BMW Active-E Electric Car A 1 Series coupe converted to electric drive, the BMW Active-E will get 100 miles of driving range from a full charge of its lithium-ion battery pack Seth Fletcher
A pretty basic fear of the oncoming electric car boom is a concern that charging will be similar to the old cellphone-charger fiasco. Will the owner of a 2017 Mazda Thundersnake have to find particular Mazda charging stations, or will they be able to pull up behind a Chrysler EnFuego? Those fears can be allayed, mostly: seven major automakers have all agreed to adopt a single, universal charging system.

In a press release, Ford announced that it, as well as Audi, BWM, Daimler Chrysler, GM, Porsche, and Volkswagen, have agreed on a single integrated charging system for all electric cars in North America. They'll be using a single-port charging system for all configurations, from small home chargers to big public rigs on the sides of highways. They also announced support for HomePlug Green PHY, which despite its silly name is a pretty cool idea: it allows you to link your car to the smart grid using Powerline, which allows all kinds of useful goodies like diagnostic system checks.

The new solution will be backwards compatible with the current industry standards in both the U.S. and Europe, so your current Nissan Leaf will be able to use it. Though there's a conspicuous lack of Japanese and Korean participation in this largely American-German alliance, it's in everyone's best interest to have a unified charging solution, so we hope Nissan, Toyota, Honda, and the rest join in. Maybe Nissan was just too distracted with their crazy 10-minute chargers.

[via New Scientist]

"Skibsted and his partners in the KIBISI design studio have taken a less grounded look at the future of urban mobility when they were asked by Woburn, Massachusetts-based Terrafugia to redesign their flying car. The result, Terrafugia's next-generation Transition Roadable Aircraft, was unveiled on Monday. The Federal Aviation Administration is on board, having granted an addition 110 pounds within the Light Sport Aircraft category so that the Transition can integrate typical safety features found in cars."

Next up, those much-anticipated and always-promised personal jet packs.

"Buy a new Apple iPad for more than $50,000, get a free Hyundai."

There's no escaping the fact that many of the vehicle-blamed accidents reported were actually caused by driver error (something Toyota will never say out loud), and many of the owners of these automobiles know that. As noted before, brakes always win out over engines, even at full throttle; that has been tested and proved many times in the past 20 years, including recent Car and Driver tests on Toyotas. So, if someone claims a car was speeding out of control and the brakes refused to work, from an engineering viewpoint that claim is instantly suspect.

But don't text/tweet and drive. Ever.

Draw a perfect sketch of the accident online just with a few mouse clicks and add your sketch to your personal digital accident report. Including helpful advices for your settlement of claim.

In a report prepared for release on Tuesday, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said that crash dummies in all three models tested — the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris and the Smart Fortwo — fared poorly in the collisions.

Tata Motors aims to develop cars that are more fuel efficient, cleaner, with minimum impact to the environment and provide exceptional levels of Customer Satisfaction. It is with this vision that we have entered the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE competition with the Indica Vista Hybrid in the Mainstream class and Nano Electric in the Alternative class.

Winning strategies for playing the car-buying game to win.

there are a number of fuel-saving alternatives that are easy, inexpensive and completely idiotic.

Highway traffic is falling as pump prices climb. Are Americans rethinking their auto addiction?

The license plate is almost as large as her automobile, but Miss Mary Bay likes her car because it is easy to park.

Mr. Curtiss, 84, of Shelton, has followed the advice [of oil change every 3000 miles] with the first car he ever owned, a 1929 Ford Model A; it has 200,000 miles on it and still runs.

Why? Because it's smart. It's convenient. It's fair. And it's designed to eliminate parking tickets. So basically it runs contradictory to everything city governments were built on.

According to the Vatican, automobiles can be ''an occasion of sin'' -- particularly when used to make a dangerous passing maneuver or when used by prostitutes and their clients.

and it can be mass-produced. Any reason to stay addicted to oil?

The Ferrari passport gives its bearer entrance to the factory, unrestricted access to all the restricted areas, and no-questions-asked carte blanche to borrow any of the cars in the factory's fleet.