Toyota is planning to send into production a fully-electric version of its RAV4 cute-ute. And they’ll be doing so right across the border, in Woodstock, Ontario. The Canadian and Ontario governments both gave Toyota $140 million to jump-start its production capabilities, allowing the company to upgrade its factories in the province. Citizens of Ontario can...
Continue Reading...
Lotus has to clear out its hoary old inventory for the future of its “New Era,” and as such, it’s sending the Elise and Exige out of American production with some guaranteed-to-be-rare limited editions. Production for the Elise and Exige will end August 2011 for America—Lotus cites its difficulty in sourcing Toyota’s 1.8-liter 2ZZ engine...
Continue Reading...
Tesla teases us some more with the Model S electric sedan: this time, they show us three camouflaged examples running around a test track, as proof that yes, it is capable of moving under its own power. And pretty quickly, too—the Model S is expected to go from 0 to 60 in under 6 seconds,...
Continue Reading...
Tesla is currently negotiating a deal with Toyota that could be worth an easy one billion dollars, according to CEO Elon Musk himself. Fresh from a conference call (on his G6, presumably), Musk just signed a $100 million deal with the Japanese automaker, but has dropped the hint that they could be thinking larger. “We’re...
Continue Reading...
The mayor of Lithuania’s capital finally had enough with fat-cat capitalist plutocrats parking their luxury cars willy-nilly on the mean streets of Vilnius. So he did what any rational Eastern European politician would do in times of crisis—he crushed one with a tank. Mayor Arturas Zuokas drove an armored personnel carrier over a Mercedes-Benz W140 S-Class, a model known...
Continue Reading...
Carroll Shelby (or rather, his well-lubricated PR machine) has responded to the charges of rape and employment hostility raised by former secretary Angelica Smith, labeling the lawsuit “frivolous.” Shelby claims that Smith was fired not because she went to him with charges of rape (from another employee), but because The Shelbster simply didn’t need a...
Continue Reading...
Being the savvy multinational corporation Honda is, it has to take its knocks with some tact. And with its reputation marred by Consumer Reports’ dragging of the 2012 Honda Civic through the muck, it’s no surprise that Honda has issued a statement claiming that they “fundamentally disagree” with the magazine’s review. Both Honda and Consumer...
Continue Reading...
It’s been 40 long years, but like perestroika, the last remnant of Italian-derived Soviet majesty finally comes to an undignified end. In Soviet Russia, production ends you! The venerable Lada 2107, as it’s known, was already a 4-year old design (from Fiat) when it first entered production in 1970, gleaming and full of hope for...
Continue Reading...
The legendary Carroll Shelby is being sued by a receptionist, who claims that she was sexually assaulted by Shelby as well as raped by another employee, then fired. Angelica Smith was hired by Shelby as his secretary in 2005, but ended up becoming a personal servant—and claims that Shelby sent her out to buy liquor...
Continue Reading...
Teens are going to have to work harder to hide their whereabouts, once GM wraps up a pilot program that lets concerned parents track the location of their precious ones, in real time. The program is part of the OnStar system, and over 10,000 of its current subscribers have been chosen to take part. Parents...
Continue Reading...
Look for the little green car in this video. No, not that one. See it? It’s just another day in Bangladesh (according to the comments), one of the many South Asian countries with more notorious drivers than the last 6 Nicholas Cage movies. After the bus knocks over the other one, the little green car...
Continue Reading...
Good news for those optioning up a new Ford: its SYNC system is now $100 cheaper, from $395 to $295. Ford will also roll out SYNC to every one of their cars within the next three years. Currently, it’s only available on higher trim levels, but with the 2012 Explorer and Edge, base models can...
Continue Reading...
According to a woman in South Carolina, when truck nuts are outlawed, only outlaws will have truck nuts. The Man is holding 65-year old Virginia Tice down with a $445 fine after she put a pair of dangling truck nuts on the back of her Dodge. She was spotted at a convenience store by the chief...
Continue Reading...
Audi beat out BMW and Mercedes-Benz at the 24 Hours of Spa in Belgium, running the legendary Spa-Francorchamps course in an R8 LMS. The V10-engined R8 beat out 57 teams in the GT3 category, leading 22 out of the 24 hours. Audi Sport Team WRT took the lead as well as 4th place in cars...
Continue Reading...
GM’s CEO Dan Akerson believes that the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle won’t be feasible until at least 2020. Let’s hope GM calls the right prediction this time. “We’re looking at hydrogen fuel cells, which have no carbon emissions, zero,” said Akerson. “The car is still too expensive and probably won’t be practical until the 2020-plus...
Continue Reading...
Something to allow city-dwellers, sports car owners, or high-school principals to sleep easy at night: a new app for iPhones, Droids, and Blackberries will warn you when some @#%! is messing with your car, allowing you to dispense justice as you see fit. Budding Charles Bronsons can take comfort in knowing that this is the...
Continue Reading...
Toyota is eager to regain its “world’s largest automaker” title back. So by 2012, if things go according to plan, expect to see a lot more Toyota products on the roads: 8 million, to be specific. This target is 1 million more than what Toyota will build this year. The company is gunning for this lofty...
Continue Reading...
Depressed teenagers are more likely to cause accidents than those who aren’t, according to a study from the journal Injury Prevention. The aptly-named journal found that among already-risky teenage drivers, those who are depressed are more likely to speed and not wear seat belts, which journal authors believed was a translation of self-destructive behaviors (underage...
Continue Reading...
Most automakers have gotten in line with the White House and accepted (even welcomed) the new CAFE regulations. Not Volkswagen. In fact, they criticize the new CAFE standards as being biased towards trucks—which of course, they don’t build. The proposal “places an unfairly high burden on passenger cars, while allowing special compliance flexibility for heavier...
Continue Reading...
Love Chevrolet or hate them, you can’t deny that its cars have had a hold on the American consciousness. Corvette, Impala, Camaro, Chevelle, Bel Air—hell, even the Citation—have all come and gone, leaving behind indelible memories and legions of devoted fans. Well, now Chevy is trying to pick the best of the best, and they’ve...
Continue Reading...
From the “Too Brilliant To Be True” Files comes this idea: a traffic camera that monitors drivers who obey the speed limit, and rewards them by entering them into a lottery. For cash prizes. The speed camera lottery photographs the license plates of passing drivers, then either issues them a citation or enters them into...
Continue Reading...
Ford is opening the floor to 2011’s contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers—which always ends in suspense. Will the UAW walk away in anger? Will they threaten a strike? Will Ford shut down a couple more plants and idle production for months on end? Or will the ghost of Henry Ford send in the...
Continue Reading...
Travis Pastrana might not be high-tailing it to NASCAR according to plan: at the X Games, he landed hard on his right foot, shattering his ankle as well as any chances to start in the Nationwide NASCAR Series on Saturday. Pastrana was attempting to nail a 720-double-backflip-spin on a dirtbike, but with a late rotation...
Continue Reading...
The year’s only half-over, but Audi is already popping champagne: they’ve just set a company record of 2.5 billion Euros ($3.59 billion) in operating profits. That’s 652,970 cars moved since January 2011, or 100,000 more than the entire year of 2010. Audi has touted their impressive record-breaking sales figures before, but attaching the word “billion” to...
Continue Reading...
sidebar...
