Scads of major automakers unveiled models that are within a year or two of showroom readiness, with the Chevy Volt (projected to run for 40 miles on a household charge before switching to gasoline) drawing perhaps the most buzz. Irvine, Calif.-based Fisker Automotive Inc. took a booth to promote its forthcoming $88,000 Karma, a plug-in luxury hybrid. Bob Lutz, General Motors' venerable product executive, devoted his keynote speech Wednesday kicking off two days of media previews to talking up the 'totally revolutionary' Volt and GM's commitment to electric propulsion. 'People continue to think of GM as the company that `killed the electric car,' ' he said, alluding to the title of a 2006 documentary about the end of its experimental EV1 electric vehicle program in 1999. 'The electric car is far from dead at GM.' The plug-in hybrid car has emerged as the most-favored candidate for future alternative fuel vehicle. Although show's Green Car of the Year award went to a clean-diesel car for the second year in a row (this year the Audi A3 TDI), there are good reasons for the plug-in hybrid's claim on mindshare. Battery technology has advanced to the point where 100 miles on a charge is a practical goal; a gasoline engine that kicks in after the charge is spent alleviates what carmakers sense is the buying public's greatest concern -- 'range anxiety,' or the EV (for electric vehicle) driver's fear of being stranded, juiceless, miles from a power outlet. Green car advocates say the plug-in's electric range should suit the daily commute of more than 80 percent of American drivers, allowing them to charge up at home overnight. They add that shifting the nation's automotive fuel source from on-board gasoline to the central electric grid will make power more efficient, cleaner and much less dependent on oil. 'EVs are at a point of no return,' said Jason Wolf, an executive at Better Place, a Palo Alto, Calif., company aiming to provide charging services for plug-in drivers. 'Over 70 percent of major manufacturers have some kind of mass plug-in coming in the next two years.' Yet plug-ins or fully electric cars can't run on hope and expectations any more than today's Buicks and Hondas can run on cooking oil. A lot has to change in policy, practice and public attitude for plug-ins to reach critical mass in the U.S. private fleet. There's little consensus over what policies are needed or even how the EV will fit into America's driving culture. 'I don't think we're ever going to see people driving across the country in these things, realistically,' says Matthew Mattila, a transportation consultant at the ultra-green Rocky Mountain Institute. When I asked Lutz what he hoped to see from Washington, he mentioned raising federal fuel taxes to lock in a big margin between the cost of running EVs and gas-powered cars. 'People are not going to pay tens of thousands of dollars more in order to save a couple of hundred dollars a year on gasoline,' he said. To the green car lobby, that sounds like conventional Detroit thinking. Leaving aside the not-going-to-happen factor in the idea of raising the federal gas tax, they say, plug-ins already have a decisive cost advantage at today's gas prices. 'An electric mile costs 2-3 cents, compared to 8-20 cents for a gasoline mile,' says Felix Kramer, founder of the California Cars Initiative, a nonprofit promoter of plug-ins. 'Obviously it helps to have much higher gas prices, but I've never met a Prius owner who's done the payback calculations.' Kramer says the federal government's best option is to provide financial incentives for EV buyers. By that light, the stimulus package, which includes tax credits of up to $7,500 for buyers of the first 200,000 vehicles from each manufacturer, will help drive the country toward President Barack Obama's goal of 1 million plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads by 2015. Even that, however, would be 'a drop in the bucket' of what's needed to turn a significant percentage of the nation's 250 million vehicles green, Kramer says. Making a dent in the U.S. thirst for oil will require retrofitting existing gas-guzzlers with hybrid drives, a technology he says is available. The biggest infrastructure change involves the nation's electric grid. People charging cars in their garages may need to upgrade their home circuits, which often requires municipal permits, building inspections and other headaches. As the California Public Utilities Commission has learned, finding the right policy is no simple feat. One might think that, in the interest of encouraging all car buyers to consider plug-ins, electric utilities should be permitted to invest heavily in such system upgrades as new neighborhood transformers and put the tab on everyone's electric bill. That's the position of General Motors. But GM wants to sell cars, so the less its buyers pay to install charging boxes for their Volts, the better. Not so fast, says The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, which says it's standing up for all ratepayers, not just early adopters with EVs. TURN told the PUC that allowing utilities to charge the whole rate base for EV-oriented upgrades would encourage them to be 'profligate' in spending 'ostensibly to meet EV loads,' which may never materialize. The concern is that drivers of gas cars, even thrifty ones, might end up subsidizing their super-green neighbors. 'We're in the early days here,' says Pedro Pizarro, Southern California Edison's executive vice president for power operations. 'All of us in the market -- cities, utilities, auto manufacturers, auto dealers -- need to figure it out together.' Hiltzik can be reached at michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. 