GM and Michelin need to seriously speed production of these Tron-like vehicles! The official name of this car is appropriately EN-V.

As my wife and friends will tell you, I really don’t know much about cars except that I own two and last year my family and I drove a Chevrolet Traverse 12,000 miles in 46 days as part of an epic family road trip we documented on this blog.

This week, at the invitation of General Motors, I find myself in Detroit with every car blogger nerd in the world for the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) and even though I don’t talk torque, horsepower or flywheels regularly, there’s a couple of things I can tell you worth noting about what I saw here in Detroit:

‘Green Cars’ Will Soon Be Mainstream

The Chevy Volt won the Detroit auto show's Car of the Year.

The fact the Chevy Volt was named the auto show’s Car of the Year yesterday is not just an ego-trip moment for General Motors, who I’m happy to see is back with a vengeance.  In my novice opinion, I think the Volt’s win is a watershed moment for the industry that shows that green cars will soon be mainstream.  A car blogger friend of mine told me that the Volt won because of the three finalists it was the one car that a family can take anywhere, anytime, including road trips.  (We’ll have to test that theory out, won’t we?)

I think the timing for this fever pitch around fuel efficiency in the industry could not be better for families because gas prices are predicted to spike again.  GM’s No. 2, Tom Stevens, the Vice Chairman of GM, told a group of bloggers yesterday that the fuel price crisis of 2009 will not take GM by surprise anymore because GM is already producing vehicles that are super fuel efficient. (more…)