Auto News 5

"It seems clear that a rapid escape from lock-in, a move from gasoline to the electric vehicle, is not going to happen." That was the conclusion of a 1996 Canadian-Swedish scholarly paper, "Escaping Lock-in: the Case of the Electric Vehicle." Yet the electric-drive Chevrolet Volt was our Automobile of the Year in 2011, and the Tesla Model S took the award this year, a century after its forebears were quickly disappearing from the marketplace. The largest-selling car in California today is Toyota's Prius, conceptually a close descendant of Ferdinand Porsche's 1901 Lohner-Porsche hybrid gasoline/electric car.