Hightower Lowdown

What are we going to be driving a few years from now? GM's in bankruptcy, Chrysler is now run by Fiat, and the future seems bleak for the whole U.S. auto industry. So, who'll be king of America's highways--Toyota, Honda... or maybe Geely?

Gee-who? Geely Automobile. It's one of China's largest auto manufacturers. Along with two other Chinese giants--BYD and Chery Automobile --Geely has big designs on the American market. This year, China is projected to displace Japan as the world's largest car producer. It already tops U.S. carmakers in sales.

Chinese cars are expected to arrive in the U.S. market just over a year from now, and rumors abound that the Chinese are already kicking the tires of Detroit's auto companies, with the intention of buying a piece of them, or, at today's bargain prices, buying out a company.

One reason for the sudden Chinese surge is that its industrial and political leaders have been planning for and investing in the future, while American car honchos were hunkered down in their Hummer strategy. Thus, China's fuel-efficiency standards already exceed the 35-miles-per-gallon average that Obama recently said U.S. cars must meet by 2016. A week after Obama set that goal, Chinese officials said their vehicles will average 42 miles a gallon by 2015.

Meanwhile, China's BYD Company has gotten the jump on the next level of fuel economy. It is now producing a mass-market plug- in electric car--well ahead of the release date of GM's Chevy Volt. Of course, that's assuming that GM's around to release anything new ever again.