A lot of Olympic athletes are dreading the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing because of the awful air quality in the host city. The rapid growth of the car population in China combined with all the construction going on in China's largest cities is…
Latest Blogs
133 Smarts pack San Francisco's Lombard Street!
It appears that early American buyers of the Smart ForTwo are trying to make the diminutive Two-Seater into a true cult car and today's event in San Francisco is the latest example of that. Anyone who has ever scene a movie or TV show set in San…
Austrian government launches 100 unit EV test program with Th!nk
The Austrian government is the latest to jump into the electric vehicle testing field with a program called the Vlotte EV project. 100 electric vehicles will be operated in the first of several such programs around the country this year. This first…
Bob Lutz says Wait, Wait! The Volt is more exciting than the Viper
The National Public Radio comedy news quiz show Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me! periodically takes there show on the road and this past weekend they turned up at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. They have a segment called “Not My Job” where they ask a…
Who says the Japanese don't have a jobs bank?
Toyota's San Antonio truck plant
In recent weeks, as the CEOs of the Detroit automakers lobbied for a federal bailout to get then through the current financial crisis, one of the many criticisms that came up was the UAW “jobs bank.” The jobs bank was…
New York '08 Preview: 2009 Acura TSX to debut
Acura's entry-level TSX sedan is is a re-badged version of the European-market Honda Accord, a car that will debut on March 5 at the Geneva Motor Show. Acura has now let us know that the U.S.-market TSX will be dropping just two weeks later at the…
EPA still not settled on MPG labels for plug-ins, Volt unlikely to get 230 mpg
Last week at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit, we spoke with Dr. Pete Savagian of General Motors about what the Chevrolet Volt's fuel economy sticker would look like. Last summer former GM CEO Fritz Henderson made a big…
What cars can we get today with 35 mpg?
With a new energy bill on the verge of becoming law, our friends over at Winding Road got to thinking. With the law soon to require an average of 35 mpg from the new vehicle fleet, what vehicles can we buy today that actually meet that requirement?…
Detroit 2008: ALMS announces Green Challenge, Corvette goes cellulosic E85
American Le Mans Series CEO Scott Atherton announced a partnership this morning with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation and the Society of Automotive Engineers to make ALMS the global leader in green racing. Working…
BMW opens emissions-free alloy foundry in Germany
When you look at the total life-cycle of “zero-emissions” vehicles like battery or fuel cell vehicles, the environment is not left untouched. The process of making all the parts of a car requires energy and chemicals are released into the atmosphere.…