While the bail-out of the major car makers may have been doomed to failure but the green initiatives being launched are still out there and continuing in pace.

Back in December 2008 with the parties still celebrating Obama’s election success, a deal was struck with China on the development of electric batteries for car power.

Now we have touched on battery development previously and it is right we do so again because battery-powered vehicles are a prime player in the future of green cares while development and progress within this field will be a fair weather vane of progress in delivering green initiatives across the board.

China is in an even worse position than the US when it comes to the need to develop green power sources – over half of the oil it uses comes from imports leaving it highly susceptible to the global oil markets (remember when $5 a gallon was a reality for us – now imagine that multiplied several times).

The deal involving the US Department of Energy, involves BYD Autos, a Chinese company which is heavily involved in green car development and with a market such as China which is beginning to open and has billions of consumers in it, there is a huge profit potential.

What’s in it for the US?

Green car developments are not going to be 100% American researched and developed – the technologies involved are diverse and many are leading edge; no one country will have a monopoly on the technology or the cars. The US in this instance gains direct access to battery testing and benchmarking standards that are essential to measuring true battery performance and in turn this has a direct impact on the actual battery development for use by consumers.

The battery market alone is thought to be worth some USD $40 billion by 2020 based on one million electric cars on US roads – this is the target now set by President Obama for the country.