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What, no love for the Big 3? Lemme see here. We've got the range-extended Town & Country EV from Chrysler that will do 40 miles on a single charge, plus another 360 miles using a mixed gasoline-electric propulsion. They're also working on Dodge and Jeep vehicles with similar designs.

Ford used to have the market in a bag with their Ford Ranger EV pickup. Of course, they discontinued it in 2002. Now they're playing catch-up with the rest of the market. They are promising an electric vehicle by 2011, so there should be plenty of competition in late 2010/early 2011.

Speaking of competition, what discussion is complete without mentioning the Chevy Volt? Still the gold standard for the emerging industry, it will be anyone's guess if it lives up to the hype.

Then there's the announcement by Aptera of the first pre-production model of the Aptera 2e

I rather like the look of this car, but I am concerned by a couple of issues. First up is the single back wheel. Won't that make the vehicle a rollover hazard? I presume the front wheels are extended to help mitigate this issue, but one good blowout looks like it could send that sucker fishtailing right into roll. (And for that matter, how servicable is that tire?)

My second issue is the power-train. Generally you want as much weight sprung as possible, and electric motors are heavy. Aptera seems to understand that as it appears there is an axel linkage on the front wheels. Presumably this is how power is transmitted. Is having that axel exposed going to cause any safety and reliability issues? I'm just imagining something flying off the road and getting wrapped around the the axel. Or in an accident, a pedestrian getting an appendage caught in there.

Or is this a rear-wheel drive vehicle? In which case, is that axel really necessary? Could'nt the steering be accomplished by swiveling independent pods rather than linking them?

Just my 0.005 cents worth after accounting for inflation. :-P

P.S. The Shelby looks pretty darn sweet! I'd never spend money to purchase a vehicle like that*, but I wouldn't mind taking her for a spin.

* Unless I had way too much!

What's wrong? Mostly that every week or so someone comes up with another article claiming cold fusion or gas made from dirty sweat socks or some such. The article seemed a bit thin to me so I did some googling and found an Edmunds article claiming the car would be out next year. But that article came out last year. See any cars around yet? Then I cam across this one that says the car won't be available around here until 2011. And then there's a Bloomberg article that claims that, "The government may subsidize hybrid cars to cut costs for consumers." So is the $22k price tag with or without the subsidy?

For comparison purposes, I've been following the saga of the Chevy Volt and I think the BYD offering falls into the too-good-to-be-true category. The best guess seems to be the Volt will cost around $35k to $40k, mostly because of the expensive lithium-ion batteries, and the all-electric range is about 40 miles. But the BYD says they're using the same batteries and selling around $22k with a 62 mile all-electric range. And while the Chinese model is allegedly "here" you and I won't get to see or touch one until at least 2011. Until I see better specs or more detailed plans I can't get excited about this.

Mind you, I think plug-in hybrids are the way to go, but cars like the Volt and Tesla never recover the extra cost of the vehicle in fuel savings. I suspect the answer is to ditch the fancy batteries and stick with cheap lead-acid packs and a limited all-electric range of about 20 miles for a basic two adult and two kid car. It still means that half the forty mile range will be all electric. The last piece of the puzzle will fall into place when parking spots (malls, office complexes, parking structures) offer recharging for a fee. How many people drive to work, then park for eight hours? Until then you're in a chicken-and-egg trade off. The rechargers won't be put in until people are buying plug-ins, but not many will buy plug-ins without the rechargers.

I love conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but there were some very good reasons to eliminate the EV1. Check out this link: http://blogs.edmunds.com/karl/239

I know that I'm probably going to be throwing gasoline into a potential flame war here, but your site is hardly authoritative. That article simply lines up a series of straw-man arguments and shoots them down. eg:

5. Rumor: The oil industry is evil because it's making a profit.

Fact: The American economy is based on capitalism. If you're doing business in America you're supposed to make a profit.

Whatever, though. It doesn't matter.

The exciting thing is that they are making a new electric car, so even if there were dubious circumstances around stopping the EV1 (I don't know the details well enough to comment), it is all moot.

In generic terms, a Flex-Fuel vehicle (a vehicle that accepts any mixture of gasoline and ethanol from 0% ethanol/100% gas, all the way up to 85% ethanol/15% gas) has a mileage depreciation that hovers right around 20-25% from standard gasoline.

So, given a car that gets 30MPG on gasoline with a 12 gallon tank, at today's average price of $2.99 / gallon (according to fuel gauge report), would cost you $35.88 for the tank, which yields a range of 360 miles at a final cost of 9.9 cents per mile. Given the hypothetical $1 per gallon ethanol, it would cost you $12 for the tank, and would yield 270-285 miles for the final cost of 4.1 - 4.5 cents per mile (well under half the cost of current gasoline).

In terms of effeciency, ethanol's biggest problem is that the range is significantly lower with today's ICE. If you take a look at projects like the Chevy Volt, and other GM projects, you'll see that they are trying to add a plug-in charging battery / hybrid system on top of their current FFV fleet, making the range that much better / supplemented by battery technologies. If the Chevy Volt lives up to the hype, it's going to have an approx 500 mile range using ethanol and battery.

I hope they survive and hope that things like the Volt concept actually make it to dealership

The Volt is a joke. The numbers look good, but if you look closer you will realize they are not planning to sell it.

From http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/?seo=goo_electric_car:

"It can be configured to run on electricity, gasoline, E85 or biodiesel"

Come on!

Why doesn't it suck dirt from the air and use it as fuel, then?

They are not planning to sell this stuff, they are just planning to waste our time.

Well, the Vette is still a quite nice car...good looks, good performance. I've never been interested in cars with more than 2 seats, so I'm not familiar really with normal 'sedan' cars....but, at least GM does have one good car.

WTF? A 2008 Mustang looks nothing like an 80's Trans Am!

A modern Corvette would make so much more sense. Of course there are cooler, more exotic choices, but I think to be most consistent with the original series, it should be a GM car that's relatively common. And the Corvette has a similar body style to the 80's Trans Am.

I just wanted to let people know about the Volt concept which is quickly coming to life (planned to be released in 2010 for the 2011 model year). GM calls it an "E-REV" for "extended-range electric vehicle". It's an electric vehicle with a 40 mile range on pure electric, but then has a high-efficiency (it always runs at its maximum-efficiency rotation rate) 1.0 L diesel engine which gives it 55 MPG. With a 12-gal. diesel fuel tank, that means that you can go 700 miles on one battery charge and 12 gal. of fuel!

This is the first time I've been excited about an American-made vehicle in my adult life, and I've been evangelizing it to everyone I know. I think it has a lot of promise.

There is a lot of good discussion at this guy's blog: GM-Volt and here is the Wikipedia article.

True, but you could get a $75,000-80,000 Corvette Z06. Extremely fast, EPA 15/24.

In my opinion, much better looking too: http://www.chevrolet.com/corvette/photogallery

The Tesla seems like a very fun car, but it is really boring looking. The photos look good, but in real-life it is rather dated looking -- like an old MR/2 or something. (Apologies to MR/2 fans, but you didn't pay 100K I hope.)

I am glad to see more competition in the space, though.

". the corvette costs far more than its worth, works well with good performance."

What? Are you high? the corvette is a DEAL at it's cost. It our performs cars that cost twice it's price.

I would put the Corvette against any other street legal custom car. It will smoke them.
505 hp off the floor and up to 700 hp with the 08/09 model. Good luck building a car with that HP with the same or less weight then the corvette for less then the corvette.

http://www.chevrolet.com/corvette/?seo=goo_corvette

The Chevy Volt is supposed to come out in two flavors. Gasoline/E85 and Diesel/BioDiesel. http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

Short commutes, use no or very little fuel. But if you want to go to grandmas house 500 miles away, you can still use the same car and not worry about finding a plug in 100 miles.

I still think the chevy volt seems like a better idea.

Miles per gallon becomes a bad metric for plug-ins because it changes between 40 and infinity depending on your driving habits. If you're like most city dwellers and almost all of your driving consists of short trips, a plug-in hybrid could drop your gasoline costs to virtually nothing. I take a car trip longer than 40 miles maybe a couple times per month.

If GM will promise me a Chevy Volt by the Fall of 2009, for under $40k, I'll be the first to sign up. I hated it at first, but it has grown on me. Try to ignore the awful wheels.

Chevy Volt Concept

It's too bad the US isn't building a National Ignition Facility to produce fusion in the laboratory using the largest lasers on the planet.

If only there were physicists scrutinizing the data produced by something like Gravity Probe B here in the US.

Something like a Z Machine would be really useful for high energy physics, but the fundies in the US won't allow it.

Then there is NASA, sitting its laurels of times long past, not making any effort to replace [1] the ill-conceived shuttle.

The US isn't attempting to measure the rate of polar ice cap melting using precise measurements of the exact center of mass of the entire planet. No, because physics in the US sucks and that sort of work is best left to others.

If the NSF wasn't completely dominated by neo-cons it might have funded Kip Thorne and let him build the most sensitive laser interferometer on Earth.

There aren't a dozen people orbiting the planet attempting to assemble the largest space based solar collector in history; the physics involved are far beyond anything practiced in the US. I can just imagine Americans in space, risking life and limb. They'd probably find themselves using staple guns to keep from getting killed on live TV. The US is too cowardly for any of that.

If Europe had only had the wisdom to exclude the US from LHC, Fermilab's mistakes wouldn't have led to their current magnet problems. There's the US again, setting back physics by another decade.

Then there are the beef-eaters in Detroit, oblivious to any concept that doesn't involve guzzling gas.

Those damn Christens did manage to stifle US fusion research; the next big Tokamak is being built in France for crying-out-loud. There's hardly even any US funding involved.

That article is right. The US is nothing but a swill of gun-toting suburbanite consumers, polluting and terrorizing the world.

[1] Watch the quarterly report video on the right panel; bunch of silly US bubba cowboys trying to engineer a rocket. What a laugh.

Either useless ones that don't really save anyone any gas, or ones with technology licensed from Toyota.

Executives of American car companies live in Detroit suburbs where it's perfectly normal to drive a 17-foot 10-MPG vehicle. Thus American car companies won't adapt until they are forced to by legislation. The market has been trying to tell them to downsize for about three years and their only response is 4000-pound 260-hp "crossovers" like the Edge and Acadia.

Hey now, don't give him crap. He just doesn't know how to use google to actually look up the thing he is ranting about. Heck, the very first search page turns up Tesla Motors, the REVA, and freakin' Global Electric Motorcars, which is a Chrysler company, or even the upcoming Chevy Volt.

Maybe he thinks those electric cars suck (it's ok, a lot of other people think that too - but the Roadster and the Volt look pretty cool to me), he'd rather have a electric Civic or something like that. It's too bad there is a conspiracy to keep people from converting their existing cars to electricity. Oh, wait, no there isn't.

Google is the friend of the ranter... it keeps you from looking retarded.

While I'm thinking about it, why aren't the car engines run like the train engines, with the diesel motor running at a more or less constant rate refueling the batteries that run the electric motors that actually turn the wheels

Because batteries are expensive and heavy. But, don't worry, GM is working on it. (And with a $100,000 electric car on the market, it's unlikely they'll pull it due to a feasibility study.)

Oh, and many states (NY included) ban residential diesel. I couldn't get a diesel if I wanted to.

It's the first plug-in hybrid car that I actually went "wow, that's exactly how it should be done". The basic idea is that for most commutes (60-80 miles), it simply runs off battery power. But it also has a backup generator (either a small, high-efficiency IC motor fueled with gas/ethanol/methanol/biobutanol or a small diesel motor) that kicks in when the battery runs low. The generator can be geared to run only at peak efficiency, as it is not directly driving the wheels and does need to trade torque for horsepower.

According to GM, even though this is a "concept" car, it is slated for production. The big issue right now is the batteries - they need batteries that can cycle 2000-3000 times without blowing up, losing capacity, or have poor low-temperature performance. "About three to five years" is the estimate - which sounds suspiciously weaselly to be sure, but, OTOH, that's about how far in advance the big car companies plan their new models out, and GM keeps talking the car up - their head of product development, Bob Lutz, said just a few weeks back that the plan is for production to start in 2010.

why aren't the car engines run like the train engines

Trains run at more or less constant speed. Cars stop and go a lot. Batteries have a hard time handling that. They overheat and operate inefficiently.

That said, it's still a good idea. Chevy thinks so too: check out the Volt. What the world needs is an efficient long lasting battery/fuel-cell that can cope with lots of rapid charge/discharge cycles.

Chevy is also in the midst of putting together a normal sedan car. It's called the volt and is a serial hybrid, meaning that the drive system is all-electric with a gasoline generator supplementing the battery pack when it's drained. The thing gets 50 mpg off gasoline and much much more off electricity (I remember hearing 600 mpg equivelent for the electric component). You can read more about it at chevy's website at http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/ . The batteries discussed in the article are going into it and are basically the only bottleneck at the moment.

What's the point of linking to an ugly fuzzy pixelated scanned newspaper photo when the Chevy site has a beautiful photo and lots of information about the car?

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/index.jsp

Hold on a sec cowboy, that's a bit optimistic for a vette at freeway speed. The more efficient 6.0 liter LS2 is rated at 18 city and 28 highway.

http://www.chevrolet.com/pop/corvette/2007/ls2_eng ine_en.jsp
http://www.chevrolet.com/corvette/

Hold on a sec cowboy, that's a bit optimistic for a vette at freeway speed. The more efficient 6.0 liter LS2 is rated at 18 city and 28 highway.

http://www.chevrolet.com/pop/corvette/2007/ls2_eng ine_en.jsp
http://www.chevrolet.com/corvette/

Perhaps you should have chosen a US-built economy car instead.

The amazing part is the way microprocessors and related technologies have been rocketing forward, while other technologies have been advancing at a much more sedate pace. Consider the automobile: modern cars are more efficient and somewhat safer than cars from 30 years ago, but they are virtually identical in form and function and they operate on the same basic principles. In fact, most of the advances in automotive technology have come from replacing various mechanical and electrical systems with microprocessors.

Nobody would build a hybrid with a 120V socket capable to drive power tools and a microwave.

Actually, no:
http://www.chevrolet.com/silverado/#silverado-hybr id
IIRC, Dodge is selling something similar to fleet customers, too.

Granted, they're not a very good hybrids since the batteries don't help to move the vehicle, but it has all of the other features of the hybrid design: the engine stops at stoplights and some other hard-to-build features are in there. Chevy wants to get rich off of people who will pay a premium to have a generator and save a little gasoline.

I'd certainly trade in my Ranger on hybrid pickup truck (with generator) if it came in a Toyota Tacoma or Ford Ranger, size and was a complete hybrid. Extra points if the hybrid engine runs off of Diesel fuel and has something better than RWD for everyday driving. Being able to be my own power plant just seems to be useful. They seem to be moving slowly toward what guys-like-me would want, so they might actually be able to convince me to buy something other than an old used vehicle in, a decade or so.

P.S. I ride a 45+mpg motorcycle to work most of the time -- it's better for the environment, better for my wallet, and better for my survival skills. I use the truck to haul stuff and on days when the roads are slippery.

spoken like someone who has never tried to load a Suburban. SUVs are not for carrying cargo, the S stands for 'Sport'.

hell even most pick-ups today can't haul worth a damn, you just try to get a 4'x8' sheet of ply into anything. there was a day when you could get a small, reasonably efficient pick-up truck that could actually carry a full sheet of ply with the gate closed. these days the 'small' trucks are twice the size, and need a special attachment to act like a gate so you can leave the real gate open and you still can't get very much into them.

sorry, off topic I know, but I had to suffer owning a suburban for 6 months, and I'm still recovering...

And the worse is that they don't make station-wagons anymore

Well, there's the Malibu Maxx, but they call that a "5-Door Extended Sedan", and I don't know whether it'd qualify as a station wagon or not.

There's also the Dodge Magnum, but if by "they" you're referring to US companies, that doesn't really count. (If you're not referring to US companies, the same corporation that makes the Dodge Magnum also makes other wagons. Here's another wagon from a non-US company, but those aren't sold in North America, except perhaps through the gray market.)

I think the idea of buying a device as a "cultural signifier" is not exactly the best way to spend your dollars.

Well... unless it's on a really cool car. :-)

But seriously... diluting your statment down, it sounds like the people you're talking to (assuming they exist) are buying Macs and iPods to make a statement and not because the products "just work"?

Little Johnny woke up early to get ready for school. Johnny was a nice boy, loved by his parents, respected by his friends, and likened by his teachers. Like all other good boys, he hated Microsoft(R) and all it's products including Microsoft Windows (TM) and Microsoft Office (TM). He ran Gentoo on his home computer, and used StarOffice for all his homework.

Johnny walked off to the bus stop after kissing his mom goodbye, whistling a little tune to himself. His bus was late again, the third time this month. Johnny didn't like being late for school. It made him feel guilty. So he decided to walk to school, as it was no more than a 15 minute walk away. The bus would take longer anyway, after picking up all the other stupid little kids. Annoying little twitches...they wouldn't know the difference between Gentoo and Knoppix if it stared them in their pimply little faces.

Little Johnny made good time. Before long, he reached the Wal-mart across which his elementary school was. It was just 8:36. It was still 24 minutes before school, and it would take just 45 more seconds to cross the road and enter the school grounds. He liked being early. It gave him time to catch up on the latest geeky news on Slashdot and get a First Post or two before classes began.

Johnny was halfway across the street when a Chevy Avalanche zoomed up and squashed him on the pavement. Little Johnny was no more.

What is the moral, that we, as self respecting geeks, can learn from Little Johnny's short but noble life?

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Always look right and left before crossing the road.

Little Johnny woke up early to get ready for school. Johnny was a nice boy, loved by his parents, respected by his friends, and likened by his teachers. Like all other good boys, he hated Microsoft(R) and all it's products including Microsoft Windows (TM) and Microsoft Office (TM). He ran Gentoo on his home computer, and used StarOffice for all his homework.

Johnny walked off to the bus stop after kissing his mom goodbye, whistling a little tune to himself. His bus was late again, the third time this month. Johnny didn't like being late for school. It made him feel guilty. So he decided to walk to school, as it was no more than a 15 minute walk away. The bus would take longer anyway, after picking up all the other stupid little kids. Annoying little twitches...they wouldn't know the difference between Gentoo and Knoppix if it stared them in their pimply little faces.

Little Johnny made good time. Before long, he reached the Wal-mart across which his elementary school was. It was just 8:36. It was still 24 minutes before school, and it would take just 45 more seconds to cross the road and enter the school grounds. He liked being early. It gave him time to catch up on the latest geeky news on Slashdot and get a First Post or two before classes began.

Johnny was halfway across the street when a Chevy Avalanche zoomed up and squashed him on the pavement. Little Johnny was no more.

What is the moral, that we, as self respecting geeks, can learn from Little Johnny's short but noble life?

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Always look right and left before crossing the road.

Little Johnny woke up early to get ready for school. Johnny was a nice boy, loved by his parents, respected by his friends, and likened by his teachers. Like all other good boys, he hated Microsoft(R) and all it's products including Microsoft Windows (TM) and Microsoft Office (TM). He ran Gentoo on his home computer, and used StarOffice for all his homework.

Johnny walked off to the bus stop after kissing his mom goodbye, whistling a little tune to himself. His bus was late again, the third time this month. Johnny didn't like being late for school. It made him feel guilty. So he decided to walk to school, as it was no more than a 15 minute walk away. The bus would take longer anyway, after picking up all the other stupid little kids. Annoying little twitches...they wouldn't know the difference between Gentoo and Knoppix if it stared them in their pimply little faces.

Little Johnny made good time. Before long, he reached the Wal-mart across which his elementary school was. It was just 8:36. It was still 24 minutes before school, and it would take just 45 more seconds to cross the road and enter the school grounds. He liked being early. It gave him time to catch up on the latest geeky news on Slashdot and get a First Post or two before classes began.

Johnny was halfway across the street when a Chevy Avalanche zoomed up and squashed him on the pavement. Little Johnny was no more.

What is the moral, that we, as self respecting geeks, can learn from Little Johnny's short but noble life?

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Always look right and left before crossing the road.

Car manufacturers do it all the time. Classic nameplates on new vehicles that have nothing in common with the originals.

Chevrolet Impala
Dodge Charger
Hummer H2
Hummer H3

Yeah, like Metros looked that much safer. Guess you missed that link on the front page to video of a Zap Smart Car hitting a Mercedes head on.

That thing has a TURBO! The performance crowd will be all over it!

"Pricing should run between $12,000 for the cheapest model, and just over $20,000 for a convertible with all the available extras, Heidemann says. That's a markup of a few thousand dollars over the price in Europe, where Heidemann has been buying them from dealers."

Think that's a bit steep for what you're getting, considering you can get Chevy Aveo with nearly double the horsepower (100 vs 60) for 9, a Focus for 13 or a new Chevy Cobalt (cavalier replacement) for 14. Don't forget things like A/C and Power Steering are options on the ZAP Smart Car, things that most Americans have long considered standard: even the 9 grand Chevy Aveo has standard A/C.

Put any of those cars next to a Smart Car and I don't think it looks so Smart anymore, I was thinking closer to 6 or 7 grand, half what they plan on selling it for, considering the prices of the competition.

I just want the damned navigation system for my car. Then go buy one with it in it. I see commercials for it every day I watch much TV, which isn't much.

You can go down and buy DVD-NAV systems aftermarket. And despite your claims, GM does
actually offer it. So get a clue. or at least get updated.

And to top it off, it's available on systems that have OnStar available too.

And finally, OnStar and Nav are not comparable. Nav won't unlock your doors, notify the cops and ambulance where you are if your airbag goes off and you can't respond, read your email to you, and so on.

Indeed, I'll relay a story about OnStar and Nav from my wife. The place she wanted to go was a park. It wasn't on any maps. So what did OnStar do? They got on the phone and called the local parks department to find out how to get there from where my wife was at the time. One-time Nav purchases will not do that.

So take your apples and horshoes comparison and use your choice words about sticking things somehwere. ;)

I just want the damned navigation system for my car. Then go buy one with it in it. I see commercials for it every day I watch much TV, which isn't much.

You can go down and buy DVD-NAV systems aftermarket. And despite your claims, GM does
actually offer it. So get a clue. or at least get updated.

And to top it off, it's available on systems that have OnStar available too.

And finally, OnStar and Nav are not comparable. Nav won't unlock your doors, notify the cops and ambulance where you are if your airbag goes off and you can't respond, read your email to you, and so on.

Indeed, I'll relay a story about OnStar and Nav from my wife. The place she wanted to go was a park. It wasn't on any maps. So what did OnStar do? They got on the phone and called the local parks department to find out how to get there from where my wife was at the time. One-time Nav purchases will not do that.

So take your apples and horshoes comparison and use your choice words about sticking things somehwere. ;)

I just want the damned navigation system for my car. Then go buy one with it in it. I see commercials for it every day I watch much TV, which isn't much.

You can go down and buy DVD-NAV systems aftermarket. And despite your claims, GM does
actually offer it. So get a clue. or at least get updated.

And to top it off, it's available on systems that have OnStar available too.

And finally, OnStar and Nav are not comparable. Nav won't unlock your doors, notify the cops and ambulance where you are if your airbag goes off and you can't respond, read your email to you, and so on.

Indeed, I'll relay a story about OnStar and Nav from my wife. The place she wanted to go was a park. It wasn't on any maps. So what did OnStar do? They got on the phone and called the local parks department to find out how to get there from where my wife was at the time. One-time Nav purchases will not do that.

So take your apples and horshoes comparison and use your choice words about sticking things somehwere. ;)

Exactly. As an analogy, a low-end Mac vs. a low-end PC is like a Mercedes hatchback vs. a Chevrolet* hatchback. At first glance it looks like the Chevrolet is a MUCH better deal, until you realize how much more quality and polish (not to mention reliability!) the Mercedes has compared to the Chevy.

*The expected comparison here would be a Hyundai, not a Chevy, but Hyundais are actually better cars than Chevys (I know from personal experience!). Plus the Aveo is actually a rebranded Daewoo anyway.

How did this get modded informative? An infinitely variable damper is not a gimmick. It would be infinitely useful. The demonstration where the car jumps is just showing how much force this suspension system can generate. The real innovation here is that everything is done electronically, whereas older systems used hydraulics. Check out this article for the basics of why this is a good thing: Active Suspension Also, GM's new Cadillac XLR uses an electromagnetic suspension, as well as the forthcoming 6th generation Corvette.

Rather than having to go get a tune up every time there is a performance decrease, one may simply turn the engine off and turn it back on. Just beware! It is possible that the engine may not crank after you shut it down.

Fiat should also look into incorporating a heads-up display similar to the Chevy Corvette, so that system messages may be displayed. Picture driving down the road and seeing this on your heads-up:

TRANSMISSIONDLL32.EXE has called has caused an error in TIRES.DLL

The TIRES.DLL file cannot continue to function.

Just then, your wheels lock up, your windshield wipers start working at high speed while intermittently squirting cleaning fluid, your power mirrors point straight down, the lights come on, the horn starts to beep, the power seats go into a constant state of motion, and the hubcaps shoot off. Then everything goes quiet and a big blue screen comes up on your windshield that says:

Windows has encountered an error. Please press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart your Fiat.

...I guess they'd have to put those magical 3 keys on the steering wheel by the cruise control buttons, eh?

Just remember to carry your tools with you at all times incase you have to rebuild the system. :)

consider the cost of ownership of a ten passenger van versus the cost of ten segways. The segways win compared to the cost of a new van.
What?

Segway Human Transporter (HT) I Series
Price: $4,495.00
X 10: $44,950.00

2004 Chevrolet Express 2500 15 Passenger Van
MSRP: $26,175.00

According to This site, an estimated cost per mile for the segway is 18 cents per mile, with battery purchases included. Multiply that by 10 people, and you have a cost of $1.80 per mile.

According to Edmunds.com, the cost per mile on the Chevrolet van is $0.66 per mile.

I wont argue with the fact that segways have better access, but it's just not true that they are cheaper in any way, whatsoever.

You mean a Subaru WRX STI SEDAN, built up from an additional 150 horsepower?

Yes, that's not something to sneeze at. It's a car designed to be sporty by the professionals.

However, I wouldn't put it against a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 with a similar ammount of adjustments. Well, maybe for the quarter mile--but not much after that.

Really? I thought it was a mid-life crisis thing.

Bzzt, wrong jackass 18/25 or 19/28 depending on what engine/trans combo you are running, and a fully optioned vette comes in at under $60K. Why people wanna playa hate on the 'vette, lets see the Eurotrash crank out that sort of performance at that price-point.

This is mp3.com like this is an Impala SS. Dual chrome exhaust tips and a supercharger doesn't make a front wheel drive V6 into an Impala SS.

http://www.chevrolet.com/corvette/C6_preview/

Actually, most rear wheel drive cars sold in the US are no longer available because manufacturers want to make more huge rediculous gas guzzeling SUVs. Also Mustangs outsold BOTH GM F-bodies combined, despite Camaros and Firebirds being a few thousand $ cheaper didn't help them much either. I'd be very happy if the insurance companies could kill SUVs, but they simply don't have enough influence.

What you europeans need are full-size American pickup trucks, like the Chevrolet 1 ton dually 4x4. With the Duramax diesel engine, you'll get 20mpg (8.5 km/litre).

A number of General Motors products have had head-up displays for a couple of years. Most notably the Chevrolet Corvette, but the technology has now trickled down into several lower-end models like the Pontiac Grand Prix (which they're positioning as a BMW 3-series fighter - but in typical GM fashion they then neuter the GP by not offering a manual transmission).

I've not actually seen one running, but I gather the killer feature that makes it work well is the ability to unclutter the display (leaving only one or two features like speed and RPM) - and turn off the interior instrument panel lights when driving at night so your eyes can adjust 100% to looking outside and at the HUD.