The chief executive of production at General Motors recently stated that GM will indeed have a plug-in SUV hybrid that will be fleet test ready by early 2011.

Originally planned to be a Saturn Vue Green Line, GM will most likely produce the SUV hybrid through another name, but will essentially be the same vehicle as planned; GM has since intended to either sell or phase out its Saturn branch.

Vice Chairman Tom Stephens emphasized that there are four brands that could potentially give a home to their new vehicle; Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick or GMC could very well be seeing the new plug-in hybrid SUV arriving in their showrooms.  This specific vehicle planned is supposed to get somewhere around double the city mileage of similar gas-powered SUVs.

It seems that consumers have done enough clamoring for a plug-in SUV hybrid, and they’re indeed getting their wish; but, electricity being used to charge the vehicles sophisticated battery systems still has yet to see the same scale of environmentally friendliness.

Conceptually, hybrid plug-in vehicles are ideal.  But, in an age where the average household’s electricity isn’t exactly clean, this concept does little to address the real problem and serves to only address a small symptom. Ultimately it’s up to the energy producers to make a change, provide better and cleaner energy generation and pass the clean buck to the consumer.