really get, he said.

“Ninety per cent of them can’t go across the border because they are either leasing or financing their vehicles. You can’t finance across the border,” Prossler said.

When some Canadians look at the lower prices in the U.S., they fail to take into account the lower financing costs of vehicles here, he said.

“People want zero per cent financing or low interest rates for 60 months. You are not going to get that and a lower price on the car.

“If they want to discontinue the zero per cent financings, you might see a lower price on the car, but when you go to the bank you will be paying seven per cent,” Prossler said.

The auction of Sarnia Nissan’s inventory is set for Dec. 15 at noon.

Toyota recently issued its first update on progress toward the goals and targets in the company’s new 2011 Environmental Action Plan.

The report details Toyota’s efforts in six key areas: environmental management, energy and climate change, air quality, substances of concern, recycling and improved resource use, and co-operation with society.

“Toyota’s approach to reducing CO2 is far broader than just a commitment to fuel economy standards,” said Dian Ogilvie, senior vice-president of Toyota Motor North America. “We take these targets very seriously. Our environmental reports show a consistent history of achieving — and in many cases exceeding — our targets.”

Toyota also announced its first renewable energy power purchase agreement.

Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. has teamed up with SunPower Corp. to install a 2.28-megawatt solar electric power system on the roof of Toyota’s Ontario, Calif., parts centre. The system will be financed and owned by a third-party financier, letting Toyota take advantage of the environmental and financial benefits of solar with no upfront capital costs. When completed in 2008, the photovoltaic system will be the largest one-roof solar power installation on the continent.

Last week, Toyota’s outstanding environmental leadership was recognized with California’s top environmental honour, the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award, in the category of sustainable practices or facilities, by the California Environmental Protection Agency.

The award was given in recognition of pioneering efforts to integrate environmental values and conservation of natural resources into long-term decision making and management of businesses and facilities.

Chrysler has unveiled the new 2008 Dodge Dakota mid-size truck with a new engine that offers 25 percent more horsepower and 10 percent more torque, plus better fuel economy. The truck features new exterior and interior styling, and will arrive in dealerships in August.

The new 2008 Dodge Dakota comes standard with a 3.7-liter Magnum V6 engine producing 210 horsepower and 235 lb.-ft. of torque. The engine also comes with Electronic Throttle Control for positive throttle response, and exhaust gas recirculation to help lower emissions.

The new 4.7-liter V8 incorporates two spark plugs per cylinder (the only Chrysler Group engine to do so, other than the 5.7-liter HEMI), increased compression ratio, improved cylinder-head port flow and a new combustion system. The result is 290 horsepower, a 25 percent increase; and 320 lb.-ft. of torque, a 10 percent increase. The new engine is also capable of operating on E85 ethanol fuel, making the Dodge Dakota equipped with this engine a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV).

The 2008 Dodge Dakota’s exterior includes a newly styled hood, grille, front fascia, rear spoiler, fenders and headlamps. The front end has been designed to improve aerodynamics and features better fit and gap management.

All-new fascias better integrate with the restyled grille and incorporate fog lamps. The 2008 Dodge Dakota’s tailgate includes a new spoiler that helps smooth air flow over the rear of the truck to improve fuel economy, and the top surface of the cargo box has a new protective surface.

For 2008, the Dodge Dakota will again be offered in two body styles – Extended Cab and Crew Cab – and six trim levels: ST, SXT, SLT, TRX4, Sport and Laramie.

The new 2008 Dodge Dakota’s interior includes a new instrument panel, center console and accent finishes, and several new interior storage choices.