Rising gas prices and tougher U.S. government gas-mileage requirements for the coming years have forced the car industry to take hybrid cars very seriously.
There's a whole new generation of so-called plug-in hybrid cars in the pipeline. These supercars can be recharged with household electricity, which is much cheaper than running a gasoline engine to recharge the battery.
Nowadays, every manufacturer is motivated to achieve radically better gas mileage -- even exotic, high-performance brands such as Ferrari and Bentley.
It might surprise you that many important innovations such as air bags, antilock brakes and traction control started out exclusively on high-end cars before working their way down to the mass market. You could say that the automobile itself started out as a toy for the wealthy.
That makes the idea of expensive, environmentally friendly supercars seem almost traditional.