Convention Wisdom: It's About Green

The Challenger, which Chrysler officials plan to produce and sell, has a 6.1-liter, 425-horsepower Hemi V-8 engine. It looks fast sitting still. Chrysler officials claim the thing can move from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.5 seconds.

Chrysler officials say the Imperial is "just a concept," meaning that, at this point, the company has no plans to produce the car. But that all depends on how the public reacts to it without Longoria standing around. If the public likes it, DaimlerChrysler will find a way to build and sell it. If the public hates it, the car is a no-go. The concept Imperial, a wondrously plush thing with limousine seats, supple leather and wood veneers, comes with a 5.7-liter, 340-horsepower Hemi V-8.

Not to be outdone in either showmanship or product, Cadillac employed some stunningly beautiful young women -- "scantily clad," hissed my friend, Alysha Webb, the China correspondent for Automotive News -- to introduce its 2007 Cadillac Escalade ESV.

The Escalade ESV is 21 inches longer than the regular Escalade, which is plenty big already, and it houses a 6.2-liter, 403-horsepower V-8 engine. The vehicle comes with literally everything, including GM's popular OnStar emergency communications system and a large-for-a-vehicle, eight-inch, rear-cabin DVD screen.

The Escalade ESV is built on the same platform as GM's revised edition of the Chevrolet Tahoe, which also was on display.

Aha! So there go American automakers, again, pushing up the horsepower and pumping up the SUVs while their more responsible and, at this point in terms of U.S. market share gains, more successful Japanese rivals are rolling out nice little green hybrid vehicles.

If you believe that, you are missing the point of the show and this writing exercise. To wit: The only "green" that the car companies, foreign and domestic, really care about is the color of money.

That does not mean they don't care about the environment. They care about the environment as long as it sells. And it doesn't mean Toyota Motor Corp. does not care about pickup trucks and SUVs. Take a look at the Toyota exhibit. You'll see many pickup trucks and SUVs there, including the new Toyota FJ Cruiser, which is aimed squarely at GM's Hummer H3 SUV in the marketplace.

It's all about the money.

If you understand that, you will understand the seeming schizophrenia of the North American International Auto Show, and all other international automotive exhibits. GM, Ford and Chrysler will introduce trucks and cars that deliver high horsepower but that also use hybrid and other technologies -- such as GM's "advanced engine management" -- to produce that horsepower with a lower fuel penalty.

Toyota will trot out its new hybrid Camry mid-size car, which it plans to advertise on television and radio and in newspapers and magazines. But it also will introduce its less-than-green FJ Cruiser, which will have no TV or radio spots -- less the marketing conflict with the "green" image the company has built up in the mass media.

It's about the money, which is why GM announced here that it will take a novel approach to car sales: It will "experiment" with the idea of cutting sticker prices, rather than artificially raising them, as it has in the past, in anticipation of consumer demand for rebates and sales incentives of one sort or another.

Selling cars and trucks that way makes much more sense and wastes much less money than expensive sales incentive programs, said G. Richard Wagoner Jr., GM's chairman and chief executive.

Yeah, well what about those pretty young models at the Cadillac stand?

"They were for the media," a GM spokesman said.