The last year has definitely been a rocky one for the auto industry, with American icons General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Chrysler both receiving billions of dollars from Washington in hopes of avoiding bankruptcy. While a lot of the country feels as though it is important to try to save the auto companies, not everyone is so happy with the recent events, and have been taking out their frustrations at recent auto shows.

The first sign that things are not quite the same as before can be noticed on the auto show floors. Typically in the past, the major auto makers spared no expense at setting up elaborate displays to lure in people to check out their most recent designs. This is not the case anymore for some of the industry's major players.

A great deal of the new technology that U.S. car companies are showing at the big auto show in Detroit is based on the U.S. car industry's plans to "go green." Some of those programs are based on electric cars. Others are based on ethanol hybrids.

According to Reuters, "the stars of the show were a slew of new or improved fuel-efficient and eco-friendly 'green' cars like the Toyota Prius and Chevrolet Volt."

Some analysts think The Big Three are too late to the table with "green" cars and that Japan has too big a lead. That may not be the problem at all.

Often cars powered with alternative fuels are more expensive than gas-driven cars. All that modern technology costs something. Consumers are looking at gas in the $1.70 range and oil prices moving toward $30 a barrel. Car buyers are often short-sighted. Why buy a hybrid when a gas car is inexpensive to operate? Oil prices may not go back up for two or three years. Maybe.

"Green" may not sell because the price of filling up an "old style" car has become remarkably cheap again.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Five Chinese manufacturers are fielding display automobiles at the 2008 North American Auto Show. Amid a flurry of drab Chinese displays, misspelled promotional materials and one unscheduled auto tour through an ongoing press conference, China is presenting vehicles in the hope that the American auto-buying public will take them for real. I wonder how they feel about this at General Motors (NYSE: GM), Ford Motors (NYSE: F), Toyota (NYSE: TM), and Chrysler.

This influx of Chinese auto manufacturers represents a 400% increase in their presence at the auto show over just two years ago. Should the big auto makers be scared yet? This blogger hardly thinks so, yet the above picture is the Geely-Beauty Leopard, an automobile of Chinese manufacture which has been marketed quite successfully in Europe since 2002.

General Motors (NYSE: GM) announced this weekend at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit that it would partner with Coskata Inc., an Illinois-based renewable energy start-up company that plans to produce ethanol from agricultural, municipal, and industrial waste byproducts.

"GM is enabling Coskata to produce the next generation of biofuels -- without using a food source -- making it economically viable and commercially available," said Coskata CEO Bill Roe. "Alternative transportation fuels are coming faster than people think ... and will be available at a lower cost than people have imagined."

Coskata is backed by billionaire investor Vinod Khosla, said the Wall Street Journal, and is one of a handful of ethanol makers in the U.S. that are trying to develop a method for efficiently producing cellulosic ethanol.

But Coskata's cellulosic ethanol won't be available at retail gas stations until 2010 or later. The company maintains that its process is commercially viable already. It plans to open a 40,000-gallon demonstration facility by the end of this year to deliver ethanol to GM for vehicle testing, before building a 100-million-gallon commercial plant at an undetermined U.S. location.

GM's foray into the cellulosic ethanol field is part of a broader campaign to convince car buyers that it is committed to fuel economy and capable of competing with Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) in terms of environmental leadership. GM's stake in the partnership with Coskata was undisclosed.