John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Half a century ago, automatic transmissions had two or three speeds, and progress has come slowly since then.
Today, many cars are still sold with four-speed automatics, though five- and six-speeds...
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Ford Uses Zipcar To Get College Kids To Test-Drive Its CarsIf you're an automaker, how do you get the next generation of car buyers to pay attention to your new models? One way has traditionally been by putting your cars into rental fleets. But some companies only rent to drivers 25 and up, so what to do about college students? For Ford, there's now a...
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Big SUV, Small Engine: EcoBoost V-6 In 2012 Lincoln Navigator?We're beginning to sound like a broken record: One of the ways carmakers will meet new, tougher gas-mileage requirements will be to use smaller, more efficient engines in their vehicles. Those may be 1.0-liter three-cylinder engines in subcompacts, but they may also be more powerful V-6 engines...
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2011 Kia Optima Hybrid: First Drive ReviewIf any brand has emerged from the bottom of the market into awareness lately, it's Kia. The Korean brand is halfway through introducing an entirely refreshed line of smart, stylish, and inexpensive vehicles that are getting noticed--and selling well. The 2011 Kia Optima Hybrid we recently...
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Ford Evos Plug-In Hybrid Concept: 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show PreviewToday Ford unveiled the Evos Concept Car that will be at the center of its display at next month's 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show. The bright-red concept is a sports coupe that the company says shows off an evolution of its global "kinetic design" language. It will also preview research into new ways for...
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BMW Turns Heat Energy To Electricity To Boost Fuel EfficiencyTo increase gas mileage, carmakers can use smaller engines that produce the same power from less fuel. But they can also work to recapture part of the 70 percent of fuel's energy content that internal combustion engines waste in producing heat, noise, and momentum that has to be halted via braking...
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Starting with the 2013 model year, you will see a new and more informative gas-mileage sticker on the window of new cars for sale.
There are several changes, both graphic and informational, that are...
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2012 Ford Focus Titanium: First Drive ReviewOverall, we liked the 2012 Ford Focus Titanium edition a lot, though its $27K price tag startled us, the gas mileage was a little lower than expected, and the MyFordTouch system did not seem ready for primetime to us.
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Ford Explorer, Edge: When To Opt For EcoBoost Four, When To SkipIt's taken a long time to arrive, but Ford's fuel-efficient 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine is now available as an option on both the 2012 Ford Explorer and the 2012 Ford Edge crossover utility. It's the first time any Ford Explorer has been offered with a four in the model's 22-year...
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Can 'Trailer Tails' Save A Semi 6 Percent Of Its Diesel Fuel?One of the best ways to save a lot of fuel is to improve the efficiency of the lowest-mileage vehicles on the roads. Those include semis, which often get no more than 2 or 3 miles per gallon of diesel fuel. Their huge diesel engines must put out massive torque to tow one, two, or even three...
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2013 Lexus GS 450h Hybrid: LED Headlamps, Possible Plug-In LaterWhile Lexus unveiled its all-new 2013 GS 350 sports sedan at the recent Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, it showed off only the gasoline GS 350 model. Details of the future hybrid version, the 2013 Lexus GS 450h, remain under cover until the company launches the car officially at next month's...
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Betting Tesla's Elon Musk $1 Million, Dan Neil Hopes To LoseElon Musk, CEO of electric-car startup Tesla Motors, sometimes says things that later prove not to be quite true. In that, he's like many entrepreneurs, who spend a portion of their time persuading the unconvinced and painting pictures of the rosy future, despite inconvenient facts that may...
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General Motors has been on a roll with electric-car news of late.
It said it would build the well-received Converj concept car as the Cadillac ELR; it cut a deal with A123 Systems to buy lithium-ion...
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2012 Mercedes-Benz B-Class Compact Hatchback Due At FrankfurtMention Mercedes-Benz, and most Americans envision luxurious full-size or mid-size sedans, or perhaps the successful ML crossover sport utility vehicle. They probably won't imagine a compact five-door hatchback with a three-pointed star on the nose, but that car--or a coupe or crossover derived...
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GM, LG Group To Design, Engineer (Unspecified) Electric Cars TogetherGeneral Motors announced this morning that it would jointly design and engineer "future electric vehicles" with Korea's LG Group, in a statement that raised more questions than it answered. The announcement, the company said, will "help GM expand the number and types of electric vehicles it makes...
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Brewing Hybrid Battle: Is One Electric Motor Better Than Two?The word "hybrid" means many things. It can be interpreted as "high gas mileage," or "annoying leftie smugmobile," or--by engineers--an automotive powertrain that uses two different sources to generate the torque that moves the car. But among "full hybrids"--those powertrains that can move the car...
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Audi A8 Hybrid: For Europe In 2012, For U.S. Sometime Later, MaybeHistorically, German automakers were slow to move into hybrid-electric vehicles, relying exclusively on diesel engines to boost fuel efficiency. That's in the past, though, and the Volkswagen Group is aggressively spreading its hybrid powertrain across models from many of its brands. But while VW...
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2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid MPGs Beat Ford Fusion, Hyundai SonataThe reviews of the 2012 Toyota Camry mid-size sedan are in now, and the consensus is that it's a competitively priced mild refresh with unadventurous styling. Which may be exactly what Camry buyers are looking for. But on one metric--gas mileage--the 2012 Camry line shines. The 2012 Toyota Camry...
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The good folks over at Consumer Reports are the ultimate rationalists when it comes to testing and buying cars.
They don't use media-fleet cars, but buy their test vehicles anonymously. Their...
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Diesel Land Speed Record: 171 MPH In A Ford F-250 Pickup!There are lots of different Land Speed Record categories, and each year one or two of them fall to new challengers. So it's not surprising that new records for production diesel and biodiesel trucks were set this weekend at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. What is surprising is the vehicle that...
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2011 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid: Quick DriveFord has been building hybrid-electric vehicles for seven years now, and the company has constantly refined and improved its hybrid system over that time. But it was only this year that Lincoln acquired its own hybrid sedan, the 2011 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid. That vehicle effectively replaced the Milan...
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Ford And Toyota To Collaborate On Future Hybrid Development: BreakingIn a startling announcement, Ford and Toyota announced this morning that the two companies would jointly develop a hybrid system for rear-wheel-drive light trucks and sport utility vehicles. The system would be roughly competitive with the General Motors Two-Mode Hybrid system now used in...
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2012 Subaru Impreza: Same Price, More Gas Mileage, Still AWDThe 2012 Subaru Impreza, unveiled at the New York Auto Show this spring, has the highest projected gas mileage of any all-wheel drive vehicle on sale in the U.S. this year: 27 mpg city and an impressive 36 mpg highway. Now Subaru has released pricing for its compact four-door sedan and hatchback...
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Japan Follows Obama's Lead, Will Tighten Gas-Mileage RulesWith agreement among the White House, the EPA and NHTSA, and most major automakers (though not all), the U.S. looks to be well on its way to a corporate average fuel-economy requirement of 54.5 mpg by model year 2025. That translates to 40 to 45 mpg in real-world gas mileage, but it's still a...
John Voelcker