On Tuesday Ford became the latest automaker to "plug-in" (pun intended) a date for a plug-in hybrid vehicle of its own, announcing it will have plug-in hybrid vehicles, promising 30 miles on battery power before the gasoline engine kicks in, by 2012.

General Motors and Toyota are racing to get the first plug-in hybrid from a car manufacturer to market. Earlier this year, at the Detroit Auto Show, Toyota announced that several hundred plug-in Priuses delivered to government and commercial fleets in 2010 for field testing.