MAUI, HAWAII — Hawaii is green, really it is. There are bumper stickers telling you all about it on all the roads. Of course, you have to ignore the thick smoke from the sugarcane-field-burning operations and the runoff chemicals used to control roadside plants, mountains of tourism-generated waste, plus a huge complement of invasive plants.

An encouraging sign is the 30-megawatt wind farm visible from most parts of Maui, providing 10 percent of the island’s electricity. Unfortunately, most of the rest is from diesel oil. But during a recent stay on the island, I saw some evidence that the islands are starting to really go green, especially when it comes to transportation.

Fisker isn’t saying much about its high-tech Karma

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General Motors recently launched a $100 million fund named GM Ventures to get the once-staid company into some innovative technologies, and its president, Jon Lauckner, had been in office barely a month when the first $5 million was handed out — to Bright Automotive.

The most common reaction was probably “Bright what?” Despite a somewhat glamorous launch as a spinoff of Amory Lovins’ fast-paced Rocky Mountain Institute (with investment from Google, Alcoa, Johnson Controls and the Turner Foundation), the company with plans to build a very green plug-in hybrid commercial languished for want of further investment. Like many other startups, it was left hoping for the Department of Energy funding that was going mainly to established players.

GM’s investment “validates” Bright, said Chairman and CEO Reuben Munger. “We’re delighted to be in a partnership with Reuben and the Bright team,” said Lauckner. It was a mutual admiration society.

Does voice-recognition help or hurt?

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The reinvented company is supplying niche markets with CNG vans

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Adrienne Billiau tests batteries for the Volt.

There’s a great 1970 song by Peggy Seeger called “I’m Gonna Be an Engineer,” about the operator of a turret lathe whose husband calls her in from her Rose the Riveter stint on the factory floor to take care of the kids.

Well, maybe times have changed. Many of the people who run the Ford electric car program are women, including Nancy Gioia, its head of global electrification. And did you notice that the Chevrolet Volt is being designed and built by women? Yes, in a business as traditionally sexist as automobile manufacturing, females are calling the shots for this much-anticipated “range extender” car that in some ways is carrying the future of General Motors along with it.

Let’s see now, Britta Gross, who directs “infrastructure commercialization” for GM, is in charge of making sure there will be home and work charging for the Volt (which uses its gas engine as a generator to produce electricity). Pamela Fletcher, just as female as can be, is the chief engineer for the Volt and the company’s separate plug-in hybrid (more on that one anon). Cristi Landi is the marketing manager for the Volt, and Teri Quigley — manages the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant where the Volt (estimated at $40,000) will be built. Adrienne Billiau tests batteries.

For the new Fiesta, Ford tweets and Facebooks

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Minivans are back, and they’re hip again

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The Tennessee factory will be “nil to landfill”

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Wheels: Federal grants are subsidizing electric car-buyers to plug in at home

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