Category: Autoblog

We reported last week on a presentation given by Toyota Executive Vice President Kazuo Okamoto in Japan. One of the slides in that presentation compared series and parallel hybrids and talked about the superiority of parallel as manifested in…

2011 Chevrolet Volt – Click above for high-res image gallery
Three years ago this December we first walked into a Manhattan conference room for a background briefing on a new concept being developed by General Motors for the upcoming Detroit Auto…

Starting this October Smart is making its micro-hybrid-drive system standard equipment on the ForTwo in Europe with the 61hp and 71hp gas engines. The micro-hybrid system is just an automated start-stop system and doesn't include and regenerative…

2011 Hyundai Sonata – Click above for high-res image gallery
The 2011 Hyundai Sonata is already one of the most fuel efficient mid-sized sedans on the market even before the hybrid version arrives this fall. With an EPA highway mileage rating of 35…

UPDATE: Professional spy photographer Brenda Priddy let us know this car is actually the 2009 Hyundai Genesis. That's why they pay her the big bucks, ladies and gentlemen. A supplier for Hyundai was likely renting time at the Chrysler tech center, or…

2011 Opel Meriva – Click above for high-res image gallery
When Opel showed off a concept version of the next-generation Meriva at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, everyone expected the production version to look much the same. After all, the concept…

2011 Volkswagen Touareg Hybrid – Click above for high-res image gallery
It's not at all unusual for automakers to pay lip service to cutting weight of their vehicles, but it is pretty rare for a new model to come out weighing nearly 10 percent less…

Tesla has announced that it's moving from its current digs in San Carlos, CA a few miles down the road to Palo Alto. The EV start-up will take over a three-building complex in the Stanford Research Park formerly occupied by Silicon Valley pioneers…

Ford is using the 2008 Detroit Auto Show to kick off the transition of a significant portion of their engine lineup to what they are calling EcoBoost technology. EcoBoost consists of smaller displacement engines with direct fuel injection and…

For the past eleven years, Riverside Park in Ypsilanti, Michigan has played host to the Orphan Car Show, an event devoted to autos that were either built by companies that are no longer in business or just interesting models that are no longer in…