A Year of Solid Gains, and an Outlook for More Ahead Narong Sangnak/European Pressphoto Agency HIGH WATER The aftermath of flooding at a Honda plant in Thailand. DERAILED by a crushing earthquake and tsunami in March, Japanese carmakers will no doubt be glad to put 2011 behind them. Yet most other auto companies managed to shrug off the year's economic aftershocks, though the effects of supplier outages and the summer's floods in Thailand were felt worldwide. Still, as December waned, carmakers were on pace - for the second year in a row - to add more than one million sales in the United States. Analysts from LMC Automotive are projecting sales for 2011 to total 12.7 million, a 9.5 percent bump from last year's 11.6 million. As a market recovery takes hold, the industry should be feeling like a million for years to come: LMC, which acquired the auto forecasting division of J. D. Power & Associates in November, estimates a steady rise to 13.8 million sales in 2012, 15.4 million in 2013 and 16.2 million in 2014. That would finally restore American sales to prerecession normalcy, if not to the 17.4 million peak of 2000. Significantly, the Detroit automakers - leaner and less reliant on boom-or-bust truck sales - are now reaping healthy profits, even with the industry's volume roughly four million cars lower than it was in more prosperous times. At its riverfront headquarters in Detroit, General Motors may be measuring itself for the heavyweight belt. With an estimated 8.4 million in global vehicle sales, including its Chinese partner, S.A.I.C.-G.M.-Wuling, the company is poised to retake the title of world's largest-volume automaker from Toyota. That battered Japanese company, LMC Automotive projects, may slip as low as fourth place, behind Volkswagen and Renault-Nissan. Despite G.M."s billions in profits and a 14 percent sales jump in the United States, there were sore spots. With about 7,000 sales in its inaugural year, the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid fell short of G.M."s confident projection of 10,000. Though the Volt represents the tiniest green drop of G.M."s global sales - about 1 of every 1,200 cars - the press doggedly pursued a clumsy, all-or-nothing linkage, casting the innovative hybrid as a referendum on G.M."s revival. It didn't help that in June a Volt caught fire in Wisconsin, weeks after undergoing federal crash tests. G.M. moved quickly to limit the fallout, offering to buy back Volts from customers concerned about the safety of its lithium-ion battery pack. Because lithium-ion chemistry pulses through all modern plug-in hybrids and electric cars, automakers will be carefully monitoring the federal investigation of the Volt's travails. On that electric frontier, private companies, in partnership with automakers and public agencies, began a historic effort to build a national network of E.V. charging stations. The program, supported by more than $130 million in federal stimulus money and Energy Department grants, provides free home chargers for thousands of E.V. buyers, along with public and workplace charging sites. With cars like the Volt and the Nissan Leaf actually in showrooms, the public's interest in electric power stepped up. One result was that giants of the industry - notably Alan Mulally of Ford and Sergio Marchionne of Fiat and Chrysler - enjoyed relatively quiet years, while a Danish-born former Aston Martin designer found the spotlight. Henrik Fisker's namesake company, after lengthy delays - and a $529 million government loan - has begun delivering a handful of its $100,000 Karma plug-in hybrid sedan to customers. The alluring Karma has received strong early reviews, tempered somewhat by an Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy rating of just 20 m.p.g. when the gasoline engine is generating the electricity. And just last week, Fisker pre-emptively recalled 239 cars, citing a potential fire hazard from improperly positioned coolant hose clamps. Aptera, another California E.V. start-up, did not even make it to the starting line. Having failed to secure a $150 million federal lifeline, it closed up in December. Aptera's long-shot fantasy was the 2e, a three-wheel capsule that looked like an earthbound helicopter. Among the big boys, Ford, after basking in bailout-free glory in 2010, was on track to close 2011 with a mere 10 percent sales gain, trailing the reconstituted G.M and Chrysler. Ford's MyTouch, a glitch-prone, hard-to-decipher infotainment system, earned scorn from buyers and Consumer Reports. Customers also gave low marks to Ford's obtrusive automated transmission, which marred a solid redesign of the Focus compact. Chrysler's honeymoon with its new owner, Fiat, included a 25 percent sales jump from the gutter levels of 2010. And the company's defiantly pro-Detroit Super Bowl commercial, starring Eminem, put a lump in the throat of anyone with a connection to Eight Mile Road, the defining boundary between the tough city and the softer suburbs.