The auto industry of Detroit gave the world vehicles with the "muscle car" and "gas guzzler" titles. According to Peter Bohan, a reporter of Reuters, the automakers finally sees the going green way.

During this week's Reuters Auto Summit, top automaker executives, analysts and investors announced that they found new hopes for competing in the market for fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly cars and trucks.

"I think whether global warming is science fact or not no longer matters," said billionaire investor Wilbur Ross.

"It's going to be treated as if it were science fact, and it's clear there will be lots of pressure and lots of encouragement toward green activity," said Ross, who has bought several big auto supply companies in recent years.

General Motors Corp. was almost dethroned by Toyota Motor Corp. as the world's top selling automaker. GM had been scorned and had sloping market shares losing it to the Japanese car maker with its production of gas guzzlers like the Hummer, hefty SUVs and gigantic trucks.

"We somehow ... let Toyota get ahead of us in terms of environmental technology because they did the Prius hybrid, and we elected not to do that kind of hybrid," GM's vice chairman and product development chief Robert Lutz told the Reuters Summit.

"We have since realized that letting Toyota gain that mantle of green respectability and technology leadership has really cost us dearly in the marketplace."

Living almost 40 years in the automotive industry and a famed technology guy, Bob Lutz was determined to lead the green car race leaving Toyota behind. Lutz confirmed that GM will be launching 12 new hybrid vehicles in the next three years.

"It has gotten to the point where people buy Toyota because it is seen as the sane and responsible thing to do because, after all, Toyota is the company that brought you the Prius."

By 2010, GM targets to bring the market their plug-in hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt which GM thinks will cause a big revolution in the green car technology. Despite criticisms and skepticisms, GM is firm that they will meet the deadline. The biggest challenge of the Volt is its Lithium-ion battery which is also a problem of Toyota and the others.

"People are biting their nails, but those of us in a leadership position have said it has to be done," said Lutz.

"We have to re-establish GM's leadership, and the Volt is, frankly, an effort to leapfrog anything that is done by any other competitor," Lutz said.