Henrik Fisker, the storied car designer who has shaped Aston Martins, Fords and BMWs, told the Reuters Autos Summit this week that he now wants a starring role in the green revolution.

But he also wants to make the world safe for sports cars for generations to come.

"Being a car enthusiast and loving cars, to be quite honest, I could not imagine a life without a beautiful, fast sports car," Fisker said. "I needed to do something to make sure that I could drive one of those nice cars, my children could drive one of those beautiful, fast cars."

So what was Fisker's inspiration? What was the epiphany when he realized that the world was ready for the upcoming Fisker Karma, a $90,000 plug-in hybrid with 50 miles of all-electric fun?

Leonardo DiCaprio...in a Prius.

"A couple of years ago it started, by people who were maybe a little ahead of their time. You saw some movie starts like Leonardo DiCaprio buying a Prius.

"He could have bought any car in the world, and I remember seeing that on television and thinking to myself, you know, when you've got a guy who could buy any Ferrari or Rolls Royce and he's buying a Prius, you know something is changing dramatically."

(Henrik Fisker photo by Rebecca Cook of Reuters; Leonardo DiCaprio photo by Mario Anzuoni of Reuters.)

When it comes to competition in the auto business, it’s the unknown that keeps the top U.S. Honda executive, John Mendel, up at night.

Mendel, speaking to the Reuters Auto Summit in Detroit, said he is always concerned about the conventional competitors. But what he is really afraid of is a company that “changes the game.”

“What keeps me up regarding new competition is someone significantly changing the game,” Mendel said.

People mention an autoseller taking up dealers dropped by General Motors, Chrysler or Saturn.

“What if they didn’t have a dealer network,” Mendel said. “What if they used big-box retailers and contracted with Jiffy Lube to have your car fixed?

“That could be a really new metric, which suddenly changes the whole cost structure for distribution significantly,” said the Honda executive.

That has been tried before, by Sears, in the 1950s, but was killed by the complex state franchise laws that protect dealership networks.

Would such an idea work if tried by the Walmarts or the Costcos of the world? Should the U.S. state franchise laws be changed to allow it?

Mendel was a featured guest at this year’s Reuters Autos Summit, which runs through Thursday in Paris and Detroit.

Since the days of Thomas Edison, finding a way to effectively store electricity has been one of the “Holy Grails” for power companies.

While it won’t be an overnight revolution for electricity, eventually plug-in electric cars and trucks will be a step toward the elusive goal, said Ted Craver, chief executive officer of Edison International.

Edison International is the parent of Southern California Edison (SCE), which is the biggest utilty in the United States in terms of power delivered to customers.

 ”They are effectively storage units on wheels,” Craver said of electric cars and trucks.

Vehicles batteries charged during off-peak periods could feed power back to the grid during periods of peak demand, said Craver in a telephone interview on Thursday.

California like other states requires that power utilities have enough power plant generation to serve the highest demand day of the year. This means that more than half of the state’s power generation sits unused most of the time.

“Our electricity system is about 49-percent utilized,” said Craver. “If we had a reasonably modest introduction of electric vehicles into the system, we could change that 49 percent to 55 or 56 percent.”

So in addition to having the ability to propel cars without creating carbon dioxide emissions — outside of the power plants that must run to serve them — electric vehicles may one day help keep utilities from building as many power plants.

Craver’s interview came minutes after he hosted President Barack Obama’s visit to SCE’s electic Vehicle Technical Center in Pamona, California to promote green jobs are green technology.

Obama said that by 2015 there will be a million plug-in hybrid vehicles on U.S. roads.

Obama also announed $2.4 billion in grants for work on plug-in hybrid vehicles and batteries to run them, as well as a $7,500 tax credit for owners of plug-in vehicles.

SCE has more than 300 cars and trucks that run on electricity, the largest U.S. fleet of electric vehicles, Craver said.

Electric car organization Plug In America revved up the inaugural festivities this past weekend with a parade of 74 plug-in vehicles in Santa Monica, California, dubbing it the “greenest procession of its kind.”

The non-profit group first applied to ride in the Presidential inaugural parade in Washington, but was not chosen. Undeterred, it took the parade west, said spokeswoman Zan Dubin Scott.

“Today we congratulate President Barack Obama, who has called for one million plug-in cars by 2015,” Paul Scott, one of the group’s co-founders, said at the parade on Saturday, taking the moment to make a “plug” for more plug-ins by 2016. “With the audacity of hope and the confidence born of years driving these cars, we’re asking Obama to accelerate his plan and make it happen three years sooner, then to boost that number to ten million plug-ins by 2016.”

The procession featured a colorful array of electric vehicles including Toyota RAV4 EVs, Tesla Roadsters, Zero Motorcycles, Chevy 2-10s, a Solectria, a school bus, and even a converted battery-powered Hummer bearing an Obama poster on its side.

“This is an R&D test mule, we’re not really making Hummers,” said Michael Biron, R&D shop foreman for Malibu-based Vision Motor Corp, which outfitted the Hummer and manufactures electric big rig trucks.

For the parade, Biron said the Hummer H2 was powered on batteries alone, fueling the vehicle with up to 30 miles per charge. It can also be fitted with a hydrogen fuel cell that could provide it with another 250 miles of range.

“We’re giving people a chance to see there are alternatives for different electric vehicle platforms. If we can do this with a gas-guzzling Hummer, it shows there are many possibilities and opportunities out there,” Biron said.

California state Senator Fran Pavley, the author of California’s landmark legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, said the number of drivers who signed up for the parade exceeded expectations.

“It sends a clear signal that Americans are serious about combating climate change and will vote with their dollars by purchasing clean, efficient cars,” Pavley said.

For of Reuters’ recent coverage of electric cars, click here.

Environmental Protection Agency chief-to-be Lisa Jackson said science would be her guide on policy – and that may mean California is in the driver’s seat on setting new global-warming-style regulations on cars. (Not to mention the nearly 20 other states ready to follow in its footsteps.)

Jackson said she would reconsider whether California should get a waiver from the EPA that would allow it to regulate carbon pollution from cars, the San Francisco Chronicle said. The Bush administration has said no to such a waiver - but Jackson said she would focus on the science.

“She said today ‘I’m going to do it’. I mean, she didn’t say that — but I don’t think the auto industry has any doubt,” Sierra Club chief Carl Pope said shortly after a Senate confirmation hearing for Jackson. “She didn’t have to signal that strongly.”

Environmentalists see the waiver as one of the biggest issues facing incoming President Barack Obama.

Pope also interpreted her answers as meaning she would move to regulate carbon pollution from stationary power sources. The U.S. Supreme Court said EPA could treat greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming as pollution — but the agency has not under President Bush.

PHOTO: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst