Toyota’s ongoing recall and the safety concerns embroiling an automaker that climbed to the top of the global car market through a reputation for reliability, may offer an opportunity for competitors to seize market share, at least in the near term. But Toyota’s troubles, which most recently have spread to the automaker’s 2010 Prius hybrid model, could also offer something more lasting to companies ranging from General Motors to startups Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors as they race to crank out plug-in vehicles: lessons in what works — and what doesn’t — when it comes to cultivation of rapid growth and a green halo.

In an automaker’s lineup, a “halo” car  is meant to cast a positive glow over a company or brand — showcasing technology, styling and smarts while also helping to define what the brand stands for and luring customers into showrooms to buy other models. The Prius did this to such remarkable effect for Toyota that the industry took notice. As GM-Volt tells it, the status Toyota acquired as “a media and environmental sweetheart” through the halo effect of the Prius helped inspire GM’s push for the plug-in Volt. But hanging so much of your reputation on one model also carries risk — and that can get lost in the green glow.

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The times they are a-changin’ for Fisker Automotive. The Irvine, Calif.-based startup working on a plug-in hybrid luxury sports car and mid-range plug-in sedan called Project Nina tells VentureWire it expects to close its $528.7 million loan with the Department of Energy by the middle of next month.

By the time that funding — awarded to help the company set up manufacturing in the U.S. and launch the luxury Fisker Karma model — comes through, Fisker expects to have its entire design, engineering, sales, marketing and administrative team located in its Irvine headquarters. According to a release from the company last week, Fisker plans to shutter a Pontiac, Mich., development facility opened in late 2008, bringing the 30 or so full-time Michigan positions out to California by March 1 as the startup gears up to “dramatically” expand hiring to accelerate development of the Nina model.

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If you can’t recall the collective anxiety that is attached to the emergence of digital and networked technologies just take a peek back at the news headlines of yesteryear. The fear over computerized voting systems started soon after the 2000 U.S. presidential election debacle, while worry about online banking began when the first bank put its customer accounts on the web. But as the latest systems, including vehicles and the power grid, crossover to the digital and computing world, and get connected to communication networks, expect the same, if not more, fear.

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Electric vehicle infrastructure company Better Place has a lot of work to do before it commercially launches its first networks of battery swap and charging stations in Israel and Denmark next year. But this weekend the company took a couple steps forward in Israel. First, Better Place announced the opening of a slick demonstration center in Israel built on top of a gasoline storage and distribution center, inside a refurbished oil tank (see photos). The company also announced partnerships with gas station operator Dor Alon and additional corporate customers that have pledged to swap portions of their fleets with Renault electric vehicles next year.

As you can see from the photos the demo center is pretty swanky. It’s meant to be used as outreach for both potential Israeli customers, as well as international visitors, and features a multi-media center, a driving track, and will eventually have demos of the Renault Fluence.

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Think of it as a friendly backseat driver with a remarkable mind for calculating risk and a keen ability to cut your fuel use and emissions. That’s kind of how 7-year-old startup GreenRoad Technologies’ tool works for improving driver behavior through real-time feedback.

GreenRoad’s system uses sensors, an accelerometor, GPS and customized algorithms to calculate the relative risk of different driving maneuvers, then communicates that to the driver by illuminating either a red, yellow or green light. Installed mainly on commercial fleet vehicles (80 fleets so far), the device can have its algorithm customized according to a customer’s priorities, and it communicates information via cellular networks to GreenRoad’s data center. “The brains are in the vehicle,” GreenRoad marketing chief Eric Weiss told me this week, so even in areas without cellular coverage, drivers “always get real-time feedback.”

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Israeli fuel-cell startup CellEra has kept its activities under wraps since it raised $2 million from Israel Cleantech Ventures last year. But a German press release from angel investor group BrainsToVentures has revealed the company has raised another $2 million, from BrainsToVentures and Israel Cleantech Ventures, and has developed its first prototype. CEO Ziv Gottesfeld confirmed the news, telling us the cash represents part of a larger round.

Gottesfeld also told us CellEra already is working with a major manufacturer and is integrating its fuel cells into backup power systems. CellEra plans to use its new cash to turn its working prototype into its first commercial product, he said, adding that the company aims to have products ready for the market in two years.

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South Carolina’s poised to get some skin in the game of the green bus rush, as Colorado startup Proterra, formerly called Mobile Energy solutions, has just announced plans to set up a new assembly plant in the state in 2011. Without specifying the expected capacity of the project, Jeff Granato, CEO of Proterra — which makes drive components and energy storage systems for electric and hybrid buses, delivery vans and other commercial models, as well as the vehicles themselves — said today at an announcement reported by local media that this will be the company’s first full-scale facility.

All well and good, but will this project sit in limbo, awaiting a green light on funds from the Department of Energy, like so many other green vehicle manufacturing plans? No, spokesperson Sarahjane Sacchetti told us today. She said a private equity investment is “being finalized,” and incentives have already been secured at the state and local level for the project.

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Just a few months have passed since three-wheeled vehicle developer Aptera Motors announced one of its co-founders, Chris Anthony, would be “stepping aside from day-to-day activities,” and the other co-founder, Steve Fambro, would be taking an extended vacation amid rumors the pair were ousted in a boardroom showdown. Now Aptera says Fambro won’t be returning to work, after all. According to a newsletter Aptera sent out this week, he “will leave the day to day operations as CTO and head of Advanced Concepts to rededicate his time and attention toward pushing new and breakthrough technology.”

It’s not uncommon for the reins to change hands at a startup — the idea-generating go-getters with the vision to create a company aren’t always those who want (or who investors want) to manage the business as it grows. And the individual or team that births an idea isn’t always the one that innovates and executes it . But as Tesla Motors has demonstrated, even conflict between a departing founder and the new executive team doesn’t necessarily spell doom for a young greentech company: In the years since Tesla’s founders left the company, it has gone to court and engaged in a public war of words with one of them, but nonetheless continued to grow, build and sell cars, win a coveted federal loan and, last week, file for an IPO.

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Word out of Japan this morning of a possible defect in Toyota’s 2010 Prius — the third generation model of the popular hybrid — adds another scuff to the reputation of an automaker already grappling with its largest ever vehicle recall. As the New York Times reports, the Japanese government on Wednesday said it has ordered the hybrid leader to investigate a potential problem with the 2010 Prius braking system after 14 complaints came in that brakes on the Prius “have momentarily stopped working when driving at low speeds, especially on slippery services.” Yikes.

This latest blow to Toyota’s reputation could also be a major pothole for the larger hybrid and green car market. The braking system on the Prius — a “regenerative” system that captures energy as the vehicle slows down and feeds it into the car’s batteries — is one of the key technologies for boosting fuel economy. Regardless of whether Toyota finds a true defect in the Prius, the shadow of doubt about safety could also make Toyota’s upcoming plug-in version of the popular model — and others like it — a tougher sell.

The shaky status of Saab — the loss-making auto brand that General Motors threatened to shut down late last year before finally reaching a deal with specialty car maker Spyker — cast uncertainty around the first publicly announced demonstration of battery maker Boston-Power’s devices in plug-in vehicles. The dust has now started to settle, and Boston-Power CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud tells us the project is going “full steam ahead.”

Spyker, which agreed to pay GM at least $74 million in cash for the brand, released plans today to operate Saab as,”an independent performance-oriented niche car company with an industry-leading environmental strategy,” and announced the goal of making it profitable by 2012. Lampe-Onnerud told us in an interview yesterday that the Massachusetts-based startup now has “people deployed on the ground” in Sweden (she declined to specify how many), and Saab is still engaged in the project. 

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