Freshened Hyundai Equus boosts styling, equipment

For the first time since its late 2010 introduction, Hyundai’s flagship Equus luxury sedan is subtly restyled for a more premium appearance and adds more safety equipment, more amenities and a retuned suspension for improved ride.

Thankfully, notable elements of the Equus are not changed including pricing that’s thousands below competitors and a warranty package that includes 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain coverage and free scheduled maintenance with valet car pickup-and-return and free loaner vehicle during the first three years/36,000 miles.

Also not changed: Consumer Reports’ endorsement of the full-size, V-8-powered Equus as a recommended buy. Reliability is listed as average.

The manufacturer’s suggested retail price, including destination charge, for the base, rear-wheel drive, 2014 Equus in Signature trim is $61,920.

While this sounds like a lot for a Hyundai, Equus buyers get a lot.

The base Equus comes with premium leather interior, real wood trim, light-emitting diode (LED) headlamps and fog lamps, moonroof, navigation system, three-zone climate control and adaptive cruise control that automatically manages the distance of the Equus to the vehicles in front.

Other standard items: Heated steering wheel, heated front and rear seats, lane departure warning system, rearview camera, blind spot monitoring and soft-to-the-touch, suede ceiling cover.

The upper Ultimate trim version of 2014 Equus carries a $68,920 retail price, including destination charge.

The Equus Ultimate adds, among other things, standard multi-view camera, rear seats that cool as well as warm passengers and a rear entertainment system with 9.2-inch display screens built into the backs of the front-seat head restraints.

All Equus models continue with last year’s 5-liter, double overhead cam V-8 that delivers 429 horsepower. It is mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Note the Equus’ 429 horsepower is more than the 386 horses in the rear-wheel-drive, V-8-powered, 2014 Lexus LS luxury sedan that has a starting MSRP, including destination charge, of $73,050.

The base, 2014 LS 460 does not include standard lane departure warning system, blind spot monitoring, dynamic cruise control, LED headlights or heated steering wheel that are on the base Equus.

In addition, the Equus has a full 45.1 inches of front-seat legroom compared with 43.7 inches in the front seats of the LS 460.

Meantime, the competing 2014 Mercedes-Benz S550 delivers 449 horsepower from its biturbo V-8, which is 20 more than the Equus’ naturally aspirated V-8.

But the base, rear-wheel drive S550, which has a starting retail price of $93,825, comes with dual-zone climate control and has less front-seat legroom than the Equus.

Plus, heated and ventilated rear seats, heated steering wheel, blind spot assist and lane keeping assist that are standard on the Equus are options on the S550.

sales of the Equus grew to a high of 3,972 in calendar 2012, then fell 10 percent last year. Not all Hyundai dealers carry the premium Equus.

Also, buyers in the luxury, large sedan segment aren’t pinched for money. Many demand a premium badge on their luxury car, not a badge from South Korean automaker Hyundai which is known value-priced, mainstream vehicles.

The Equus is the first $60,000-plus vehicle that Hyundai has sold in the .

Still, the test Equus Ultimate attracted attention, even when parked curbside. Onlookers walked around the car and kept staring at the Hyundai badge.

They couldn’t resist looking inside at the eye-catching, new-for-2014, light-colored, ivory interior.

They asked about the pull-down, rear-seat, center armrest that was stocked with buttons that control ventilation, rear seat warmth and cooling and even the nav system.

The improvements to the Equus ride were evident as there now are three ride modes activated by push button.

The normal mode is a comfort ride, with good cushioning over road bumps. It afforded pleasant, low-fatigue cruising for six hours on mostly straight highways.

The sport mode is more differentiated, buttoning down the ride for twisty mountain roads where the eager-to-perform V-8 propelled the car in swift fashion.

Yet, the sport mode still allowed body roll in corners and wasn’t overly firm. Note that the air suspension was recalibrated for 2014 and sport mode damping is more controlled than before.

The third mode, snow, is new and provides greater control and safety in inclement conditions.

All Equus models have standard antilock brakes, traction control and electronic stability control, plus nine air bags.

The V-8 and transmission provided smooth power delivery, and the Equus could be driven leisurely without fuss.

It also responded to demanding driving with strong acceleration. Zero-to-60-miles-an-hour time is some 5.5 seconds.

Torque peaks at 376 foot-pounds at 5,000 rpm, and the engine uses either regular or premium gasoline.

Large, luxury sedans that aren’t hybrids or diesels aren’t known for great gas mileage, and the federal government rating for the 2014 Equus is 15 miles per gallon in city driving and 23 mpg on the highway.

But the tester averaged 21.6 mpg in travel that was 65 percent in city traffic.

All-highway travel, especially with downhill runs in the mountains, gave an impressive 25.2-mpg rating.

New amenities like the sizable, colorful center display screen and the larger, bright instrument cluster that changes color based on driving mode were easy to manage and use.

But the automatic distance management of the cruise control system caused sudden, unsettling slowdowns in the tester rather than gradual speed reductions.

And the nav system had snafus, such as when it insisted a church was on the right side of the road when it was on the left.

Rear-seat legroom of 38.8 inches isn’t as generous as that in other large sedans, and the tester seemed to be less insulated than an earlier-model Equus as wind noise and sounds from nearby vehicles were readily heard inside.

Your Toyota might be recalled because of seat fabric

Toyota Motor Corp. is in discussions with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about a possible recall in the U.S. and Canada covering several car models, including the popular Camry, for a problem with seat fabric.

The Japanese automaker has already halted sales of the problem vehicles, which are only those equipped with seat heaters, because the fabric may not clear flammability standards, company spokesman Naoki Sumino said Thursday.

Affected models are the Camry, Camry hybrid, Avalon sedan, Avalon hybrid, Corolla subcompact, Sienna minivan, Tundra and Tacoma trucks sold since August 2012, when the fabric supplier was changed, he said.

He didn’t immediately know how many vehicles were affected.

Sumino said it’s still unclear whether the NHTSA would decide on a recall. There have been no reports of accidents or other incidents related to the fabric problem.

Toyota has been struggling to regain its once sterling reputation for quality after announcing massive recalls over several years, starting in 2009, for a variety of defects including braking, accelerators and floor mats.

Toyota was fined for being slow on recalls, which affected more than 14 million vehicles, and faces lawsuits.

Toyota, the top automaker ahead of General Motors Corp. and Volkswagen AG in global vehicle sales, has promised to be quicker with recalls and more careful with model development to avoid a recurrence of its troubles.

Self-driving cars may prove irresistible to hackers

Self-driving cars will prove an irresistible target for hackers if they ever hit the roads, a top security executive has warned.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Eddie Schwartz, the vice president of global security solutions for Verizon’s enterprise subsidiary, said that the cyber-security industry is still 40 years from maturity, and that the first half of the 21st century will see the number of targets increase exponentially.

All of the major automobile manufacturers are working on self-driving cars, Schwartz explained. For cars to be able to self-drive, they have to be able to negotiate with each other. You can’t negotiate something like that without having some security principles behind it. So cars have to do basic things that we do with each other, like recognize each other authentication.

OK, I authenticate to you, that means there has to be an underlying artefact, a certificate or something like it that says ‘you’re an authorised car, and I’m an authorised car, therefore we can exchange this information really fast.’ And you stop and I turn.

Schwartz described a million applications in the car industry alone designed for machine-to-machine communications with potentially a million underlying security issues.

Even normal cars are susceptible to hacking attacks. In August, a pair of researchers demonstrated attacks on a Ford SUV and Toyota Prius which enabled them to slam on the brakes, jerk the steering wheel, or accelerate the car using a laptop plugged into the the diagnostics port.

In 2011, a different team of researchers managed to penetrate similar systems through bluetooth, mobile data and even a malicious audio file burned onto a CD played in the car’s media player.

But self-driving cars have many more avenues of communication with the outside world, and definitionally less oversight from a driver to correct any errors.

A ransom for your medical data? 

As well as self-driving cars, Eddie Schwartz cautioned that the entire field of machine-to-machine communications, also known as the internet of things, presents an enticing target to hackers.

How many IP-based [internet connected] devices does the average person have in their home today? Most people can’t even count them. If you ask them, they would probably say ‘oh, I have two computers and a whatever’, but the reality is it’s probably more like 20 to 30 if they start thinking about it… You’re going to see a spill from 4 or 5bn IP devices to hundreds of billions over the next 10 years.

Schwartz cautioned that with the growth of new devices and services in the health space the potential for malicious hacks will grow exponentially, including devices that gather intimate personal medical data.

These are going to be embedded solutions. It’s going to be wireless communications or NFC. These are machine-to-machine communications, and for critical care, they are going to have telemetry going on 24/7.

There’s an underlying security and privacy issue: imagine ransom-ware [software such as Cryptolocker that breaks devices and demands a fee to fix them] in that world.

This article originally appeared onguardian.co.uk

New Volkswagen Polo goes high-tech

The German car maker has provided a few details on the next version of its supermini car. The new Polo, slated for unveiling at the Geneva Motor Show (March 6-16, 2014), will be more technologically advanced and eco-friendly than its predecessor.

From the outside, the new Polo differs only slightly from its predecessor, mainly through its front bumper and headlights. But on the inside, the new Polo boasts a range of new high-tech features, including an automatic braking system that slows the car down and reduces kinetic energy in the event of a collision, minimizing the chances or effects of a second impact.

Volkswagen plans to equip its new Polo with the same infotainment system seen in its Golf range, which includes Bluetooth audio streaming and is controlled through a touchscreen interface near the driver’s seat.

Optional features on the new model will include a driver alert system, front assist with city emergency braking, and automatic cruise control.

Finally, with its new three-cylinder fuel engine (up to 110hp) or diesel engine (up to 150hp), Volkswagen promises energy savings of as much as 21 percent.

The new Volkswagen Polo will be presented in March 2014 at the Geneva Motor Show before hitting the European market later this spring.

Volkswagen has sold over 14 million Polo supermini cars since launching the model in 1975.

The 84th Geneva Motor Show takes place March 6-16, 2014 at Palexpo in Geneva.

Japanese automaker Honda is now a major American exporter

When Honda Motor Co. opened the first Japanese auto plant in the United States in 1982, it was dipping a toe into a very chilly ocean, coming as the country reeled from stagflation, the impact of twin oil shocks and a fear that the industrial giants of Tokyo were seizing world leadership.

On Tuesday the automaker announced that its now extensive American operations actually built and shipped more cars overseas from the United States last year than it imported from Japan. It’s a milestone, unthinkable 30 years ago, that puts Honda among the ranks of U.S. exporters and could influence the complicated politics around ongoing Japanese-U.S. trade talks.

Opening operations in the United States was not the expected or typical decision at the time, said Rick Schostek, senior vice president of Honda North America. We did not set out to be a net exporter. What we did set out to do was become self-reliant in North America.

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address was expected to focus heavily on his economic agenda for the coming year. One piece of that trade agreements under negotiation with Asia-Pacific nations and Europe faces a tough battle on Capitol Hill amid broad skepticism over whether past trade agreements have helped the middle class.

A coalition of labor, environmental and other groups from the heart of Obama’s Democratic base sent the president a letter Monday opposing the Transpacific Partnership. On Tuesday, conservative Republicans restated their opposition to legislation that would let Obama move any future pact quickly through Congress.

Opponents of the Pacific pact are focusing heavily on Japan’s involvement, particularly on the tense history between the two countries when it comes to automobiles and the controversial policies Japan has used to lower the value of its currency. Though Japan has been under intense international pressure not to intervene in its currency markets it last did so in 2011, to strong U.S. criticism members of Congress, major manufacturing and labor groups and others are pushing for rules in any trade deal that would limit its ability to do so.

That demand has posed a problem for the administration: A trade agreement with such a rule might not pass muster with the other countries involved in the talks; one without it might not clear Congress.

In that context, any data that put U.S.-Japanese trade relations in a different light is welcome news to supporters of the agreement.

Schostek said that he expected Honda’s exports to actually grow faster than its U.S. domestic sales in coming years, giving the company’s North American operations a vested interest in U.S. trade policy and efforts to open markets abroad. Like most major auto companies, Honda followed the produce-where-you-sell model in its decision to invest in U.S. manufacturing capacity, just as companies like General Motors have invested heavily in places like China.

In 2013, Honda’s 10 U.S. plants produced more than 1.3 million cars a record and almost all of them were sold in the United States. But, according to the company, 108,705 of those vehicles were exported, mostly to countries in Central and South America, the Middle East and Russia. For the first time, that export figure eclipsed the number of cars 88,537 imported from Japan.

The figures do not include vehicles imported from or exported to Canada and Mexico, numbers that could change the overall outcome.

With the administration intent on increasing U.S. exports, Honda’s success in using the country as an export base could bolster the argument that open markets and open borders can boost U.S. employment. Honda employs about 28,000 people in the United States.

The export news, however, is not the whole story, said Stephen Biegun, vice president for government affairs for Ford Motor Co., one of the chief proponents of tough currency rules in the TPP.

Ford posted strong profits, as well, on Tuesday, and Biegun said the fact that Honda’s U.S. operations had a good year says nothing about why Japan itself imports so few autos from this country just a few thousand a year.

The reason for that is disputed. Japanese officials say, for example, that American cars are too big for local tastes, while companies like Ford argue that local regulations, the price advantage of a lowered currency over the years and other factors have helped keep American autos out of Japan.

The U.S. firms want those issues addressed in any trade agreement that includes Japan. The potential for nations like Korea and China to join the pact in the future has made that argument all the more intense.

All global manufacturers export here, manufacture here and export from here, Biegun said. That is what a normal market looks like.

Coast to coast in a Tesla Model S, using only free Superchargers

John Glenney is a happy man. He just became the first person known to drive coast-to-coast in a Tesla Model S. Not only that he used only the company’s network of free Supercharger stations for fuel.

Electric cars are normal; they are not oddities, Glenney, 62, a retired professor of biochemistry who lives in Lexington, Ky., said in a phone interview. I feel like I’ve made my own contribution to the movement of getting off of fossil fuels.

Glenney’s co-pilot for the journey was his 26-year-old daughter, Jill Glenney. The duo left New York on Jan. 20 and arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday. Jill then hopped on a plane home to Hoboken, N.J., while Glenney began a cruise up the California coast.

Monday, Glenney drove from Paso Robles to Fremont, where he hoped that Tesla would give him a quick tour of the factory where the Model S is made. He got far more than he expected.

The workers all lined up and were cheering for me, said Glenney, who met with manufacturing executives and got a personal three-hour tour. I was really impressed. It was like a special birthday party.

A fan of horse racing and electric cars, Glenney has bought four Model S sedans, which makes him something of an oddity in Lexington, where he has yet to meet another Model S owner. His wife Kim drives a red one and he usually drives a white one, to which he has attached a trailer hitch to mow the bluegrass on his farm. The cross-country trip was made in Ivy, which is dark green and has an 85 Kwh battery pack and an estimated range of 265 miles per charge. He gave the fourth Model S to his sister in Houston.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made the Supercharger stations a core part of Tesla’s business strategy, telling Wall Street analysts last year that even if there’s a zombie apocalypse, you’ll still be able to travel the country on the Tesla Supercharger network.

There are 71 Supercharger stations open in the United States, and Glenney says he used 28 of them in his cross-country trip.

Tesla has this map of Supercharging stations, and I’ve been obsessing about that map, he said. I had my ducks in a row. I knew that as soon as the cross-country route was finished, that other people would try it and I may not be the first. I wanted to be the first.

The most stressful part of the trip, he said, was the more than 200-mile leg from Newark, Del., to Somerset, Pa. He made it, but with only 11 miles of charge left in his battery.

The Supercharger in Hagerstown, Md., wasn’t ready, Glenney said. There was a cold front, and I felt like we had a 50 percent chance of making it. But we made it.

The trip was unscripted and went largely unnoticed outside of the community of Tesla fans. Glenney is not on Twitter or other social media, but he posted email updates on the Tesla Motors Forum page.

Only issue today was heavy snow 60 miles outside Chicago, he wrote in one email. 10 mph for an hour. Ice (internal combustion engine) cars stuck in the snow. Model S did great. Charged in Highland Park. Beautiful new facility with service center and gallery.

On Sunday, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla will send two teams from Los Angeles on a cross-country trip Friday. He also plans to take his own cross-country trip with his five young sons over spring break.

There are currently 12 Supercharger stations up and running in California, and the Gilroy station is one of the busiest in the state. By 2015, California will have more than 25 Supercharger stations, which are typically located near diners or outlet stores on highways between major metropolitan areas so drivers can grab a bite to eat and use the restroom while their vehicle recharges.

Glenney’s immediate plans are to take it easy.

I’m heading to Napa Valley, he said. I just want to relax and get a massage.

Guerlain perfume inspires special edition Fiat 500

The Italian car maker has presented a limited edition of its 500 and 500C city cars dedicated to the iconic perfume. These 250 special edition Fiat 500 La petite Robe noire by Guerlain cars will be sold exclusively in France.

The logo of Guerlain’s La Petite Robe Noire perfume a dynamic silhouette designed by the artists Kuntzel+Deygas is featured on the car’s rear wing and on the dashboard inside. This special edition of the city car is available in pearly white or metallic black, either with a panoramic sunroof (500) or a black electric-power soft top (500C).

This special-edition Fiat 500 is also equipped with two-tone black and white Poltrona Frau leather seats, automatic air conditioning, seven airbags, a CD/MP3 player, a Bluetooth system, a USB port and a clothes hanger on the passenger-side headrest. Additional options include Bi-Xenon headlamps, rear parking aid, or tinted rear windows.

In addition, the car will come with the three little black dresses in Guerlain’s Petite Robe Noire fragrance line (eau de toilette, eau de parfum and eau de parfum couture) and a matching makeup bag.

The Fiat 500 La Petite Robe Noire by Guerlain will go on sale in France from March 1, 2014. Prices start at $21,450 for the Fiat 500 with the 1.2L, 69hp engine.

Fiat is creating a dedicated website for this special edition 500, set to go live Feb. 5.

Is America ready for hydrogen cars?

It sounds like science fiction a car that runs on hydrogen gas, spits nothing but water vapor out the tailpipe, and can take you from Washington to New York City on a single tank.

But after a long and bumpy road from futuristic concept car to real-world production vehicle, the first mass-produced hydrogen-powered cars will hit dealerships this spring in the United States, and they are on display this week at the Washington Auto Show.

How soon you’ll see them on the roads in our region remains to be seen, as auto manufacturers, fueling companies and policymakers look for ways to tackle serious challenges that now stand in the way not the least of which is where do you refuel with hydrogen.

It’s coming, this is the next wave, and from what some of the manufacturers are saying, it’s an even better bet than some of the alternatives already on the market, said Kevin Reilly, chairman of the Washington Auto Show. Now all we need is the infrastructure to make it a viable option for drivers.

What are the advantages?

Manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda and Hyundai the latter of which will soon begin selling its first hydrogen-powered vehicle in parts of California where fueling stations already exist say this new propulsion system tackles the age-old pollution problems of standard gasoline engines without many of the limitations that have held back the market for battery-powered and other alternative fuel vehicles.

On board the vehicles, hydrogen and oxygen are combined in a fuel cell, causing a chemical reaction that yields electricity to power the car. The only other byproduct is water, which comes out the tailpipe as steam so, no greenhouse gases, just like the plug-in hybrids and electric cars already on the road today.

And while some processes used to extract hydrogen for fuel usage do emit greenhouse gases, research has shown that the overall well-to-wheel carbon footprint is lower for hydrogen-powered cars than for electric plug-ins and other alternative fuel vehicles.

Meanwhile, filling up at a hydrogen pump takes a few minutes, compared to several hours for even the fastest of electric charging stations. And fuel cells can be scaled to power trucks and sport utility vehicles, whereas experts say it is currently difficult to stack enough batteries to power cars much larger than a sedan.

Most importantly, though, hydrogen-powered cars can travel upwards of 300 miles on one tank, giving consumers the same range they have grown accustomed to with gas engines. Conversely, the market for plug-ins continues to be limited by the fact that all but the most expensive models can travel no more than 100 miles on a full charge.

Indeed, as the area’s network of electric charging stations has become more dense, electric vehicle sales in the Washington region have ticked up from around 150 last year to more than 600 in the past 11 months, according to data from the Washington Area New Auto Dealers Association. Still, that represents less than half of 1 percent of all cars sold in the region during that period.

Drivers want larger cars, especially here in the United States, and they want to be able to drive further without refueling, Mike O’Brien, Hyundai’s vice president of corporate and product planning, said in an interview. So while we think there will always be a place for battery-powered electrics in our fleet, they’ll always be supplemental vehicles, not ones that can displace combustion engines.

How did we get here?

With so many advantages to hydrogen, why are we so much further down the road on an electric charging network than we are on hydrogen fueling stations? It comes down to federal funding and the current administration’s evolving stance on hydrogen.

During his first few years in office, then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu openly questioned the viability of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, at one point stating that it would require several miracles to make that dream a reality, including better ways to produce and store hydrogen and more affordable fuel cells. Under his watch, the Energy Department cut by more than half its funding for fuel cell research, while at the same time pouring additional resources into cultivating an infrastructure of electric charging stations for plug-in vehicles.

Not long afterward, Shell closed the only commercial hydrogen station in Washington, along with another three pilots it had been built in New York. On the East Coast, it looked like the end of the road for hydrogen cars.

Only three years later, though, Chu acknowledged that he had changed his mind about hydrogen, pointing to new techniques developed to extract hydrogen from natural gas as well as improvements and cost reductions in automotive technology. Toyota executives, for instance, say they have reduced the cost of hydrogen vehicles by 95 percent in the past decade, mostly by bringing down the size of the fuel cells and by finding new, less expensive materials with which to build the tanks.

At that point, though, the United States had already fallen behind the likes of Japan, Germany, Sweden, South Korea and the United Kingdom, all of which have made considerable government investments in hydrogen infrastructure and already have dense refueling networks.

Now in catch-up mode, and now under the watch of Obama’s second-term Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, the United States has started to invest more money back into hydrogen. In May, the agency launched H2USA, a public-private collaboration between fuel suppliers, automakers, government agencies and clean technology groups to coordinate research and map out a plan for a hydrogen infrastructure.

It’s not the kind of problem the federal government is going to solve on its own, or that state governments or the industry are going to solve on their own; it really needs a team effort, David Danielson, head of the department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said at the auto show last week. He added that H2USA members will put forth several recommendations for the agency and other stakeholders in the next few months.

Moniz, who also spoke at the show, said the department is taking a close look at steps that have been taken at the state level in California, where, sparked by public investments under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and accelerated by legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D), a cluster of nine hydrogen stations have sprouted around Los Angeles.

Over the next decade, the state will invest an additional $200 million to reach 100 stations by 2024. Money for the program comes from vehicle registration fees, meaning drivers are footing much of the bill for the infrastructure.

Some private stakeholders, such as Toyota, which is planning on bringing its first hydrogen-powered car to the United States starting next year, have taken steps to speed up the process. The company partnered with the University of California, Irvine to fund research to determine how far apart to build hydrogen stations to make refueling practical for the largest number of potential buyers.

If they want to sell the cars on the East Coast, some say carmakers will need to make those same investments here.

The first companies to sell a hydrogen fuel cell car are going to have to do some work like Nissan did with the Leaf, said Joe Taylor, training director at Darcars Automotive Group, a privately owned collection of more than 20 Washington-area dealerships. That was the first mass-produced all-electric car, and before they did it, they worked with other groups to help build the start of an infrastructure and put charging stations in some of their dealerships.

While automakers say they are willing to invest in research, they are unlikely to dive much further into the fuel production and gas station business, even if it means waiting longer for the infrastructure they need to start selling hydrogen cars in new markets.

Instead, the onus will likely fall on existing hydrogen producers, technology firms and other investors. A small Connecticut-based company called SunHydro, for example, has started planting the first seeds in the Northeast, building its first hydrogen fueling station in central Connecticut in 2010 and recently starting construction on another just outside of Boston.

Hydrogen is generated on site at both stations using energy from solar panels on the roof to electrolyze water. Purchased a few years ago by Tom Sullivan, who made his fortune with Toano, Va.-based hardwood flooring company Lumber Liquidators, SunHydro initially planned to build a chain of stations that would allow hydrogen cars to travel from Maine to Miami.

However, Sullivan said he later realized that building a central hub of stations was a more practical path for hydrogen cars, and he hopes to start with a dense network around Boston. Once in place, if hydrogen cars start selling in the Northeast, the network would likely sprout satellite stations that he thinks would spread quickly to New York, and then down to Washington.

But without cars to fill up at his existing pumps up north, he says there is little incentive to move forward, as each station costs a couple million dollars to build and needs roughly 100 vehicles locally to make it economically viable.

We need more cars to make it worthwhile, that’s the bottom line, he said. Meanwhile, Hyundai, Toyota and Honda representatives all say they are eager to bring their cars to market on eastern side of the country just as soon as they see hydrogen stations sprout on the East Coast.

It leaves both sides at a stalemate, waiting for the other to jump first. Some are hoping that’s where the H2USA partnership will step in with funding or other incentives to get the early stages of a fueling network off the ground.

In California, they provided a walking bridge across the river for investors during this period where there are not yet enough hydrogen cars on the road, O’Brien said. It would be great to see that model expanded or duplicated at the state or federal level.

Auto body shops not up to speed on repairing Ford's aluminum F-150

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. After laboring for five years to develop its aluminum F-150, Ford now confronts a new challenge: preventing buyers from being deterred by higher insurance rates and a dearth of mechanics equipped to repair its body.

Less than 10 percent of the nation’s more than 30,000 independent repair shops are certified and meet training and equipment requirements to work with most aluminum auto-body parts, according to an estimate by Darrell Amberson, chairman of the Automotive Service Association. While some dealerships do in-house body work, independent businesses handle the vast majority of collision repair in the U.S., he said.

Ford is betting buyers will accept what it estimates will be a 10 percent jump in costs to insure the pickup in return for improved fuel economy, towing and payload. The second-largest U.S. automaker must also get the aftermarket industry up to speed as it debuts the highest-profile vehicle to swap aluminum for heavier steel, long the industry’s material of choice.

You don’t get any more mainstream than the F-150, said Amberson, who is also vice president of operations for LaMettry’s Collision Inc. in Minneapolis.

Insurance companies charge less for coverage of the outgoing F-150 compared with the competition, Doug Scott, Ford’s truck marketing manager, said last week in an interview from the company’s stand at the Detroit auto show.

At the end of the day, that’s sort of a wash, he said. We’ve spent a lot of time and feel very comfortable that that’s not going to be an inhibitor.

Repair shops need separate hand tools for aluminum and steel such as wire brushes, grinders and sanders, because corrosion can happen when dissimilar metals come in contact with one another. The auto-body repair industry also has less experience with differences in how aluminum springs back from impacts compared with steel.

Aluminum has a very poor memory and it resists straightening attempts, Jeff Poole, a coordinator for I-CAR, a collision-repair industry training organization, said in an April 2013 webinar. Experience really pays dividends here, and this is where we’ve got a learning curve ahead of us.

Ford’s internal data show that 90 percent of customers live within two hours of a capable repair facility for today’s F-150, and 80 percent are within 30 minutes, Ford’s Scott said. Buyers of the aluminum-bodied F-150 will have the same access by the time it arrives in dealerships late this year, he said.

We’ve just been waiting for the reveal to unveil a certification process for dealer-owned body shops and the independent channel, Scott said.

Ford started work in 2009 on the truck program that yielded the F-150 debuting at last week’s North American International Auto Show, according to Chief Operating Officer Mark Fields. The Dearborn, Mich.-based company spent as long as 18 months assessing its ability to service, manufacture and purchase material before deciding on an aluminum body, he said at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit, also held last week.

The new truck weighs as much as 700 pounds (318 kilograms) less than the current version.

Once the decision was made to go with the material, Ford was able to select a high-strength alloy that’s thicker than what’s used in the current truck because aluminum is about one- third the density of steel, Fields told reporters.

The new F-Series is going to be more dent- and ding- resistant, he said. Our engineers have great tests where they’re dropping bowling balls. We’ve actually been testing this with a number of our customers, in the construction industry, the mining industry, to help us.

Residual values for the new F-150, which measure how well the truck retains its worth after years of ownership, could decline because of higher insurance costs.

The automakers can force their certified body shops to be able to work with aluminum, but that still could narrow down the choice and the scope of shops that consumers and insurance companies will have, Larry Dominique, the president of ALG, which has forecast residual values for almost 50 years. This will work itself out, but it could take 10 years.

While automakers including Volkswagen’s Audi and Tata Motors’s Jaguar Land Rover have used aluminum in their cars and sport-utility vehicles, Ford produces its F-Series trucks in much higher volume. Past examples of aluminum use in auto bodies are inconsistent in terms of whether insurance rates rise and affect ownership costs that play a role in forecasting residuals, Dominique said.

Even if the F-150′s residuals fall, which would make it more costly for buyers to lease the truck or dent the value of a pickup that’s traded in, Ford’s broader risks are limited, said Dominique. He started work on Nissan’s first Titan pickup in 2001 and was its chief product specialist when he worked for the Yokohama, Japan-based company.

Truck owners are so damn loyal, he said. When we would interview Ford, Chevy and Dodge owners, they would say, ‘Well, why would I even look at a Nissan?’ We were one rung below nobody.

Ford estimates that 80 percent of its customers are comfortable with its use of aluminum because they come into contact with the material in other applications, such as with toolboxes and ladders that need to be both strong and light, Scott said.

Ford noted multiple times in its press release and its F-150 unveiling at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena this month that it logged more than 10 million miles of testing with the new truck. A disguised 2015 model that raced in the 883-mile Baja 1000 off- road race in California almost two months ago, still caked in dirt, was on the company’s stand at the auto show last week.

The ability of the aftermarket industry to prove it can handle collision work on the new F-150 will be tested soon after the truck reaches the market, said Amberson, the Automotive Service Association chairman.

People don’t wait until the vehicle is a few years old to start having accidents, he said. We can see them very early on.

The timing of the truck’s arrival alone could be viewed as another potential concern. Analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and RBC Capital Markets all said in reports last week that they expected the first F-150s to hit dealerships in the third quarter. Ford said last week that the truck will go on sale in the fourth quarter.

This is the biggest bet of the show and maybe one of the biggest bets ever in the car industry, Mike Jackson, chief executive officer of AutoNation, said in an interview.

Ford is going to have to execute, and building at that volume in aluminum has never been done in the history of the automobile business. And there are reasons it hasn’t been done: it’s expensive, and it’s complicated and it’s difficult to work with.

Jackson, who leads the largest retailer of new vehicles in the U.S., said he trusts that Ford CEO and former Boeing executive Alan Mulally’s knowledge of working with aluminum on planes will help the automaker pull it off.

We’re going to have to develop, prepare, train for another new technology. It’s a lot to ask of dealers, he said. But that’s the price of leadership.

First Porsche car unveiled after more than a century hidden away

After spending more than a century hidden away, the first Porsche car ever built is now on display in a German museum.

The 1898 Egger-Lohner electric car model C.2 Phaeton, known as the P1 for short, was designed by Ferdinand Porsche in 1898, decades before he founded the Porsche brand.

The car was unveiled at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany on Monday after sitting in an old shed in Austria since 1902.

The auto on display at the museum is one of only four P1s ever made. The wooden-wheeled car was able to travel up to 21 mph and even won a 1899 Berlin road race against other electric vehicles by a margin of 18 minutes.

Tesla completes coast-to-coast charging station network

LOS ANGELES Tesla Motors‘ Elon Musk said the electric-car maker has expanded its U.S. network of rapid chargers to let owners of battery-powered Model S sedans drive their cars from coast to coast for the first time.

Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer and co-founder, said last year the company would set up Superchargers in most major U.S. and Canadian cities to permit long-distance trips solely on electricity provided at no charge. The carmaker has more than 70 stations in North America, according to Tesla’s website.

Tesla Supercharger network now energized from New York to LA, both coast + Texas! Musk said in a Twitter post Sunday. Approx 80% of US population covered.

Tesla, seeking to be the world’s leading maker of all- electric autos, needs the broader network of charging stations to address the limited driving range and long charge times of battery cars. Without the stations, Tesla drivers are limited by the estimated 265-mile range of a Model S battery, which can take as long as 9 hours to repower.

Musk has said the chargers, which the company says are the fastest available, are installed near major highway interchanges on properties close to restaurants, cafes or shopping to allow drivers to take breaks while their vehicle are repowered.

The Superchargers, currently compatible only with the Model S, provide 170 miles of range in a 30-minute charge, according to the company. The cheapest version of the Fremont, Calif.- built car enabled to work with the Superchargers costs $73,070, according to Tesla’s website.

Two teams of Tesla drivers will try to set U.S. cross- country electric vehicle speed records using the chargers, departing Friday from Los Angeles and arriving in New York by Sunday, said Musk, 42. He also plans a LA-NY family road trip over Spring Break, using the system, he said on Twitter.

The company named for inventor Nikola Tesla more than quadrupled in value in 2013. Tesla fell 3.8 percent to $174.60 at the close Friday in New York.

Land Rover LR4: Prepare for the worst, enjoy the best

DETROIT No adventure is successful without a safe return home. That is the guiding wisdom of all road trips undertaken by me and my wife, Mary Anne.

We will sacrifice economy in pursuit of that goal. Our priorities for long drives are safety, comfort and enjoyment of motoring.

To those ends, for our 564-mile drive here to the 25th North American International Auto Show from our home in Virginia, we chose the 2014 Land Rover LR4 sport-utility vehicle outfitted with the HSE luxury package.

There were two substantially more fuel-efficient vehicles in our driveway our own Mini Cooper and a borrowed 2014 Nissan Altima. But we’ve driven here for previous Detroit shows moving northwest through Maryland into Pennsylvania along the always challenging Pennsylvania Turnpike into the flatlands of Ohio and, literally, racing along the southern portion of Michigan’s I-75 (an insanely high-speed road even in foul weather) into Detroit. It is not a trip for wimp-mobiles, especially that segment involving the narrow, twisting, mountainous, seemingly always-under-construction-or-repair, truck-laden, snow-and-ice-vulnerable Pennsylvania Turnpike.

For that drive, we always overprepare. We pack an emergency kit blankets, bottled water, dried food rations, flashlights, batteries, hand-crank radio, backup GPS devices and emergency cellphone chargers. We always take a four-wheel-drive vehicle one that could get us to Detroit and back to Virginia in a snowstorm, and one that could serve as temporary shelter if we really ran into trouble.

The new LR4 served our purposes just fine, although the Virginia-to-Michigan price for premium gasoline was a bit steep at $112 (figure double, of course, for the round trip). It could’ve cost more had we been in a 2013 version of the LR4 equipped with a 5-liter gasoline V-8 (375 horsepower, 375 pound-feet of torque). That engine delivered 12 miles per gallon in the city and 17 on the highway, also sucking premium fuel all the way.

For 2014, Land Rover went for better fuel economy with a new 3-liter aluminum-alloy V-6 with direct fuel injection (340 horsepower, 332 pound-feet of torque). The smaller, lighter new engine delivers 19 miles per gallon on the highway and 14 in the city while helping to alleviate the weighty, ponderous on-road handling of the predecessor LR4.

But, again, fuel economy was the least of our concerns. We’ve seldom driven to Detroit in January without running into snow and ice, especially along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We have never driven that turnpike without running into potholes big ones, lots of them. The LR4, equipped with permanent four-wheel drive with traction control, easily handled the remains of a recent snowstorm. It dismissed the turnpike’s multiple structural insults, never once losing its confident demeanor or otherwise hinting at a loss of control. Credit the LR4′s four-corner electronic air suspension, which calms the vehicle over rough roads and helps to keep it balanced in twists and turns.

Land Rover historically over-engineers its vehicles, building all of them for worst-case scenarios. Most people who buy Land Rovers will never use the SUVs’ full potential. Our LR4, for example, came with the manufacturer’s Hill Descent Control to ease us down steep inclines without burning up the brakes. The Terrain Response suspension system could be electronically adjusted for best traction in snow and ice. In the event that we might have had to venture off-road, we could have adjusted the suspension for that trek, too. But we used none of that stuff. We didn’t use anything in our emergency travel kit, either. We simply enjoyed the peace of mind of knowing all of those things were there if we needed them.

The LR4′s six-cylinder engine numerically does not pack as much horsepower as the V-8 it replaces. But we didn’t notice that deficit in the high-speed insanity of I-75 into Detroit. The new LR4 responded instantly to the need for speed, moving quickly out of the way of fellow motorists for whom 80 mph in a 70-mph zone was not fast enough.

We arrived here safely, ensconced in a plush passenger chamber trimmed with leather and walnut. It was a beautiful, fun run. Happiness is looking forward to the drive back home.

Nuts and bolts: 2014 Land Rover LR4

Bottom line: Starting at $49,700, the LR4 is one of the most affordable vehicles in Land Rover’s U.S. lineup, a fleet with base prices ranging from $36,600 to $82,650. That is prohibitively heady territory for most U.S. consumers. But Land Rover seems to have no problems selling its wares, recording a 19 percent increase in sales in 2013. Credit the psychological need to have everything you don’t need, just in case.

Ride, acceleration and handling: The new LR4 remains a weighty piece, with factory poundage (weight minus passengers and cargo) of 5,655 pounds. But it moves with agility around curves. It is competent in high-speed environments, and it offers a ride, enhanced by a plush cabin, fit for royalty.

Head-turning quotient: It is a Land Rover, which, like beauty, is its own excuse for being.

Body style/layout: This a front-engine, four-wheel-drive luxury sport-utility vehicle of boxed-steel, ladder-frame construction. The body is zinc-coated steel with aluminum hood and tailgate. Look for increased use of high-strength, lightweight aluminum in future models. The LR4 has four side doors and a split tailgate.

Engine/transmission: It comes with a direct-injection, 24-valve, 3-liter V-6 gasoline engine with variable valve timing (340 horsepower, 332 pound-feet of torque). The engine is linked to a six-speed electronically controlled automatic transmission that can be operated manually. There is a two-speed transfer case (high and low rears) to assist in off-road motoring.

Capacities: Seats five people. Cargo capacity with all seats in place is 42.1 cubic feet. The fuel tank holds 22.8 gallons (premium-grade gasoline is required). The LR4 can be equipped to tow up to 7,716 pounds.

Mileage: With driver and front-seat passenger and 220 pounds of cargo, in mostly highway driving, we averaged 18 miles per gallon.

Safety: Standard equipment includes four-wheel ventilated disc brakes, four-wheel anti-lock brake protection, emergency braking assistance, electronic brake-force distribution, Terrain Response adjustable suspension, Hill Descent Control, dynamic stability control and rear parking-distance control.

Price: The 2014 Land Rover LR4 starts at $49,700, with an estimated dealer’s invoice price of $47,000. Price as tested is $62,895, including $10,200 for the HSE luxury package, $1,350 for the heavy high-low transfer case and an $895 factory-to-dealer shipment charge. Estimated dealer’s price as tested is $60,000.

The Pony run continues

Interest is building for the 50th anniversary in April of the Ford Mustang.

North Texas Ford dealer Sam Pack paid $300,000 for the first retail production unit of the all-new 2015 Mustang GT at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The 50th anniversary Mustangs will go on sale this fall. In the meantime, Pack will order either a manual or automatic transmission for the commemorative car and its exterior color.

“The response to the all-new Mustang GT on the auction block was remarkable,” said Raj Nair, group vice president- global product development at Ford Motor Co. “People were drawn to the opportunity to own this historic car, while also knowing the fund would benefit JDRF in the fight to cure type 1 diabetes.”

The Mustang GT features a 420-horsepower V-8 engine with 390 lb.-ft. torque, all-new front and rear independent suspension, and enhanced ride comfort.

The introduction of the original Mustang in April 1964 was one of the greatest launches of a new product in automotive history.

J.D. Power influence detailed in 400 pages

Only a handful of longtime automotive executives have had more influence on the industry over the past 50 years than James David Power III.

The recently released book, “POWER: How J.D. Power III Became the Auto lndustry’s Adviser, Confessor and Eyewitness to History” (Fenwick Publishing, Sept. 2013), gives a look at Power’s workings with such leaders as Lee Iacocca, John DeLorean, Henry Ford II, Jack Smith and Dieter Zetsche.

Power pioneered the use of independent syndicated market research strategies that asked vehicle owners how satisfied they were with the cars they were driving.

The book details a level of success in Power’s association with industry execs almost to the point of aggrandizement.

Today, automakers eagerly await Power’s release of the Initial Quality Study, results of the firm’s survey of new car buyers within the first 90 days of ownership.

The 400-page book ($19.95) is available at all major retailers. Authors are Sarah Morgans and Bill Thorness. For more information, visit davepowerbooks.com.

Lamborghini's Urus SUV moves from concept to production

The market for superfast, super-luxury off roaders is set to become increasingly crowded as the Italian supercar maker’s decision follows a similar move from Bentley.

Initially revealed as a little more than a head-turning concept at the 2012 Beijing Motor Show, the Urus looks like a Lamborghini supercar force-fed steroids and hoisted onto a plinth.

Designed to test the waters so to speak, feedback was so positive that Lamborghini hinted back in September 2013 that it was seriously considering taking the car from concept to reality and now has confirmed exactly when the company’s first new SUV for over 30 years will be hitting the roads 2017.

So potentially a long and agonizing wait but one that will be worth it if the finished car is enough like the concept and, knowing Lamborghini, it will do everything in its power to make the car as exhilarating and exhibitionist as possible.

The official announcement, made by Chief Executive Officer Stephan Winkelmann during an interview with Bloomberg this week at the Detroit Auto Show also highlights the renewed focus the luxury SUV market is receiving from the world’s premium automotive brands.

At the moment, Land Rover’s latest Range Rover more or less has the market segment to itself there is no other vehicle available that offers the car’s levels of off-road technology, on-road performance and in-cabin luxury. However, it is about to be challenged in the shape of new models from Bentley, Audi and now Lamborghini.

In July, Bentley officially green-lit production of its own SUV, expected to arrive in 2016 and Aston Martin has also made it clear that it still has plans on the table to relaunch its Lagonda brand as a range of luxury off-roaders.

Even Rolls-Royce has admitted that although it has no current plans that it would never say never when it came to entering the SUV segment.

Ford, researchers to work on autonomous cars

Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it was teaming up with researchers at two US universities to work on obstacles, technical and otherwise, to automated driving.

To deliver on our vision for the future of mobility, we need to work with many new partners across the public and private sectors, and we need to start today, said Paul Mascarenas, chief technical officer and vice president at Ford.

The Detroit automaker said it would work with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University on Ford’s Blueprint for Mobility, its vision for transportation in 2025 and beyond.

Ford said in a statement the project will build on its automated Ford Fusion hybrid research vehicle unveiled last month and examine potential solutions for the longer-term societal, legislative and technological issues posed by a future of fully automated driving.

Working with university partners like MIT and Stanford enables us to address some of the longer-term challenges surrounding automated driving while exploring more near-term solutions for delivering an even safer and more efficient driving experience, Mascarenas said.

The Ford research car unveiled last month uses the same technology already in some of today’s vehicles, but adds sensors to generate a real-time 3D map of the vehicle’s surrounding environment.

Ford’s research with MIT uses advanced algorithms to help the vehicle learn to predict where moving vehicles and pedestrians could be in the future, according to the Ford statement.

Working with Stanford, Ford is exploring how the sensors could see around obstacle such as a truck to make evasive maneuvers if needed.

Our goal is to provide the vehicle with common sense, said Greg Stevens, global manager for driver assistance and active safety at Ford.

Drivers are good at using the cues around them to predict what will happen next, and they know that what you can’t see is often as important as what you can see. Our goal in working with MIT and Stanford is to bring a similar type of intuition to the vehicle.

Google has been testing self-driving cars in several states, and a number of automakers and suppliers have been developing semi-autonomous driving systems, including for parking.

Toyota's Tundra pickup updated for 2014

In its first major update since 2007, the full-size Toyota Tundra pickup truck is redesigned with a bold, American-style exterior, a refined, quieter interior and standard backup camera and Bluetooth phone and audio connectivity.

What’s not changed are the engines a V-6 and pair of V-8s, all gasoline-powered as well as the Tundra’s two-year/25,000-mile free scheduled maintenance. Also unchanged: Consumer Reports lists the Tundra as a recommended buy, with reliability that has been above average.

Starting manufacturer’s suggested retail price, including destination charge, for Toyota’s largest pickup is $27,195 for a base, 2014 Tundra SR 4X2 Regular Cab with 270-horsepower V-6 and five-speed automatic transmission.

The lowest starting retail price for a 2014 Tundra with Double Cab is $28,085 for an SR 4X2 with standard bed and V-6. The lowest starting retail price for a 2014 Tundra with four-wheel drive is $32,180, and this is the base SR Double Cab model with 4.6-liter V-8.

Meantime, the lowest starting MSRP, including destination charge, for a 2014 Tundra SR5 4X2 CrewMax, which has four regular-size doors and an especially spacious back seat, is $35,455 with V-6.

Toyota offers two V-8s as well, and trim levels range beyond the base SR and next-level SR5 to Limited, Platinum and 1794 Edition.

Built at a San Antonio, Texas, assembly plant, the Tundra competes with America’s top-selling, full-size pickups.

The nation’s No. 1 seller, the Ford F-150, has a starting retail price, including destination charge, of $25,640 for an XL 4X2 Regular Cab with 302-horsepower V-6 and six-speed automatic.

Note that the base F-150 does not include power windows, power outside mirrors and power door locks, which come standard on every Tundra. These items are part of an option package on the base F-150 that pushes the price to $27,000, according to pricing on Ford’s consumer website.

Meanwhile, the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado full-size pickup carries a starting MSRP, including destination charge, of $26,670 for a 1500 4X2 Regular Cab model in 1WT trim with 285-horsepower V-6 and six-speed automatic. Adding a rearview camera to the base Silverado boosts the starting retail price to $27,505, which is $310 more than a base, 2014 Tundra that has a standard backup camera.

The U.S. full-size truck market, inhabited by loyal truck brand buyers, is a difficult segment to crack.

Tundra sales last calendar year grew 11 percent, to 112,732. But this was far below the 763,402 Ford F-Series truck sales.

Part of the problem is the limited Tundra product line. Unlike competitors, Toyota doesn’t sell heavy-duty versions of the Tundra and doesn’t offer a diesel engine or hybrid.

But buyers who don’t want or need complicated order forms for their new trucks can find Toyota’s Tundra line to be streamlined and easy to understand.

Another plus: Toyota’s reputation for durable and reliable vehicles tends to rate highly among Tundra buyers.

J.D. Power and Associates last year named Toyota the top mainstream car brand in dependability.

For sure, the 2014 Tundra 4X2 Limited Crewmax test truck had Toyota’s standout fit-and-finish, where body gaps between pieces of exterior sheet metal were precisely lined up and where trim pieces inside and out were solidly attached.

Riding on a rugged truck platform, the Tundra had some bounciness to the ride off road and on some pavement surfaces. But it was not exaggerated up-and-down movement, and in contrast to some other trucks, there was not a jittery feel to the ride. The test Tundra, with TRD off-road package that added Bilstein shock absorbers for a firmer ride, kept the ride from feeling floaty.

Indeed, the tester performed capably and confidently, even though the rack-and-pinion, hydraulic power steering felt a bit numb.

The Tundra Crewmax is a long vehicle, stretching 19 feet in length, so a driver has to be mindful of its size or risk cutting corners too tightly.

Passengers in the new Tundra look out onto a hood that is higher than its predecessor’s. It’s akin to the feeling of sitting at the wheel of a Ford pickup with powerdome hood.

Everyone has good views out because seats are up high. Running boards on the test Tundra were essential for convenient entry and exit but didn’t interfere with ground clearance of some 10 inches.

The Tundra’s interior upgrades that include new, more comfortable seats give a quality feel.

Especially helpful is the fact the center stack the middle part of the dashboard where radio, heating and cooling controls, etc. are located has been pulled 2.6 inches closer to the driver and front passenger. This makes it easier to reach the controls.

Unfortunately, the full-size pickup truck segment is one place where Toyota’s reputation for fuel economy doesn’t come into play.

The best fuel mileage rating by the federal government for the 2014 Tundra is 16 miles per gallon in city driving and 20 mpg on the highway with the V-6 and two-wheel drive.

The 2014 Ram 1500 HFE and 2014 Ford F-150, both with gasoline V-6s, rate considerably higher.

And the test Tundra, with Toyota’s well-regarded 5.7-liter, double overhead cam V-8 putting out 381 horsepower and 401-foot-pounds of torque at 3,600 rpm, averaged just under 15 mpg in combined city/highway travel. It’s rated by the federal government at 13 mpg in the city and 18 mpg on the highway.

The test truck’s powerplant, however, delivered strong performance through the six-speed automatic transmission. Even on steep mountain roads, the V-8 responded eagerly, and on flat pavement, the 0-to-60-miles-per-hour time is a commendable estimated 6.7 seconds.

Maximum towing capacity for the 2014 Tundra is 10,400 pounds.

Clean tech takes spotlight at Washington Auto Show

WASHINGTON Toyota and Hyundai brought their hydrogen-fueled cars to the nation’s capital on Wednesday, the day before the Washington Auto Show opens its door to the public.

The car companies hope to highlight clean-tech alternatives to plug-in electric vehicles at the expo, which industry insiders have dubbed the public policy show because of its proximity to federal decision-makers.

This year’s lineup includes one of the most diverse displays of green technology, including battery-powered electric engines, hybrids, clean diesel and hydrogen-fueled cars, said Washington Auto Show chair Kevin Reilly, who also owns a Hyundai dealership in Alexandria, Va.

Within 12 months, there are now more options for a policymaker, and ultimately a consumer, to look at in terms of how to power my vehicle, Reilly said.

Hyundai came to the show to feature its Tucson Fuel Cell crossover-utility vehicle, expected to reach the market at a few Hyundai dealers in Southern California this spring. The model takes less than 10 minutes to charge at special fueling stations, and can travel about 300 miles per charge. The car would initially be offered only for lease. A 36-month agreement would require an initial payment of about $3,000, and payments of about $500 a month.

Toyota is showing off its own hydrogen fuel-cell concept car, which it unveiled in the United States at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. Toyota expects the car to reach the market in 2015.

Nissan, meanwhile, announced it would test a new electric vehicle concept car in the Washington area though a partnership with FedEx Express, an express-delivery subsidiary of the shipping company, starting as early as March. This is the first time the e-NV200 Concept, a compact, fully electric cargo vehicle, will be driven in North America, the company said. Nissan is field testing it to determine its viability in the United States, and will begin mass production in Spain in the spring.

The Washington Auto Show organized by the Washington Area New Auto Dealers Association recognized Cadillac’s energy-efficient brake technology, awarding the company its annual Green Car Technology Award. Cadillac’s ELR Regen on Demand technology uses the car’s electric motor as an electricity generator while braking, and allows motorists to engage or disengage the feature while driving.

In a keynote at the show, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced that the Energy Department would commit about $50 million to accelerating development of new transportation technologies, especially in cost-effective batteries, advanced heating and improved fuels, among other innovations. The funding would continue to support the department’s EV Everywhere Challenge, which aims to make electric vehicles more affordable and convenient than gasoline-powered cars in the next decade.

Today, the American auto industry is on the rise, experiencing the best period of growth in more than a decade, Moniz said. The new research and development funding announced today will help support our domestic automakers continued growth and make sure that the next generation of advanced technology vehicles are built right here in America.

The Washington Auto Show is held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, running from Thursday to Feb. 2.

Kids' car seats could get a safety makeover

Child car seats would for the first time have to protect children from death and injury in side-impact crashes under regulations the government is proposing, The Associated Press has learned.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration seeks to upgrade standards for child seats for children weighing up to 40 pounds to include a new test that simulates a side crash. The agency estimates the standards will prevent the deaths of about five children and injuries to 64 others each year.

NHTSA Acting Administrator David Friedman is scheduled to announce the proposal Wednesday.

Under the proposal, the new tests will simulate a T-bone crash, where the front of a vehicle traveling 30 mph strikes the side of a small passenger vehicle traveling at 15 mph. The tests will position the car seat on a sled, with another sled ramming the side of the sled with the seat, rather than using actual vehicles since the aim isn’t to test the crash worthiness of specific vehicles, NHTSA officials said.

Research shows that many child deaths and injuries in side-impact crashes involve a car carrying children that is stopped at an intersection, usually at a light or stop sign, officials said. When the car begins to accelerate to go through the intersection, it is struck in the side by a vehicle traveling at a higher rate of speed on the cross street.

The side-impact test the first of its kind simulates both the acceleration of the struck vehicle and the vehicle’s door crushing inward toward the car seat. Besides using a 12-month-old child dummy already approved under NHTSA standards, the proposed test will also utilize a to-be-developed side-impact dummy representing a 3-year-old child.

As a father of two, I know the peace of mind this proposed test will give parents, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement. The test will give parents and car seat makers important new data on how car seats perform in side crashes.

Friedman called car seats an essential tool for keeping young children safe in vehicles and have a proven track record of saving lives.

Safety advocates have long sought tougher standards for car seats to protect against side-impact crashes.

I think this is terrific, said Joan Claybrook, who was the NHTSA administrator during the Carter administration and later president of Public Citizen. She noted that today’s passenger vehicles have eight air bags, in part to protect adults from side-impact crashes. We have an absolute moral obligation to protect children as well, she said.

NHTSA’s estimates of the number of lives that will be saved and injuries prevented by the proposed standards are very, very conservative, Claybrook said.

The public will have 90 days to comment on the proposed regulations after they are published this week. The regulations won’t be made final until after the agency has reviewed the comments and answered any important issues that may be raised. That typically takes months and sometimes years, although NHTSA officials said they hope to move quickly.

The proposal includes giving car seat manufacturers three years to make any adjustments to meet the new requirements. That window doesn’t begin until the regulations are made final.

2013, 2014 subcompact cars fare poorly in new crash tests

DETROIT Subcompact cars fared poorly in new crash tests performed by an insurance industry group.

None of the 12 minicars tested got the highest rating of good from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The Chevrolet Spark was the only car that earned the second-highest rating of acceptable. Six of the cars including the segment’s best-seller, the Nissan Versa got the lowest rating of poor.

All of the cars were from the 2013 or 2014 model years.

Small, lightweight vehicles have an inherent safety disadvantage. That’s why it’s even more important to choose one with the best occupant protection, said Joe Nolan, IIHS’s senior vice president for vehicle research.

The institute’s small overlap test, which was introduced in 2012, mimics what happens when a car’s front corner collides with another vehicle or an object like a utility pole. In the test, 25 percent of a vehicle’s front end on the driver’s side strikes a rigid barrier at 40 mph.

The test differs from the U.S. government’s frontal crash test, in which a car strikes a rigid barrier head-on at 35 mph.

IIHS says hitting only part of the front end makes it harder for cars to manage the energy from a crash. In several of the subcompacts, the structures collapsed, which can exacerbate injuries because the air bags, seats and other parts get knocked out of position.

In the test of the Honda Fit, for example, the steering column pushed so far into the vehicle that the dummy’s head slid off the air bag and hit the instrument panel. IIHS said the Fit was one of the worst performers in terms of potential injuries to the driver.

Honda responded that the 2015 Fit, which goes on sale in a few months, should earn a top score on the small offset test. The recently redesigned Honda Civic, which is one size up from the Fit, is among five small cars with good ratings on the test. A four-door Civic is around 300 pounds heavier and 18 inches longer than the current four-door Fit.

The current Fit does get top scores in the institute’s other four tests, including measurements of roof strength and side impact protection.

IIHS said the Fiat 500 was also one of the worst performers. The crash force ripped the door hinges off the 500, causing it to fall open during the test.

Spokesman Eric Maybe said the Fiat 500 meets all government safety requirements and, like the Fit, gets good ratings in all four of the institute’s other crash tests.

Cars with marginal ratings were the Kia Rio, Mazda2, Toyota Yaris and Ford Fiesta. Cars with poor ratings in addition to the Fit, the Fiat 500 and the Versa were the Toyota Prius C, Mitsubishi Mirage and Hyundai Accent.

Shelby Cobra takes another bite

Relive the iconic roadster’s racing heyday with a 50th anniversary limited edition Shelby 289 FIA replica.

Until Toyota started tinkering with electric motors, when a car was described as being a ‘hybrid’ it usually meant that it had a European body and chassis but that it was powered by a big block American engine.

And nowhere was this cross-border relationship more astounding, explosive or revolutionary as when a young US ex-racing driver called Carroll Shelby happened upon the AC Ace a lightweight, good-looking yet horrendously underpowered English roadster and decided to crowbar a huge Ford V8 into it.

The resulting car, the AC Cobra (or Shelby Cobra in the US) is one of the most iconic cars of the 1960s and to this day is still one of the fastest production cars ever built.

Developed to compete head to head with the crème of European supercars, the Cobra took no prisoners on the track and in 1964 its maiden year of competition in the World Manufacturing Championship series embarrassed a host of stalwarts including Aston Martin, Jaguar and even the Corvette.

The car also provided the foundations on which Ford was to later build its Le Mans 24 hours racing success, first with the Cobra Daytona coupé and eventually the equally iconic Ford GT40.

To celebrate what became its defining year, Shelby American is building 50 new Shelby 289 FIA Cobras. Each one will be finished in Viking Blue with FIA stripes and roundels, have a full FIA racing interior and feature a special badge denoting the car’s rarity and that it is a ‘continuation Cobra’ and therefore will be added to the official registry of racing cars built by the company.

The 289 FIA Shelby Cobras were among the most important cars in American racing history, said John Luft, president of Shelby American. The FIA Cobras built during that period were piloted by racing legends including Ken Miles, Dan Gurney, Phil Hill and Bob Bondurant. Thus, some of the most revered drivers in the sport put the 289 FIA Cobra into the winner’s circle. Combining a robust, powerful American engine with a lightweight chassis was sheer brilliance. Shelby’s formula still resonates today and is followed by automakers worldwide.

Aimed at hardened racers rather than simply classic and rare car collectors, each example will be available with either a fiberglass ($94,995) or an aluminum ($159,995) shell but won’t be coming with a drivetrain as standard. It’s down to each owner to specify the car’s setup to best suit their needs.

Auto shows do more for women, but lean towards men

Women now buy nearly half the new cars in the U.S., a sharp increase compared with a generation ago, and the auto industry is trying to demonstrate that it’s keeping up with the times when it showcases the latest models to the public.

Auto shows now offer cooking demonstrations, private tours and an increasing number of male models to appeal to female visitors.

But that hardly means the industry has shelved a staple of nearly 100 years of auto shows: having female models preening beside the latest sports car or SUV.

The shows, which are run by dealers, say they’re trying to attract more women with events like fashion shows. The North American International Auto Show in Detroit doesn’t keep track of visitors by gender, but the New York International Auto Show says 40 percent of its 1 million visitors in 2013 were women, up from 29 percent two years before. Spokesman Chris Sams said the show made a point of reaching out to women, using more females in its ads and hosting special parties and tours. It even held a contest to find the best place to store a purse in a car.

But contrast that with the scene at media previews for this year’s Detroit auto show, which opens to the public Saturday. General Motors’ CEO Mary Barra, who just this week became the first female head of a major automaker, walked the floor in a conservative black suit past Corvette models in skimpy dresses and leather jackets. Young women in towering heels handed out breath mints around the corner from plunging necklines at Infiniti.

Face it. Automotive is a men’s industry and it’s always a novelty to be among the women who are there, said Brandy Schaffels, the editor of AskPatty.com, an automotive site for women.

But as females gain more income and buying power not to mention corner offices automakers may have to rethink using the short skirt to grab attention.

Some automakers have already done away with models altogether. At Honda’s stand in Detroit, the focus was on the brand’s new Fit subcompact and a futuristic fuel-cell car called the FCEV. The company says it tries to appeal to the broadest range of customers at its show stands.

Across the way, Ford set up a sample assembly line in its exhibit, which is staffed by both men and women. Ford’s Chief Operating Officer, Mark Fields, said women and younger buyers, in particular, come to auto shows to get educated.

Fields said Ford no longer uses scantily-clad female models like it did 15 years ago. The company’s data shows that women buy 41 to 42 percent of new cars each year, up from 20 percent in 1980. Among buyers 30 and younger, women account for 56 percent of new car purchases.

That’s how we make sure auto shows stay relevant, Fields said.

But there are still plenty of theatrics at the Detroit show, which is expecting more than 800,000 visitors this week. Over at Dodge, models in tight white dresses and shiny go-go boots strike poses in front of an orange Challenger muscle car.

Bo Puffer, who hires the models that the Chrysler Group uses at its 71 U.S. auto shows, is unapologetic.

A good-looking person next to a good-looking car is a formula that’s going to work for us no matter what brand it is, Puffer said.

Puffer matches models to each brand. For example, Fiat places younger presenters, near its cars because it’s trying to attract younger buyers. The Ram pickup has male presenters. Eighty percent of Puffer’s hires are female, he says, but that’s partly because more women try out for the jobs. Those who are hired spend a week learning about the brand so they can answer visitors’ questions.

Mercedes-Benz calls the presenters product specialists, not models, says Donna Boland, manager of U.S. corporate communications. Boland said the company hires all kinds of people, including a pregnant woman who is working at the Smart exhibit this year.

We don’t pander to the lowest common denominator, Boland said. We want everybody to be able to see themselves as a Mercedes owner.

Teckla Rhoads, GM’s director of global industrial design, has male and female models wearing yellow T-shirts and Converse sneakers near the youthful Chevrolet Spark, but puts women in sexier dresses next to the Corvette.

It’s not gratuitous. It’s to help reinforce what that vehicle is, she said. That’s not to say that a 6-foot tall woman in a tight dress isn’t going to be really attention-getting. We get that. But there’s also a spirit of fun about it.

Too many cars, not enough workplace chargers

Eager to reduce energy use, German software company SAP installed 16 electric vehicle charging ports in 2010 at its Palo Alto campus for the handful of employees who owned electric vehicles.

Just three years later, SAP faces a problem that is increasingly common at Silicon Valley companies far more electric cars than chargers. Sixty-one of the roughly 1,800 employees on the campus now drive a plug-in vehicle, overwhelming the 16 available chargers. And as demand for chargers exceeds supply, a host of thorny etiquette issues have arisen, along with some rare but notorious incidents of charge rage.

In the beginning, all of our EV drivers knew each other, we had enough infrastructure, and everyone was happy. That didn’t last for long, said Peter Graf, SAP’s chief sustainability officer and the driver of a Nissan Leaf. Cars are getting unplugged while they are actively charging, and that’s a problem. Employees are calling and messaging each other, saying, ‘I see you’re fully charged, can you please move your car?’

SAP is now drafting charging guidelines for its EV-driving employees.

Consider it the dark side of workplace charging, which has joined on-site sushi chefs, massages and stock options as an expected perk in Silicon Valley.

If you want to attract the best people and top talent, EV charging is a must-have, said Graf. It’s a recruitment tool.

Campbell-based ChargePoint operates the world’s largest network of electric vehicle charging stations 15,000 across the United States, Europe and Australia. It tells its corporate clients including Google, Facebook, Target, Whole Foods and Disney that they need one charging port for every two of their employees’ electric vehicles.

Charging an EV can take as little as a half-hour, to top it off, to as long as eight hours, depending on the vehicle and how much it is already charged.
If you don’t maintain a 2-to-1 ratio, you are dead, said ChargePoint CEO Pat Romano. Having two chargers and 20 electric cars is worse than having no chargers and 20 electric cars. If you are going to do this, you have to be willing to continue to scale it.

PG&E expects to see as many as 800,000 electric vehicles on the road within its Northern California territory by the end of 2020, up from just 20,000 now, and the valley is a hot spot of adoption. In addition to home charging stations, there are nearly 20,000 public and workplace electric vehicle charging stations across the United States, according to a tally maintained by the Department of Energy. Of those, more than 5,000 are in California.

But at many workplaces, the number of electric cars is multiplying much faster than the number of charging stations. Adding new chargers is not always easy, as many companies lease their facilities instead of owning them outright, making them loath to install permanent infrastructure. In addition, the chargers themselves are expensive.

George Betak learned firsthand the perils of charge rage last fall when he worked at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale headquarters, where he said more than 100 employees who drove plug-in vehicles regularly tussled over limited charging spots.

Betak, who no longer works at Yahoo, drives the all-electric BMW Active E and one day made the grave mistake of unplugging a colleague’s Chevy Volt.

I needed to be somewhere by 6 p.m., and all of the active chargers were full. I couldn’t plug in all day, he said. There was a Volt that appeared to be finished charging, so I unplugged it so I could get a half-hour boost. The Volt isn’t pure electric it also has a gasoline engine. The next day, I learned that the Volt owner was furious, and he sent out this email blast saying that I stole his charge. It was awful.

Many electric vehicles have apps that communicate its level of charge to the owner, and some workplaces urge employees to make sure those alerts are set up, so cars can be moved as soon as they are fully charged. In typical Silicon Valley fashion, one company has turned to technology to juggle the charging logistics.

Infoblox, a network control company, has 260 employees at its headquarters in Santa Clara. Of those, 27 have plug-in electric vehicles, or roughly 10 percent of the workforce. But the company has only six charging stations, a shortage that has led to the creation of an internal EV user distribution list, as well as a shared calendar for managing charging slots.

You have to book your charging time on Outlook, said David Gee, Infoblox’s executive vice president of marketing and the owner of a Tesla Model S. You can only book for a two-hour window. But Rule No. 1 is: No one touches anyone else’s car without permission.

The 27 EVs at Infoblox include several Nissan Leafs, Toyota Prius Plug-Ins, Chevy Volts, a Ford Focus EV and a few Model S sedans. But there’s no hierarchy among the vehicles, nor do top executives get special charging rights. If anyone overstays their allotted time, the emails come fast: Will the owner of the red Leaf in Bay #3 move their car now?

It’s a highly egalitarian community, said Gee. Public shaming is the best motivator.

The car of the future, today

Cars that park themselves, radar-guided safety sensors and infotainment systems with web access; automakers are competing for customers who now expect constant innovation.

The speed at which the new features are migrating from premium models downward and spreading among brands is accelerating as automakers jostle for attention in an increasingly crowded market.

The hottest new technology in cars today is voice-to-text functionality that reads a driver’s emails or texts as they come in and allows the driver to dictate a response without looking away from the road, Karl Brauer, senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book, told AFP.

Automakers have aligned themselves with tech giants to lure customers with increasingly complex but hopefully still intuitive systems to transform their consoles into souped-up smart phones.

Navigation has been upgraded to integrate online consumer reviews from sites like Yelp, and guide motorists to roadside businesses.

Touch screens reminiscent of an iPad have been added to consoles outfitted with apps like Pandora music streaming.

Then there are proprietary apps aimed at fixing life’s little problems.

Touch a button on your phone and your lost car will pop up on a map. Still can’t find it in the parking lot? Tap again and the phone will honk your horn. Locked the keys inside? Another button opens the door.

Worried that your teenager is driving too fast or hanging out with the wrong crowd? There’s an app that will send you a text message if they surpass a chosen speed or leave a designated area.

The real challenge for automakers is to make sure all of this technology doesn’t become a dangerous distraction, said Art St. Cyr, head of product planning at American Honda.

Keeping it out of the car simply isn’t possible: people are too attached to their smart phones and don’t want to be disconnected, he said.

The key is to reduce the cognitive load, St Cyr told reporters on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show.

Voice activation certainly helps, but automakers have also invested in developing safety systems that can compensate for distracted or sleepy drivers.

Initially available only in luxury cars and then premium models, complex collision-avoidance technology is being introduced to the mass market.

Chrysler is decking out a new midsized 200 sedan unveiled in Detroit Monday with an entry price of just $21,700 with a full spectrum of safety features previously only available in pricier models.

Video cameras mounted onto the windshield detect lines in the road to warn drivers if they are straying out of a lane and electrical steering wheels will even kick the car back into position.

Radars mounted under the grill can see through fog to measure the distance to the nearest vehicle, register a change in speed and then slow down or even stop the car if a driver doesn’t notice the looming brake lights.

And a blind spot monitor will sound an alert if a driver misses a blinking light in the side view mirror and flips the turn signal.

Rear view cameras are becoming standard features even on entry-level models like Honda’s new compact Fit and Kia is stepping up the game by adding front and side views to the K900 which was unveiled in Detroit.

Plenty of premium models are helping drivers with pesky parking problems by measuring distances and controlling the steering wheel for the perfect parallel or even perpendicular parking job.

BMW takes it a step further in its new electric i3 which hits showrooms in a few months.

Not only does it help to search for parking spots big enough to squeeze into, it will then completely take over the job by controlling the steering, braking and acceleration.

Automakers are also competing with simpler features like a vacuum cleaner in Honda’s top-selling Odyssey minivan, a sensor that will pop the trunk of a Mercedes, Ford or Cadillac when your hands are full, and EZ-lift tailgates on the new GMC pickup.

But the biggest innovations are under the hood, said Bob Carter, head of automotive operations at Toyota Motor Sales USA.

Complex hybrid engines have become commonplace and people are even getting used to seeing purely electric cars like Nissan’s Leaf on the road.

The holy grail of green cars hydrogen fuel cell engines that emit nothing but water vapor is already on the road in test markets and will be hitting Toyota showrooms next year. Rivals Ford, Honda, BMW, Daimler, and Renault-Nissan won’t be far behind.

To bring it to the floor is over 20 years of research, Carter told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of the show.

2014 Nissan Versa Note is roomy, has a great price, but lacks power

Everyone needs a first car, and there are quite a few options out there for them as they search. And increasingly, folks aren’t going to just accept any old tiny ride they want something with a little bit of room.

Nissan is one of the companies clearly going after this audience (first-time buyers and those who just want a low-cost new vehicle), and the 2014 Nissan Versa Note is their offering in this realm. I recently spent some time behind the wheel of one and am back with my thoughts on how well it performed.

LOOKS

From the exterior, the 2014 Versa Note looks very small, but that’s because the trunk and engine areas are pretty tiny. Inside the car, where you actually sit, you have a surprising amount of room; more than I imagined when I first saw it.

The design isn’t exactly breathtaking, but I wouldn’t call it ugly either. It’s a fine balance that had to be struck here to maximize cabin space.
To keep costs down, materials in the vehicle are pretty basic and unspectacular, but when you’re marketing a car at an entry-level audience, you’re not getting folks looking for fancy so this shouldn’t be a major concern for most trying out the Versa Nate. The champagne and caviar crowd isn’t going to be shopping for this vehicle (they’ll be in the Infiniti lot).

ENGINE, HP

The Versa Note features a 1.6-liter, 4-cylinder engine that packs just 109 horsepower;

This is the point at which people will decide whether to even consider a car like the Versa Note; If that’s just not enough power for them, they’ll move on to a higher level of vehicle options.

For many though, just getting around town is all that matters, so they don’t mind being a little down on power if they can save some money. I found this level of power tolerable some of the time, but also somewhat annoying on occasion when I really wanted to get going.

And it must be mentioned that the engine is a bit noisier than I would have preferred. I got used to it after a few days driving the vehicle, but it a factor potential buyers will definitely have to consider.

MPG

The official mileage numbers on the 2014 Versa Note are pretty impressive, roughly 35 mpg average (31 city/40 highway); I didn’t quite get to these levels, but wasn’t far behind. These are decent numbers for a vehicle like this.

SAFETY FEATURES

The Versa Note features anti-lock brakes, child seat latches, traction control, vehicle dynamic control, a tire pressure monitoring system, electronic brake force distribution and brake assist, and the usual list of airbags (driver, passenger, side impact and curtain).

TECH FEATURES

Just because you’re going on the lower end pricewise, you don’t have to skimp on everything, and the Versa Note has options for those who want some creature comforts in their ride.

Features than can be added via the $1,700 SL package include: 16-inch wheels (as opposed to the standard 15-inch), push-button ignition, heated front seats, fog lights, 4.3 inch color display with iPod control, satellite radio and a rearview monitor.

On top of that, the technology package can be added for a reasonable $800, and includes: NissanConnect with Navigation System to help you get where you need to go; a bigger 5.8-inch color touchscreen display; Nissan Voice Recognition for audio and navigation; NavTraffic and NavWeather; Google Send-to-car compatibility; Streaming audio via Bluetooth; Hands-free text messaging assistant; an AroundView Monitor (an improved backup camera system which is very helpful when backing up by showing what is on all sides), and heated side mirrors.

PRICE

The Versa Note I tested (the Versa Note SV) has a base price of just under $16K, but rose to about $19.5K with all the options added.
The most basic Versa Note starts at just under $14K. Hard to beat that price on a new car, but be aware of what you are getting before committing it’s an entry-level ride, so you shouldn’t expect it to be more than that.

BOTTOM LINE

Getting hold of a first-time car buyer and making them loyal is what all automakers are trying to do with their lower-cost models. Nissan doesn’t necessarily hit it out of the park with the Versa Note, but they’re still solidly on base and have the right price point to try to get some customers with this vehicle.

There’s enough to like on the Versa Note in terms of design, features and overall style that it should capture the eye of some on the hunt for an inexpensive ride, even if the power isn’t going to knock anyone’s socks off.