The Fit EV was initially revealed last year at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show, along with the information that US customers will be able to lease the 2013-model-year car, which has a range of about 76 miles on electric power, beginning in the summer of 2012.

Sadly, Honda has no plans to ever offer the car for sale to the general public.

Sometime later this year, the city of Torrance will also be receiving a Honda plug-in hybrid for demonstration purposes, though that will likely be a mid-size sedan, since that’s the platform the automaker’s existing plug-in hybrid drivetrain has been engineered to fit.

Earlier this week, Audi confirmed that the A8 hybrid was going into production, and shared some details about the luxury sedan.

In a press release about the car, Audi said that the A8 will go into production next year. It’s destined to be powered by a 211-hp four-cylinder engine combined with a 54-hp electric motor, that will give the power train a maximum capability of 245-hp and provide 345 lb-ft of torque. Under solely electric power, the A8 can reach speeds of 62 mph for up to 1.8 miles, but the car actually has five different modes of operation: gas-only, gas-electric, electric only, battery recuperation, and power-boosting. The instrument panel will include displays of the current mode, and give the driver a choice of either pure-EV mode (when the battery is charged) “D” mode for maximum combined efficiency, and “S” mode for more power.

Overall, Audi says, the efficiency of the A8 will be just under 37 mph, though since the car is not yet confirmed for production in the United States, that number is based on much more forgiving European testing. (Currently, the most fuel-efficient version of the A8 available in the US is the 8-cylinder model which reaches 21 mpg.)

While neither company has specified the platforms which will be targeted, it’s no secret that both need to work on improving the fuel economy of their SUVs and pickup trucks as the year 2025 and its 54.5 mpg Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards draw ever nearer.

Toyota, of course, has a leg up since it already builds the Prius – the most popular hybrid in the United States. Ford, on the other hand, plans to triple its existing output of hybrids to over 100,000 vehicles/year by 2013.

While both automakers currently use hybrid architectures that are pretty similar, at least in the front-wheel drive Toyota Prius and Ford Fusion Hybrid, a rear-wheel drive system will be essential in order to provide enough towing power for trucks like the Ford F-150 or the Toyota Tundra, both of which represent lines that show no sign of slowing sales, but lack hybrid options.

Such heavy vehicles, said Toyota vice president Takeshi Uchiyamada in a statement, “…are indispensable to American customers.”

Here’s the whole video, courtesy of Engadget and YouTube:

In some parts of the United States, the supply of Toyota Priuses is only enough for a single day’s worth of sales, but the company is estimating that full production will be back by September.

Prius sales were down 61% last month because of Toyota’s inventory issues – the lowest sales level since September, 2004. As a result, industry analysts are calling the Prius the poster-child for inventory issues.

Last year, 140,928 Toyota Prius hybrids were sold. The highest number of sales for this car was in 2007, when 181,221 units left dealerships. Only time will tell what the ultimate sales total for 2011 will be.

While GM is primarily focused on smaller engines – as tiny as half a liter – Westport’s area of expertise is mainly with medium and heavy-duty truck engines.

GM isn’t the only American automaker hoping to overtake Honda in the CNG market, however. Earlier this spring, Bloomberg reported that Chrysler has an aggressive CNG development plan in place, and is working in partnership with its parent company, Fiat. Fiat already has six natural gas models for sale in European markets, and is likely to use its experience with that technology to aid Chrysler in complying with federal fuel efficiency standards that are likely to increase as much as 6 percent a year over the next decade. Rumor has it that there’s a CNG-powered Dodge Ram in the works that could be available in American markets by 2017.

So why is CNG suddenly so popular? There are several reasons, not the least of which is that while gasoline prices continue to soar, natural gas remains fairly inexpensive. Then, too there are those afore-mentioned increases in fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks (read: pickups, vans, SUVs).

There are also a bundle of proposed federal incentives likely to pass by the end of the year, including the NAT Gas Act that is credited to T. Boone Pickens, a Texas energy billionaire. It’s recently picked up bipartisan support in Washington, D.C., thanks to Pickens’ history as a natural gas-as-transportation-fuel activist and his ability to court heavyweight allies like the White House.

If it passes, the NAT Gas proposal could be a $4.1 billion bundle of incentives, including purchase credits of as much as $7,500 per personal vehicle and a subsidy of up to fifty cents a gallon on natural gas at the pump. Retailers willing to install CNG pumps would benefit also, receiving generous tax breaks.

Here’s the CNET video all about it. Enjoy:

Those buyers don’t have a bad idea. After all, the diesel cars being sold today offer smoother rides and lower emissions than any previous generation of such vehicles, and while many American shoppers still perceive them as being too loud and emitting noxious fumes, the reality is that last Month, 9,000 of them went to new homes in this country. That number is 34% higher over the sales in May, 2010, and contrasts starkly with the 42% reduction in the sale of hybrids last month, as compared to a year prior.

Despite that 34% jump, however, clean diesel cars represent less than one percent of new car sales in the United States. Peter Marks, president and CEO of Bosch’s North and South American operations believes that will change, that up to 10% of the new vehicles sold in America will be diesel-powered by 2015.

Diesels have the support of some pretty powerful people, too. At the opening of Volkswagen’s new plant in Chattanooga, TN, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “We know that clean diesel is one ingredient in the recipe for our long-term energy security.”

Volkswagen was the appropriate place to make such a statement. The carmaker’s clean diesel offerings (including the Golf TDI and the Jetta TDI) gave it the best U.S. sales month it’s had since 2004. Just how good? 27.9 percent more than May 2010.

Greater efficiency is required no matter the power system in a car, however, since federal fuel economy standards will rise to roughly 60mpg by 2025, and this is likely to push automakers to produce more and more diesel cars and trucks.

So what does the future hold for diesel? We tend to agree with Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum, who said, “American’s have never had so many vehicle fuel and technology choices, ranging from a growing number of hybrid gasoline vehicles to new plug-in electric hybrid vehicles, in addition to clean diesel and conventional gasoline vehicles. In this competitive technology field, it is encouraging that more Americans are choosing clean diesel cars than ever before.”

Since last Fall, Volvo has been testing its existing fifty C30 Electric cars internally, but Wednesday was the first time any of them were shipped to a receiver outside the company. The plan, Volvo says, is to construct two hundred and fifty of the cars over the next two years, though that number could grow, it says, if demand is great enough.

The workflow for the C30 Electric involves frame construction at the automaker’s facility in Ghent before being shipped to another factory nearby to have the electric motor and batteries, and any C30-specific electronics installed. The batteries in the car are actually placed in the location one generally expects to find a gas tank, as well as in the central tunnel of the car. This allows the cargo space in the C30 Electric to remain the same as it is in the standard-engine version of the vehicle, the 2011 Volvo C30.

Taking seven hours to reach its full charge, the C30 Electric’s battery pack will allow travel over a range of about 93 miles and a top speed of 80 mph.

If dealerships aren’t going to be receiving the car, who will be driving the C30 Electric, the first all-electric hatchback Volvo is releasing? According to the automaker, it will be available by lease to government bodies, authorities, and corporations around Europe.