The SBVs are here! While the giant American manufacturers been sleeping at the wheel, market demand for fuel-efficient vehicles has continued to rise and create opportunities. Here are a couple awesome examples of what could be ahead, should the market be allowed to mature:

The XR-3 is designed as a “plug-in hybrid.” This makes it possible to drive on battery power alone on trips of about 40 miles. In other words, on short trips you never have to turn on the diesel engine. And when both the diesel and the battery-electric systems are used together, and the car is driven conservatively, fuel economy increases to over 200-mpg. Fuel economy is about 125-mpg on diesel power alone.

Diesel Hybrid Baby! (DHB) Scheduled for release this month, I just wonder where the bike rack and grocery bags will go…

Perhaps the 6000ZK, a Chinese electric vehicle imitation of the Smart Car, is a more practical option. It’s only $10K new and “100% legal”!

This all makes me very hopeful that we’re finally escaping the clutches of centrally planned automobiles. I am, perhaps naively, looking forward to local production of vehicles. Now that giant supply chain control (e.g. iron and steel) is unnecessary to produce cars in America, can someone in your neighborhood design and produce one for you? Or maybe I should be asking whether someone in your neighborhood will have the hack to override the silly speed regulation imposed by the NHTSA. Remember when mopeds were restricted to 25mph? Note the fine print on the 600ZK:

Max. Speed: 25 mph (Reduced from 40 per NHTSA guidelines)

Yeah, whatever. Real speed apparently introduces quite a bit of cost. Would you sign a waver and accept the risk of going 40 mph in that thing? Did Enron back President Bush? Of course you would.

The Comet, an unrestricted vehicle expected this fall, will set you back $33K. Does it really cost $23K to get security right and enable full speed?

Purpose-built as a luxury electric commuter vehicle, the Carbon-Fiber body, leather interior, premium electronics, navigation, and entertainment system, all testify that no expense was spared in the creation of this top-end vehicle.

Fully equiped with air conditioning, heat, and heads-up displays, the myth that an electric car is in some way a sacrifice is forever shattered. Superb handling, blinding acceleration, the experience is like no other.

Funny, that doesn’t look like an SUV-sized cargo hauler. What sort of sacrifice measure is solely based on luxury? Show me the security stuff and ditch the rest. I can buy a commodity GPS , roll down the window and put on some seat covers, thanks. Still, under $35K for a small-batch high MPG (SBHM) luxury sports car sounds pretty good.

I expect these things to be coming out of the high schools of America, but the last time I checked all the “monster” and “chop” shops were still producing pathetic gas guzzlers. I guess the Internet took a while to leave the venue of nerds and reach the cool crowds, so maybe we just have ten years to wait now before vehicular efficiency is hot and common.

Enough mid-life crisis sports-car stuff, imagine taking a cross-country camping trip, or doing a coastal surfing trip, in the zero-emission Transporter…this could be the rebirth of the active “VW bus” lifestyle:

For some reason the government allows the Transporter to keep its top speed : 45 mph. Cheap and functional. Let’s go surfing, dude!

Now we just need better batteries…

MSN Autos has posted some notable points about regulations in America that are actually preventing car manufacturers from selling cleaner burning vehicles to people living in areas of the country who need them.

Not only can’t you buy one, but the government says it’s currently illegal for automakers to sell these green cars outside of the special states. Under terms of the Clean Air Act—in the kind of delicious irony only our government can pull off—anyone (dealer, consumer, automaker) involved in an out-of-bounds PZEV sale could be subject to civil fines of up to $27,500. Volvo sent its dealers a memo alerting them to this fact, noting that its greenest S40 and V50 models were only for the special states.

If this is anything like the mind-bending diesel regulations that effectively banned VW passenger cars from being sold in California, then you just have to find a loophole — select one to buy, make sure it starts with more than 7,500 miles, and register it as a used vehicle.

In 2004 the VW dealer in Santa Cruz told me if I tried to bring a TDI into California the State Patrol might issue me a ticket or confiscate my car. The dealer was lying to promote the sale of vehicles they had in their lot, not sell me something I wanted, and they made it abundantly clear to me that they only cared about one thing — money.

MSN brings this up, but only from the consumer side of things.

Another issue: The PZEV cars don’t get any better mileage than conventional versions. Would most self-interested Americans even pay a lousy 100 bucks for cleaner air that doesn’t put fuel savings back in their pocket? “With hybrids, the selling point is fuel economy, so there’s a dollar amount on that,” said William Walton, Honda’s product planning chief for U.S. cars. “We want to give people the cleanest vehicles we can produce, but how much are people willing to pay for clean air?”

These are interesting questions that I ask myself everyday while managing security for a global enterprise. Do consumers understand the value of clean air? How do we explain to an executive that they want a safe and secure network even if it is not putting savings directly back in their pocket?

Worms are the pandora-like topic to make network security discussions seem more grounded. Are there similar environmental examples for high-emission vehicles? A poster-child for death by exhaust from Hummers?