Detroit Auto Show

Rock down to "Electric Avenue" at the 2010 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, and you might think that sales Download Free eBook - The Edge of Success: 9 Building Blocks to Double Your Sales of battery-powered cars were going to take the industry higher sooner rather than later.

Twenty models from automakers large and small get their own 37,000 square-foot section at the annual show, and a few of the featured cars, like the Chevy Volt and the BMW B-Class F-Cell, actually hit dealer showrooms this year.

Yet despite government mandates and money that are putting some juice into the fledgling battery-only car segment, the technologies and infrastructure necessary to give the internal combustion engine a run for its money are still viewed as being at least a decade away from viability, much less affordability.

So if it isn't the Year of the Electric Automobile, "it's certainly the year of electric automobile hype," Robert Farago, an automotive journalist and former publisher of TheTruthAboutCars.com, told TechNewsWorld. "It's definitely too early. The Volt is going to be a limited-edition vehicle. Some of these (models) are no more than prototypes. There's no mass market yet, and nobody's proven that there could be."