Oil dive slows green drive

What do Big Oil and green car makers have in common? They're not nearly as thrilled as the rest of us at a drop in the price of a barrel of crude.

In the past couple of weeks, plummetting oil prices have wreaked havoc the plans of newly nervous green car makers.

While hybrid production hasn't suffered the extended shutdowns conventional car plants have suffered in the US -- Ford's Escape SUV, for example, proceeds full steam ahead while the company imposes holiday production shutdowns across the rest of its range -- expansion plans are grinding to a halt all over the place.

GM has held over opening its Chevrolet Volt factory in Flint, Michigan, although VP Jon Lauckner announced on the company's blog that production will still kick off on schedule in late 2010.

And Toyota, in the wake of its December loss announcement -- its first in 71 years -- has put an indefinite stopper on the building of a Prius factory in Tupelo, Mississippi. The company has assured local authorities the global cutbacks won't be felt in Australia.

Audi, too, has placed its planned Q5 hybrid on indefinite hold, but for other reasons. The marque claims it hasn't yet found a nickel metal hydride battery with which it's happy in crash conditions -- or, indeed, a hybrid system per se that satisfies its efficiency criteria.