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Detroit Auto Show highlights

CNN's Colleen McEdwards reports on this year's auto show in Detroit, Michigan。

Well this has been one of the worst years ever in the global auto industry, but in the United States, the manufacturers here are feeling most of the pain. And at this year's Detroit auto show: Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are really focusing on stretching the consumer dollar. They say they've seen the lights. They figured out that consumers worldwide want safe, innovative and reasonably priced cars.

General Motors made a big splash with the Chevy Volt, and here it is, right here a plug-in electric car. But here is the ironic thing about this car, one of the plant that is gonna build this car is on hold because of General Motors' money problems. But still the company insists it's gonna hit the market on schedule next year.

This year's Auto Show is as much about who isn't here as who is. Most of the luxury European carmakers simply stayed home, and many of the Japanese carmakers like Nissan and Suzuki, stayed away because they said they didn't have enough money to spend here. Honda is here, but it's keeping things pretty lowkey, it's not holding any big splashy events.

You know people at this year's Auto Show are talking as much about the problems in the industry as they are about the new products. But there are some new ones being rolled out and a lot of them have to do with green technology, electric cars, hybrid cars. In fact, Ford made a big splash by announcing that it's gonna bring more hybrid and electric models to markets in the next 4 years and it had plan to originally because it really wants to try to seize on the green technology. One of them is gonna be this baby, it is a plug-in hybrid, and it is gonna be on the market near 2012.

Ford threw in a little old-fashioned muscle as well, revving up the crowd, introducing its new Mustang, right alongside all those quiet hybrids. This is an industry full of contradictions right now and questions, will the public accept plug-in cars if they are to be the savior of the US auto industry in the future of the industry? And with so many important global automakers not even showing up here, will these big events like the Detroit auto show become a thing of the past in an industry that's running on borrowed money and borrowed time.

Colleen McEdwards, CNN, Detroit.