Matthew L. Wald, New York Times

ELECTRIC cars are coming in big numbers for the first time. Again.

The prediction has been here before, almost every time governments have worried about oil supplies and air pollution. Manufacturers dabbled with electrics after the oil shock of 1979-80. In the 1990s, California said it would require their sale to address its almost intractable air pollution problem. But the technology was not ready, and the state gave up.

Los Angeles Times

Toyota Motor Corp. has joined the growing ranks of automakers planning to bring advanced battery-powered vehicles to showrooms in the near future.

The Japanese automaker said it planned to have a plug-in version of its popular Prius hybrid for sale in the U.S. within three years.

"The target is 2012 to be coming to market with them," Irving Miller, a group vice president for Toyota's U.S. sales unit, said at a Los Angeles conference on climate change, Bloomberg News reported.

Mark Zimmerman, Los Angeles Times

 The days may be numbered for hybrid car owners who have enjoyed traveling solo in California's carpool lanes.

The stickers granting that privilege to 85,000 hybrid owners are set to expire Jan. 1, 2011. There are proposals in Sacramento to extend the deadline, but they would exclude most of the vehicles that originally qualified for the program, such as the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic hybrid and the original Honda Insight.

John Cox, Bakersfield Californian

Something as simple yet subtle as burning wood to make heat is bringing together Kern's two biggest industries -- oil and agriculture -- at the leading edge of California's push for more renewable energy.

Phil Willon,  Los Angeles

Sacramento Business Journal

Electric car business Tesla Motors Inc. took 711 reservations, at $5,000 a pop, for its model S sedan, due out in late 2011, in the two weeks since it first showed the car.

That adds up to $3.5 million for the company, though the $5,000 reservation fees are refundable.

Jim Gorzelany, Marysville-Yuba City Appeal Democrat

While the cost of a gallon of gasoline is far less these days than it was last summer, when it peaked at around $4, the conventional wisdom is that prices eventually will spiral their way back upward.

Brent Snavely/McClatchy, Marysville-Yuba City Appeal Democrat

The electric vehicle Ford Motor Co. announced Sunday at the Detroit auto show is part of an array of products that the automaker will offer as it waits to learn what type of alternative vehicles consumers will prefer, company Chairman Bill Ford Jr. told the Detroit Free Press.

Porterville Recorder

The late economist Milton Friedman used to say that the insights offered by the discipline of economics can be summed up in a simple phrase: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. The eternal desire of politicians is to disprove this simple maxim by trying to offer free lunches through the coercive power of government, but their efforts almost always reinforce its wisdom.

Jon Brines, Lincoln News

It’s not often you see environmentalists and a fuel retailer agreeing much in the era of global warming, but a new biofuels station in Rocklin is attracting the two and creating opportunities for Rocklin drivers to reduce their carbon footprint.

“The green revolution has to start somewhere,” said Rocklin gas station owner Bodh Kunwar. “I have to make a contribution.”

Jim Mateja/McClatchy, Marysville-Yuba City Appeal Democrat

You can carry 240 cans of pop on ice in the walls of the Dodge Ram pickup.

You can pull steps out of the tailgate to walk into or out of the bed of the Ford F-150.

You can run on batteries in a Chevy Silverado.

So what will it be: cans, steps or batteries?

 Paul A. Eisenstein, Gridley Herald

With the introduction of the Model T a century ago, Henry Ford redefined American life, but the
suburbanization that followed, both here and abroad, may be reaching its peak.

Much like their counterparts around the globe, younger American are beginning to move back to the cities, and that’s raising plenty of questions about the cars we will drive in the not-too-distant future.