Who said hybrid technology can't be sexy and cool

I'll blow my own trumpet here and state that as soon as I clapped eyes on the new Prius design I knew it would be a winner. The old Prius was just too fuddy duddy and lacked any serious storage capacity - when I last had cash to burn on such a thing the only real contender was the, now discontinued, Honda Insight. Both seem just impractical, like the engine designers threw on bodies as an afterthought.

Then after the new Prius came along all I could complain about was the insane price caused by lack of supply (that is no longer an issue) and the lack of an all wheel drive option. Sure, the Ford Escape was available as all wheel drive but had crappy gas mileage, Ford Explorer roll over instability problems and was basically just way too big.

Then again the geek in me just didn't understand why a plug-in hybrid with limited range electric only propulsion didn't exist? Basically these were electric cars with a gas engine as backup - after all once you have put battery packs, inverters, generators and such inside a car why not exploit them for all they are worth? And if you are going to have a gas engine in a car why not make it compatible with carbon neutral fuels like bio-diesel? Let me burn veggie oil if I want to! In Europe they have long managed to get 40, 50, 60 or more miles per gallon from diesel - exceeding what most top of the line hybrids can get.

So can you imagine how far my jaw dropped when I read about the new Volvo C30 based concept car that is all of these - and because it has an electric motor for each wheel is automatically an all wheel drive vehicle? By pure coincidence my gal has long coveted a Volvo wagon, and just recently I discovered that the C30 not only looks good but comes in a 1.6 Diesel version getting over 40mpg average, or over 60mpg on the freeway - the only thing it lacked was all wheel drive.

But of course the problem is neither the concept car or the 1.6 diesel will be available in the USA any time soon. The former because it is a concept car, and the latter because for some reason Volvo thinks only the fastest, most expensive and least fuel efficient C30 model is worth selling in the USA. That's too bad because I'd probably drop some serious dough for their concept car tomorrow if it was available - its a no brainer. And even if that wasn't to be available for several years (I know how long it takes to get stuff on the market) I'd probably also be in the market for the C30 1.6 diesel, 4WD or not.

As it turns out another European car maker Audi also have gas sipping version of some of their popular cars available in Europe - the A3 1.9 liter turbo diesel gets 43 mpg in city and 67.3 mpg on the freeway, even better than the Volvo there is actually an all wheel drive version that still gets over 40 mpg on average. How about that? These figures are once again half those of the most fuel efficient A3 available in the USA and yet these kinds of figures for such good looking non-hybrid cars make even the Prius seem frankly silly.

So basically I'm just wondering, what the heck is taking these car manufactures so long to bring cars like these to the market in the USA when there is clearly a huge demand for them. Never mind their completely sexy and cool electric-gas vehicles that would turn the market on its head over night? Are they just worried they might actually sell too well for them cope? In the absence of any better reason I may just have to conclude that is the reason.