[Excerpt] Growing competition, the economy, and the automakers’ financial difficulties have lead to great uncertainty for the industry. In the midst of these troubled times, worldwide pressure is on for the automotive industry to develop fuel efficient vehicles with advanced technologies. A combination of regulations and consumers will ultimately decide the replacement of the more than century-old internal combustion engine, and how soon it will happen. Without a doubt, it is certainly a turning point in the history of the automobile. For the near-term, a combination of technologies will be developed and offered, including hybrids, biofuel engines, plug-ins, hydrogen fuel cells, and advanced diesel engines. Whether one technology will become dominant, remains to be seen.