Images: Car concepts get the green light

Detroit may be the city most closely associated with the manufacturing of cars and trucks, but for futuristic automotive design, all roads would seem to lead to Los Angeles. And not just for U.S. automakers. The greater LA area has attracted design studios from a worldwide lineup of big-name companies, including BMW (Newbury Park), General Motors (North Hollywood), Honda (Torrance and Pasadena), Hyundai (La Jolla), Toyota (Newport Beach), Volkswagen (Santa Monica) and Volvo (Camarillo).

For this year's Design Los Angeles automotive design conference, nine of those studios are taking a crack at environmental awareness--from the way the raw materials for the hypothetical vehicles would be gathered to the way those vehicles get around town.

The Sandstorm, from the Hyundai Kia America Design Center, steers close to the familiar look of the classic dune buggy. Eco points for this "biodiesel electric plug-in hybrid" would come from features including solar-powered cooling, detachable recycling bins and recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PETE) panels, so that riders can quickly change the color scheme to suit the mood.

To see the contestants from the previous design challenge, click here. To see the rest of this year's entrants, read on...