Obama's 'Beast' Creates Stir at NATO Green Summit

(Nov. 20) -- World leaders attending the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, zipped around in zero-emission electric vehicles. Journalists covering the event hopped aboard electric buses to get from venue to venue.

And President Barack Obama's eight-ton, diesel-fueled armored limousine dubbed "the Beast" drew even more attention than usual.

Lisbon newspapers dedicated pages of coverage to the vehicle, with charts featuring every detail that the Secret Service is willing to divulge -- like the special foam in the gas tank to extinguish any fire from a direct hit, and the supply of presidential blood.

Per usual White House security arrangements, the Beast was flown out to Lisbon before Obama's arrival. Escorted by Secret Service vehicles and 35 Portuguese police motorcycles, it then brought Obama from the airport tarmac to his first meetings of the weekend.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates and the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, meanwhile, had arrived earlier in quiet, zero-emission electric cars.

When amused Portuguese reporters asked about the mixed message, Socrates diplomatically told them: "I'd like to underline the priority both our countries assign to renewable energy and electric vehicles."

But the contrast was still striking. The Christian Science Monitor pointed out that a "note to the media" left at every journalist's work station in the press center said that the use of electric vehicles was meant to raise awareness of Portugal's "world pioneering leadership in electric mobility."

Portugal claims to derive 45 percent of its electricity consumption from "clean" energies and its "Mobi.E" electric mobility network is considered a world leader.

Perhaps all the attention to the Beast encouraged Obama to later sneak a peek at the plug-in hybrid car on display at the NATO convention center. He took a break from NATO sessions to praise a new hybrid electric car which General Motors plans to roll out in Europe next year.

"This is the future. Right here," he said, after inspecting the Opel Ampera at the convention center where he was wrapping up the two-day summit.

"This is a car made in America," he said. "We're going to start selling it in Europe."

The electric/gas vehicle is produced in Detroit where the GM Chevy Volt is made, with the same technology as the Volt. Both will be marketed in Europe starting in late 2011, according to Guillermo Sarmiento, managing director of GM Portugal, and Volker Hoff, vice president of Opel.

But the actual car that Obama inspected may become a collector's item. ABC News reported that the president signed the rear driver's side panel, and Hoff and Sarmiento said afterward that they wanted to get other world leaders to sign it as well, to put it in a museum.