When I was a kid growing up in Canada, I first got into Formula One racing when Gilles Villeneuve took the Grand Prix world by storm. After dominating Formula Atlantic for a couple of years, he ran a couple of races with McLaren at the end of the…
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Volkswagen and Stanford to expand technology collaboration at “CARS”
Volkswagen is no stranger to working with Stanford University, having collaborated with the Palo Alto school on the DARPA Grand Challenge competitions for autonomous vehicles. Volkswagen also already has a technology research facility in Palo Alto.…
Editorial: A simple way to reduce SoCal pollution and fuel consumption
As I spent several days in Los Angeles, CA last week I came to several realizations. First I never want to live there. While air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, the geography of the region means that it will never be as good as…
Toyota expected to lose less money this year thanks to strong hybrid sales
2010 Toyota Prius – Click above for high-res image gallery
Toyota shocked the auto industry last spring when it announced a nearly $8 billion loss for its most recent fiscal year. All of a sudden, Toyota proved to be just as vulnerable as every other…
First Drive: 2009 Ford F-150, “capability matters”
It's been said far too often that timing is everything. Sometimes a product comes to market before the market is ready, such as when the Diamond Rio MP3 player debuted a decade ago. Other times, the market moves on before a product arrives. For Ford…
Detroit Preview: 2010 Chevrolet Equinox debuts with direct injection
Click above for high-res image gallery of the 2010 Chevy Equinox
Now that General Motors will be getting a cash infusion to stay in business at least through January, the automaker plans to unveil some new products at next month's Detroit Auto Show.…
New lithium ion process could lead to fast charging, still needs BIG pipe!
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been looking at where the bottlenecks are inside lithium ion batteries that limit charging and discharging rates learned some interesting things. Lithium iron phosphate chemistry is…
Chief engineer talks aboout Corvette Racing's greatest victory
In the latest post on the GM Fastlane blog, Corvette chief engineer Tom Wallace describes what he calls the greatest victory yet for the Corvette Racing team. Just over a week ago at the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, the Corvette C6R of Johnny…
PC Magazine names their top 100 blogs, guess who's on the list?
This story has little to do with green cars, or alternative transportation, but what good is a platform if you can't toot your own horn once in a while. That venerable institution of old fashioned print media, PC Magazine has just published their…
Reducing GHG emissions by producing bioplastics alongside ethanol
Aside from metals such as iron, steel and aluminum, perhaps the most common material in cars is plastic. Most of the plastic made today is derived from petroleum. Besides the raw materials used, a lot pf greenhouse gases are produced in the…