Businesses built around sustainability are showing some of the greatest promise to grow in Metro Detroit. That includes everything from exporting components to wind turbines to building the next electric-hybrid car.
Excerpt:
General Motors and Ford are now hiring hundreds of engineers to work on hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric vehicles like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the 2012 Ford Focus Electric.
And they're not doing it in Silicon Valley. They're doing it in Michigan, just where they always have: the GM Technical Center in Warren, and the Ford headquarters complex in Dearborn.
Sure, their designers and engineers visit Silicon Valley to do deals with startups in areas like apps that will connect their cars to the world of always-on information. But then they take the apps back home to where cars are built.
In other words, we suspect that the new, clean, green auto industry in the U.S. will be pretty much where the old, dirty, gas-guzzling one was.
That would be … Detroit.
Read the rest here and more about local leaders talking about the potential of green investment here.
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