Obamobile will be far from green

Washington, Nov.24 : Though US President-elect Barack Obama has promised to get a million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015, his own new presidential limousine will be far from green.

According to The Times, the "Obamobile" will be a monster gas-guzzler made by General Motors, the troubled car giant.

It will look like a black Cadillac but is built like a tank. The armour-plated car, which has a raised roof, windows up to five inches thick, extra-strength tyres and a body made of steel, aluminium, titanium and ceramics, is thought to be based on a GMC 2500 truck that gets less than 10 miles to the gallon.

Three cars are believed to be in production so that two can serve as decoys.

While security is paramount - the car is built to survive roadside bombs as well as gunfire - there are hybrid four-wheel drives on the market, such as Ford's Mercury Mariner, which some critics believe could have been adapted for the president.

Obama repeated his campaign pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 and to invest 15 billion dollars a year on energy-saving technologies despite the economic melt-down.

John Podesta, the head of Obama's transition team, said: "I anticipate [Obama] moving very aggressively and very rapidly on the whole question of transforming the energy platform in the US from high carbon energy to low carbon energy."

ANI