Trends at the Frankfurt Motor Show

Two hundred hectares of land "covered" with cars dedicated mainly to the "medium" segment, not to an exclusive public, as was the case of the Geneva Motor Show; the "greenest" edition so far; the organisers are expecting 750,000 visitors this year, 150,000 fewer than in 2008. The green car trend, which started to emerge on the car market in the autumn of 2006, at the Paris Motor Show, is now stronger than ever, especially since the entire auto industry is seeking solutions (other than the vehicle scrappage scheme), in order to overcome the current economic situation. Whereas in 2006, in Paris, Peugeot announced diesel-electric hybrid models, while Mercedes-Benz experimented with the dies-otto engine, which functioned as a diesel engine (ignition initiated by compression and not by a spark), but ran on petrol, this year, such forward-looking ideas have been replaced by more practical, closer-to-reality ones. The new diesel engine releases have been slowly overshadowed by those of new petrol-powered engines such as Ford's EcoBoost, but especially by new electric models, with almost every brand presenting at least one electric engine model (whether it was close to stock production or not). From Renault Fluence ZE and Ford Focus, to Tesla Roadster (which is already stock-produced in the US) and Audi "R8" e-Tron, equipped with 4 electric engines with an overall 313 HP and 4,500 Nm - a force comparable with that of four high-tonnage and a 250-km range.