Auto Giants Revisit Electric Cars

Auto Giants Revisit Electric Cars

Worried that urban congestion and fears about climate change could provoke a backlash against petroleum-fueled cars, big auto makers are revving up efforts to electrify automobiles.

In the process, usually circumspect auto-industry leaders are taking shots at each others' technology strategies in a style more familiar to Silicon Valley than Detroit or Toyota City.

The argument surfacing among auto-industry leaders gathering for the Tokyo Motor Show this week is over whether it is time to skip past partial electrification of cars -- represented by gasoline-electric hybrids such as the Toyota Prius -- and push instead to revive the ideal of all-electric cars that the industry largely abandoned earlier this decade.

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