AUTOS
-Six cylinders. That’s what we’ve found to be a requirement as we’ve made our way through the various available configurations for the Chevrolet Colorado and the GMC Canyon, General Motors’ highly anticipated, recently introduced mid-size pickup twins. The 2015 GMC Canyon tested here has just four cylinders, and it isn’t exactly the full-size truck replacement for adventurous weekend warriors that GM thinks it is. READ MORE ›› –
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– Maybe EVs aren’t inevitable after all. Audi, together with the German energy company Sunfire, has announced that it is able to synthesize diesel from water and CO2, and that the product can fuel automobiles. – The process involves heating water to 800 degrees Celsius, creating steam. Electricity—from a green-energy power source, naturally, biomass in this case—heats the water, and the resulting high-temperature electrolysis breaks it down into hydrogen and
– It’s Monday, and that means it’s time to present this week’s shifter. You’ll have until midday Wednesday to identify the make and model of the vehicle whence this shifter came. The first person to respond correctly in the Backfires section below will win a Save the Manuals button and sticker.* Good luck! – (* Offer open to U.S. and Canadian residents only.) –
– Honda, like other automakers, has taken to calling itself a “mobility company.” Which sounds a bit highbrow until you consider the sheer number of things the company makes. Outboard motors. Riding mowers. Motorcycles. Minivans. A freaking jet airplane. Speaking at the SAE World Congress last week, Honda R&D Americas President Frank Paluch outlined Honda’s vision for the next 35 years of vehicular travel. Let’s just say that it’s ambitious.
– Just a few days ago, few expected Martin Winterkorn [above, far right] to remain the CEO of the Volkswagen Group for much longer. The 67-year-old had found himself in a precarious position after the all-powerful head of the supervisory board, 78-year-old Ferdinand Piëch [above, second from left and next to his wife Ursula], had told the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel: “I am at a distance to Winterkorn.” –
– The eccentric tenor of Austin, Texas, goes so far beyond the stereotypes that it could pass for parody. In the city’s South Congress neighborhood, for example, you get your kale juice, fried chicken, and breakfast tacos not from a food truck, but from food Airstreams and food shipping containers. The local thrift shop shares a wall with American Apparel, and everybody pretends not to notice that the hipster counterculture
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-Day one of the 24 Hours of LeMons’ “Cure for Gingervitis” is in the books from Gingerman Raceway in Michigan and, after being treated to an enticing mix of Class C machinery in yesterday’s BS Inspections, the LeMons faithful were treated to a fantastically entertaining Class C race over Saturday’s 9-1/2 hours. – -The Unified Partnership of Pentastar Racers have been attempting to run a terrible V6 Plymouth Sundance Duster
