The Los Angeles Auto Show has cast itself as the auto show for green cars. From 5 hybrid SUVs to a variety of fuel cell cars, all of the automakers participated. The Tahoe hybrid, with city gas mileage increased from 14 to 21, matching the performance of a 4 cylinder Camry, won the Green Car of the Year. The other big announcement was the Honda FCX fuel cell car that will be leased to a small number of Southern California residents. Other new vehicles were shown from VW, Toyota, and more.

The Electric Vehicle conference this year showed a big shift in attitude from the previous conference just 14 months ago. Congressman Jay Inslee of Washington was cheered for his work pushing a bill to modify oil tax breaks to encourage development of electric vehicles, while a Honda representative was hissed at (actually hissed at!) for saying that current battery technology wasn't ready for the mainstream. The other major theme was "It's all about the plugins, stupid!", even though there are only a small number of plugin hybrids actually on the road.

If you can't wait for an electric car, you can purchase an electric motorcycle right now. The Brammo Enertia motorcycle was designed from the ground up as an electric and is currently on sale for $15,000. It's range is only 45 miles and it has a top speed of 50mph, but the strong acceleration and easy to use design should make that enough for the commuters interested in green products. Bonus: a new version of the software in it will allow people to tune the performance characteristics of the engine using their laptops.