Archive for the ‘Green’ Category

The future is a common theme at most auto shows, and the future most carmakers have seen lately is a highly compact, enviro-friendly urban environment. To remain relevant in such a market, cars will have to shrink, adapt and go very high-tech, at least if the concepts are to be believed. Honda's latest, the Personal-Neo Urban Transport--yes, P-NUT--offers a new look at that theme.

So far no photos of the car have been released, and Honda only describes it as an "ultra-compact, aggressively designed coupe." That sounds a lot like the 2011 Honda CR-Z, pictured here, so it might share some of the same styling elements. It will almost...

Readers of a certain age will recall a time when America's roadways were clogged with Gremlins, Rabbits, and other fuel-efficient minicars. That historical moment was caused by spiking fuel prices in the 1970s (remember when Jimmy Carter told everyone to put on a snappy cardigan?), which rear-ended a recession in the early 1980s. If you've been paying attention, you might've noticed that today's financial and automotive landscapes are looking awfully familiar....

And so, just as they did 30 years ago, every automaker worth its salt is now looking to cash in on the American compact and subcompact markets. BMW has its MINI (not to mention its...

BMW's X6 "Sports Activity Coupe" is a car of contradictions. Our review of the 2009 BMW X6 range called it "an oddity: a sport-utility vehicle designed to have a coupe-like shape."

For 2010, BMW has added a new model that may polarize people even further. It's the 2010 BMW ActiveHybrid X6, the first production hybrid from the maker of ultimate driving machines.

It's both the world's most powerful hybrid and the model in the X6 range that gets the best mileage. It has 485 horsepower and 575 foot-pounds of torque, which it gets by combining a 407-hp, 4.4-liter twin-turbocharged V8 engine with a pair of electric motors. Oh, and it costs ninety...