Today, a new world record has been made for fastest speed for a battery-powered vehicle: 313 miles on a single charge. The drivers were Simon Hackett and Emilis Prelgauskas, and the car was a 2008 Tesla Roadster.

The place was Austrailia as part of the Global Green Challenge. By the way, there was 3 miles left on the battery at the end of the run.

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Yesterday we told you that Ford’s hybrid sales were up 73% over last year but we had no idea the Detroit automaker was going to see this kind of success. Recent reports have surfaced that suggest Ford is dangerously close to surpassing Honda as the second best hybrid seller in the United States.

Let’s take a look at some numbers: Honda has sold 29,958 hybrid vehicles so far this year which is a 8% increase over last year while Ford sold 26,016 vehicles, a 73% increase over last year like we already told you.

If these trends continue, by this time next year we may very well be seeing the U.S. hybrid seller top 3 looking like Toyota, Ford, Honda. But don’t pop the champagne yet, Ford, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

via autobloggreen

Tags: auto sales, Ford, Honda, hybrid, Toyota

Nissan has annouced today that they will be recalling a staggering 143,000 vehicles of the 2008-2010 model year including the Cube, Murano, Rogue and Infiniti M35/M45.

Apparently, there is a problem with a nut in the Tire Pressure Monitoring system that has the possibility of corrosion due to salted roads. If this nut were to corrode it could cause the system to malfunction making the driver unaware of a possible deflation. Just imagine, the nut comes out and the system malfunctions and then sometime after you get a flat tire and aren’t made aware of it. Safety hazard? You betcha.

Nissan says to head to your local Infiniti or Nissan dealership to get the problem checked out.

via nhsta

Tags: Cube, Infiniti, m35, m45, Murano, Nissan, Recall, rogue

Audi has recently announced that they will be issuing a recall for over 10,000 of their A3 and TT vehicles of the 2006-2010 model years.

The recall is over a potentially massive problem; a spring that keeps the fuel tank ventilation valve shut. If, under whatever conditions, this spring were to come loose gasoline could leak into the engine causing a massive fire or worse.

If you have one of these vehicles in question you most likely have nothing to worry about unless you get a call from VW of America but if you want to be on the safe side head over to your local dealership and have them check it out.

via autoblog

Tags: A3, Audi, fuel tank, Recall, safety hazard, spring, TT, ventilation valve

I don’t know about you guys but I have a need for speed that’s why when I saw the video of Stillen’s Nissan GT-R sprinting from 0-60 in 2.9 seconds (included above) I just had to report it.

Stillen managed to pull a full 620HP from the car’s 2 turbochargers along with reducing the weight significantly thanks to a bunch of carbon fiber and lightweight seats.

Don’t expect to see this tuning kit made available for purchase as this is strictly a track car although I’d love to take it for a quick spin on the highway.

Read (Stillen)

Tags: gt-r, Nissan, race car, stillen, track car

The BMW Z4 isn’t a slow car by any means, considering it has a full 306HP stock, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. BMW has yet to announce any tuning kits for the car and has kept generally quiet about whatever they have cookin’ in their labs.

Luckily, a tuning firm by the name of Manhart Racing has managed to give Z4 owners exactly what they are looking for, a boost of 244HP. They have managed this by dropping a reworked V10 engine, found in BMW models such as the M5 and M6, into the Z4 effectively giving it a huge boost. All of this additional power will give the Z4 a 0 – 62 mph sprint of just 3.9 seconds in addition to getting the 150MPh electronic speed limiter removed.

Couple all of this with an M5 6-speed manual transmission and differential and you have yourself the baddest BMW Z4 on the road.

via wcf

Tags: BMW, engine, m5, manhart racing, manual transmission, swap, tuning kit, Z4

Toyota has really been issuing the recalls left and right lately — Their latest recall affects 95,700 vehicles including the 2009-2010 Corolla and Matrix along with the 2008-2009 1.8-liter engine touting Scion xD.

The recall deals with braking problems caused by condensation and ice formations that could lead the power assisted brakes to malfunction. This malfunction can lead to an increased stopping distance and ultimately brake failure.

Below is the like of 19 states that the recall is valid in:

Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

As always, Toyota says to head to your local dealership to get the problem looked at.

via Press

Tags: brakes, cold, condensation, corolla, failure, Recall, Scion, Toyota, xd

Have you ever wanted to get your hands on a vehicle that potentially has the ability to reach speeds of up to 1,000mph? Well now you can as the late and great Steve Fossett’s jet car has recently gone on sale over at Project 100.

This car was supposed to be driven by Fossett before he disappeared on September 3rd, 2007 and was said to have a high probability of beating the 763MPH record set by Thrust SSC.

via speedhunters

Tags: auction, jet car, steve fossett, world record

If your daily driver is a Toyota Camry, Corolla, Vios or Yaris and you are situated in China, definitely read on — Toyota has recently announced that they are recalling 688,314 sedans manufactured in China. Apparently, the vehicles in question shipped with a defective electronic window control system caused by excessive lubricant.

Reports suggest that this problem could potentially escalate and result in overheating of the door panel and in extreme cases, melting. You wouldn’t want that now would you?

Read (Gasgoo)

Tags: Camry, china, corolla, electronic window control, lubricant, safety hazard, vios, Yaris

GM recently detailed their intentions to officially bring the iconic Mustang to NASCAR. After this announcement, speculation began circulating that the Camaro too would be making its NASCAR debut.

Well it seems that speculation was wrong as Mark Kent, GM Racing head-honcho, recently commented on the car’s NASCAR involvement:

We’ve looked at racing the Camaro, and one thing we do not want to do is to force the car where it shouldn’t be, We looked at NASCAR, for example–took a very hard look at running the Camaro in the Nationwide series. That was a request made of us by NASCAR, and we have had a tremendous partnership with NASCAR, so we took a very hard look at it. At the end of the day, because of the quest for very close competition and the need to have templated bodies in that series, we felt that by forcing the Camaro into the Nationwide templates that we were compromising the body lines of an iconic car. So at the end of the day we just could not get the Camaro in the Nationwide series to satisfy our requirements.

Don’t lose all hope though as Kent then went on to say that the Camaro will most likely be making some sort of racing debut at some point in the near future. Unfortunately however, those looking for a Camaro NASCAR vehicle to transform into Bumblebee on the race track will have to wait until a later date.

via AutoWeek

Tags: camaro, GM, gm racing, mustnag, nascar, Racing

GM is just starting to get their footing in the industrey back but that doesn’t mean they are prone to production problems. Their latest recall deals with 185,903 2004-2009 trucks including the Chevy Colorado, GMC Canyon, Isuzu I-280, Isuzu I-290, Isuzi I-350, and the Isuzu I-370.

This particular recall concerns the vehicle’s brake-lamp switch that, due to a production error, could possibly malfunction which means they either won’t work, or will stay lit while the car is on. This is a safety hazard because drivers behind a vehicle with a malfunctioning brake-lamp don’t know when the car is slowing down increasing the probability of a crash.

Like always, GM and the NHSTA say that you can bring your car to a local dealership to get the problem diagnosed and fixed if needed.

Tags: brake lamp, canyon, Colorado, GM, i-280, i-290, i-370, i350, Isuzu, Recall, safety

VW and the NHTSA have recently issued a recall that will effect up to 14,416 Touareg SUVs of the 2007-2009 model years. Unfortunately, the car’s spoiler won’t cause the entire vehicle to take flight but the spoiler itself? That’s a different story.

According to VW the spoiler attached to the back of the effected Touaregs poses the threat of possible coming loose from the vehicle and causing all sorts of havoc. The problem deals with loose fastening struts connecting the spoiler to the car.

VW owners can head to their local dealership if they have an effected vehicle where the problem will be fixed for free.

Read (Autoblog)

Tags: detachment, nhtsa, Recall, safety hazard, spoiler, touareg

While other automakers are feeling the heat from the jumbled economy, BMW and MINI aren’t feeling the same — The automakers have recently annouced via a press statement that they will be adding 17 new U.S. dealerships expanding the overall network to 100 total.

The increase in dealerships is due to a spike in MINI sales which they hope to increase by expanding their United States’ presence.

The first dealership will open in Birmingham, Alaabama while all of the other dealerships are listed in the press release after the break.

continue reading "MINI dealerships to increase by 20%"

Tags: dealership, Mini, network, Sales, spike

Volvo has recently announced that they are issuing a recall for 17,614 2008-09 vehicles including the S80, V70 and XC70 models.

The automaker says that there is an error in the on-board software’s programming that could potentially cause the engine’s cooling fan to fail. This means bad air-conditioner performance but more importantly could cause the engine to fail raising all sorts of safety risks.

Volvo says to head to their local dealership to get the car inspected and outfitted with a new fan control module, if necessary, free of charge.

Tags: fan control module, onboard, Recall, S80, safety, Software, V70, xc70

Ford, together with Microsoft, first announced their Sync system a few years ago and the system made its debut on the 2008 Ford Focus. Ever since its debut Sync has been offered in just about every Ford, Mercury and Lincoln model.

Well, Ford and Sync have come a long way as the automaker has recently stated that they have shipped their 1 millionth vehicle that was equipped with Sync. In fact, the millionth vehicle was given to Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, as a gift.

Futhermore, Ford also says that they have updated Sync’s software so that it can now check the weather, breaking news events, traffic reports and turn-by-turn navigation. Ford currently only offers the Sync system in English, Spanish and French but hope to expand it to German, Mandarin, Arabic, Italian, Dutch and Russian in an attempt to expand their market share.

It’s nice to see at least one US automaker is doing good in these tough economic times.

Read (KickingTires)

Tags: communication systems, In-Car, Lincoln, Mercury, Navigation, Software, Sync, system, technology, traffic reports, weather conditions