This year’s North American International Auto Show has already proven itself to be a candyland of green racers. Carmakers from Ford to BMW are displaying their latest fuel saving or skipping hardware, and most of them look like they would be more than capable on our favorite track. The star of the show has to be Audi’s latest take on its E-Tron EV. The company unveiled...

New Focus Revealed Today Ford revealed the new 2011 Ford Focus today in Detroit. The next-generation Ford Focus compact is finally going to be released around the world as roughly the same car. Until 3 years ago, we were still driving the MK1 Focus here in the states while Europe got a new design. The Focus has been one of the best handling cars in its class for a while,...

Last week, BMW’s EV work hit a stumbling block when MINI E testers started noting a drastic loss of range. With winter temperatures setting in all across the country, some drivers saw range drop by as much as 50 percent. Ouch. That’s bad news for BMW and EV hopefuls everywhere, but the German carmaker says its learning volumes from the MINI E program in general, and...

When it comes to building a proper race car, few platforms offer a better starting point than a Lotus Seven replica. Evidently, that immutable law of motorsports translates to EV racing, as a group of guys under the Westfield Sportscars banner has created a new EV designed to go head to head with other electron-swilling racers in the EV Cup. Powered by two electric motors...

Tommy Kaira 2010 Insight Aftermarket car tuning is roughly a $250 million industry. After all, who wants to drive around in a stock silver prius when you can have one with carbon fiber bits and 18″ rims? Toyota and Honda have amazing engineers working for them, but their hands are still tied somewhat by the corporate bureaucracy. The result for economy cars is usually...

There’s a new phenomenon making its way around the auto enthusiasts of the world — at least the ones fortunate enough to have access to decent public transportation. Monday through Friday, these drivers shuffle to the bus top, squeeze into metro cars and generally suffer the indignity of being without personal transportation in a society that seems to think sidewalks...

In racing, how fast you want to go is directly proportional to how much money you have to spend. Sure talent and luck both factor in there somewhere, but by and large, speed is a direct byproduct of currency. So it’s no surprise that F1, the pinnacle of motorsport engineering and competition, spends more money than the GDP of most small countries every season. Former...

Making your car shaped like a sperm will decrease its drag coefficient. I know what you’re thinking—this whole green movement from the past few years is reminiscent of past fuel crises when you went out and bought yourself a little Honda Civic or Geo Metro to do your part for the environment. Now politicians and the media are telling you to trade in that heap of...

Good news for our cousins across the pond. Audi has just announced the release of a new version of its excellent A3 compact hatch. The company says the car is the cleanest, most economical premium compact on the market right now. Just how thrifty is it? The new A3 can manage a staggering 74.3 mpg. That’s an impressive figure by anyone’s standards, but even more interesting...

Reports were all over the internet last week of a potential debut for a hybrid power train from Ferrari. The rumors indicate that the system will debut at the Geneva auto show in the early part of next year and will mimic the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) that was so disruptive in the world of Formula 1 this year. For those unfamiliar with the mechanics of KERS,...