Washington: Ford Motor Co. will unveil the 2009 version of the Ford Escape and the 2009 Mercury Mariner at the Washington Auto Show, which opens to the public from 23 to 27 January 2008.

Ford says its 2009 Escape gas-electric hybrid will show improvements in power and performance. The sport utility vehicle was one of several hybrid developments at the show. Both Ford and Toyota Motor Corp. are displaying prototype plug-in hybrids while General Motors Corp. is expected to announce that new orders from three metropolitan transit agencies would more than double its hybrid bus fleet.

Both the petrol and hybrid versions of the Escape and Mariner will have a new 2.5-liter engine that will increase power by 11 per cent to 170 bhp. The petrol versions will also offer an optional 230-bhp, 3.0-liter V6 engine with similar gains in fuel economy. The 2009 versions of both models will hit the markets this summer.

Ford has said that overall fuel efficiency of the petrol versions of the 2009 Escape and Mariner would increase by 1 mpg compared with the 2008 versions, which give a fuel efficiency of between 18 mpg in the city and 26 mpg on the highway depending on the engine configuration.

The fuel consumption of the 2009 hybrid versions of the Escape and Mariner is not expected to change substantially, Ford said.

General Motors has said its fleet of nearly 1,000 GM-Allison hybrid-powered buses would more than double thanks to large orders by transit agencies in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Beyond conventional hybrids, carmakers are also testing plug-in hybrids that could allow owners to plug the vehicle's battery into a standard wall outlet to recharge it. The vehicles typically feature batteries that power an electric motor with an internal combustion engine used when the batteries run low.

General Motors has said production could begin as early as 2010 on a plug-in hybrid electric version of the Saturn Vue Green Line and is hoping to bring the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in electric car, to market by the same timeframe.

Toyota said recently that it plans to test hundreds of plug-in hybrids with fleet and commercial customers by 2010 and will show journalists one of the plug-in Prius prototypes, which switches from pure electric to gas engine to a blended gas electric mode.

The vehicles will make it to the markets depending on the ability of the companies to mass produce the batteries and how well the market receives them.

Automakers typically show off their fuel-efficient technologies at the Washington show, which is heavily attended by government and political leaders. President Bush has signed an energy law requiring companies to meet an overall fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.