Reinventing the wheel

Johan Willems is adamant that the car revolution is upon us. In two years, GM will launch its Volt, a plug-in hybrid which will allow 40 miles of emissions-free travel, with an efficient petrol engine for longer ranges. ‘There’s no point selling 100,000 hybrids when the other 70m new cars are petrol driven,’ he maintains. ‘We need to make a car like the Volt a mass-market choice. It is daunting, but who would have believed that you could stop the French smoking in cafes? It’s the same with cars. Society has decided enough is enough. Car companies that don’t listen are dead.’

From the evidence at Geneva, for some car makers environmental meltdown is merely something to be combatted with bigger tyres and industrial-strength windscreen wipers. I shoulder through a crush at the Hummer stand where gorgeous reps in banana-yellow leather jackets talk punters through the features of these lumbering vehicles. Eventually I meet Luc Spenle, a Swiss Hummer salesman. Come on, I say, aren’t these beyond the pale? ‘In Switzerland you get women and children with a thumbs-up if …#8239;you drive a Hummer,’ he says. ‘It’s prestige. But they are also good in a forest environment.’

Observer