It's been the official policy of the Chinese government-industrial complex for a while now that the country wants to dominate the electric-car business. While only a handful of highway-capable plug-in cars are sold today in China, the country's industrial overseers are nothing if not ambitious. Enter General Motors, which will put its Chevrolet...
We've got used to carmakers using the letter "i" to describe their products, but isn't that a little selfish? Volvo clearly thinks so which is why its latest design study, due at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show, is called the Concept You. The unusual name comes from the Swedish maker's new brand strategy, called "Designed Around You". The aim behind...
The Toyota Prius is not only the quintessential hybrid-electric vehicle, but the automaker's third best-selling car line in the United States. Last year, the redesigned 2010 Prius launched with the ad tagline, "Harmony between man, nature, and machine." Tell that to the McCarthy family of Homewood, California. About 3:30 am on August 7, they were...
With the Frankfurt Motor Show launching in less than a week, the concept cars are starting to come thick and fast. The latest is a small two-seat electric urban car from Opel, the premiere European brand operated by General Motors. It's one of several tiny urban electric concepts, joining the Audi Urban Concept (whose cover was broken by spy...
The new Evoque is the smallest car Range Rover has ever sold, and we use the word "car" deliberately. The 2012 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque skews far more toward what most people expect from a passenger car than it does the go-anywhere, climb-anything luxury sport utility vehicles that Range Rover has sold since 1970. It's the first four-cylinder...
As Audi continues its relentless march into the exalted German performance territory occupied by BMW and Mercedes-Benz, its A6 mid-size sedan faces off against the E-Class from Daimler and the BMW 5-Series--and acquits itself with credit. The 2012 Audi A6 is a plainly styled sedan that can deliver good gas mileage, if it's properly specced out...
We enjoy small cars and wouldn’t think twice about hopping into a Fiat 500, Mini Cooper or Mazda MX-5 for a road trip. We'd even consider a Smart ForTwo under the right circumstances, but we'd have to draw the line at the recreation of the Peel P50 microcar. Bamby Cars Limited, a small firm in Gainsborough, UK, is now building a modernized...
While dozens of supercars will be revving up their engines ready for the start of Ireland's upcoming Cannonball Run, the ESB ecars team will be off to a much quieter start. The ESB team's 2011 Nissan Leaf is the first electric car to participate in the Cannonball Run which starts this Friday, September 9, from Dublin. The 600-plus mile route is...
The 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid is a stealth green car; packing a version of Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive system, from the Prius, the Camry Hybrid looks much like a standard four-cylinder or V-6 Camry, yet its 43 mpg EPA city rating (LE) makes it one of the most fuel-efficient cars of any size. For 2012, the Camry Hybrid returns redesigned, along...
Very few people think of Porsches and trailer hitches in the same sentence. We didn't, until a recent weekend, but our Porsche had one. It also had all-wheel-drive and ground clearance of more than 10 inches, when the suspension was raised to its maximum height to clear our rock driveway, better known as "the streambed." We weren't testing a...
Bringing a new car to market costs a lot of money -- around $1-2 billion per platform on a new volume vehicle. As any auto industry insider will tell you, it isn’t just money either -- it’s about years of planning, development and testing before a car is ready to make the transition from computer renderings to the dealer’s lot...
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