Hyundai and Kia keep getting better, more interesting, and closer to our COTY ideal. Same with a 109-year-old American brand that last won a trophy in 1979. This year, Buick fields its third consecutive finalist, the premium compact Verano. Small American cars, including the Ford Focus and the surprising Chevy Sonic — the first American-built subcompact since the 1970s — finally are world-class. Alternatively propelled cars include Volkswagen’s Passat diesel variant, the Lexus CT 200h, and Toyota Prius V hybrids, two electrics, and one plug-in electric. Nissan‘s Leaf, which wasn’t ready for COTY 2011, joins the Mitsubishi i MiEV. The luxurious Fisker Karma offers range-extending electric technology similar to our 2011 COTY Chevy Volt’s, at over twice the price. It may determine whether a small, independent company can make it in the 21st century, or whether the eponymous Fisker is another modern-day Tucker.Three years after Wall Street’s … [Read more...] about 2012 Motor Trend Car of the Year: Contenders and Finalists
Can i afford 1200 rent
226 (Electric) Miles in Silicon Valley in a 2014 BMW i3
On a street of pristine California Craftsmans, the garage at 367 Addison in Palo Alto looks as modest as a Rockwell painting. But this cedar-shingled structure sparked a revolution, one whose reverberations can be felt in cars such as the BMW i3 we’ve glided to the curb. Silicon Valley itself—the global ground zero of innovation, start-ups, tech giants, venture capitalists, billionaires, and fortune seekers—traces its birth to this humble one-car garage. It’s where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started Hewlett-Packard in 1939, deciding the company’s name with a coin toss and using the rented home’s garage to develop and build its first products, including the Model 200A audio oscillator. Disney bought eight 200B versions, at $71.50 a pop, to test sound equipment at special theaters that showed “Fantasia.” The young HP was on its way. Garage Rockers: Today’s Silicon Valley was born on Addison Street in Palo Alto, where … [Read more...] about 226 (Electric) Miles in Silicon Valley in a 2014 BMW i3
Chevrolet Silverado SS
Put "Ss" side by side, and most people automotive will call up images of 1960s Chevy muscle cars-Impalas, Chevelles, and Camaros, big cars with big engines that delivered big power. But for some, SS evokes the numbers 4-5-4, as in 454SS (July 1993), Chevy's hot-rod truck that laid patches and startled pedestrians in the early '90s. Based on a regular-cab, short-bed C/K pickup, the 454 was accomplished at stoplight launching and donut dancing. Under its hood was a huge 7.4-liter V-8 producing 255 horsepower and, more significant, a pavement-splitting 405 pound-feet of torque at only 2400 rpm. With all that twist available so low on the power band, the rear-drive 454SS could rip to 60 mph in 7.1 seconds and trip the quarter-mile in 15.7 seconds at 87 mph. Looking back 10 years, those numbers are still respectable. With time comes progress, and Chevy's latest screamer truck, the Silverado SS, is refined where the 454 was crude. It's still plenty quick, mind you, but it now … [Read more...] about Chevrolet Silverado SS
Tesla Owners, Will Lucid Make Your Next Electric Car?
If things go right for Lucid Motors, this lesser-known California automaker could be poised to challenge Tesla’s prominence as Silicon Valley’s preferred EV producer. It’s looking very much like a Ford-versus-Chevrolet–style crosstown rivalry in the making. Lucid, formerly known as Atieva, is in Menlo Park, next door to Palo Alto where Tesla is headquartered, and Lucid’s chief technology officer—the one spearheading development of the new brand’s electric luxury sedan—is Peter Rawlinson, the former chief engineer of the Tesla Model S.Rawlinson, a veteran of Lotus and Jaguar, has brought along many from the original Model S team and added fresh faces to address the rapid confluence of technology and mobility. But he swears that Lucid isn’t doing a remake of the Model S. All that experience on the team boosts the chances of seeing a good—perhaps great—car through to production.Rawlinson conceived Lucid’s sedan as one … [Read more...] about Tesla Owners, Will Lucid Make Your Next Electric Car?