A Secret Cheer for Gas Prices

"It's a territory we want to own," Ghosn said of the potential market for plug-in and other electrics. "We are bullish on zero-emission vehicles because of the social trend. The young generation is demanding this. The social trend will make electric vehicles more favorable."

High fuel prices and government incentives to consumers, either through tax breaks or lower vehicle registration fees, will also help the sale of zero-emission cars and other electric vehicles, Ghosn said.

Electric vehicle sales will grow considerably beyond the barely 1 percent market share, including fossil-fuel electric hybrids, they hold in the United States.

But they are only one route to a more fuel-efficient future, said Uwe Grebe, GM's executive director of global advanced engineering.

"There is no single silver bullet," Grebe said, speaking to reporters in GM's Washington office. "We are going to have a variety of technologies available at the same time. Each will have the goal of reducing our dependence on oil."

Those technologies include applying the compression-ignition efficiency of diesel engineering to gasoline engines -- up to a point. Grebe and his colleagues showed off a concept Saturn Aura that uses the "homogenous charge compression ignition" (HCCI) technology to get 15 percent better fuel efficiency over traditional gasoline engines.

The car operates in HCCI mode up to 55 mph, which means it will operate in compression-ignition mode during most city travel. At 55 mph, it switches to spark ignition, getting the best use of traditional internal combustion engine technology, which operates more efficiently at higher speeds. All of this is accomplished through the magic of computers and electronic sensors, which are increasingly important to almost any technology designed for better fuel economy and lower emissions.

There is a race to get many of these technologies to market as early as 2010, most certainly by 2015. It is the hidden blessing behind the fuel inflation curse. The company that gets there first with the most reliable, useful and attractive products will own the future of the worldwide car business.