To date, aside from some diesel and flex-fuel engines in Europe, Volvo hasn't done much in the way of alternative drive vehicles. The Ford owned Swedish brand showed an extended range electric concept called the Recharge last year based on the C30.…

The next stage of Daimler's efforts to electrify road vehicles will start moving ahead this fall when construction begins on a new battery plant. The plant will be part of the joint venture announced last fall between Daimler and Evonik to develop…

Kia Borrego FCEV – click above for high-res image gallery
Kia is getting ready to conduct its own smaller scale version of Project Driveway, the GM fuel cell vehicle field test. The South Korean automaker will be giving five drivers the opportunity…

We learned just a few months ago that BMW was preparing to build a fleet of 500 battery-powered MINIs that it would unleash for field testing in California. When we spoke to MINI USA VP Jim McDowell in July, the U.S. staff had been caught as…

A few years ago, before the current battle over CAFE standards, the National High Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA) implemented some incremental improvements for truck efficiency. The new rules for the first time set the standards based on…

Tesla Motors announced several months ago that they would eschew the traditional franchise dealer approach of most car companies in favor of company owned retail and service outlets. The plan was to launch with five stores located in New York,…

2010 Ford Taurus – Click above for high-res image gallery
The 2010 Ford Taurus is barely into its launch, but plans are already being laid for the next-gen model. In what should be a surprise to no one, the next Taurus is expected to be smaller than…

Late in 2008, Ford revealed that it would be re-tooling several North American plants to build smaller vehicles that will be brought over from Europe over the next several years. One of those is a Louisville, Kentucky truck plant that was expected to…

The Society of Automotive Engineers has been sponsoring design competitions for engineering students for several decades with one of the most popular being the Formual SAE. In that event, teams of college students design, build, develop and race a…

Click above to view more high-res shots of the R8 under construction
This week Audi invited a group of American journalists to Europe to sample the newest A4 Avant, and since we hate to miss an opportunity to drive new cars, we hopped on a plane.…