Now this is actually six different kinds of awesome right here, folks–now, you all probably remember the last time we brought up the idea of the breathalyzer, how it connected to your steering column and wouldn’t let you drive unless you blew a clean meter?

Well, this one isn’t quite so restrictive, but it IS a lot more portable.  It’s the Breathalyzer Keychain, and it is pretty much what it sounds like it is, a Breathalyzer on a key chain.  You know we love our key chains out here at Car Buyer’s Notebook, so this is definitely one we had to discuss.

You can actually TRACK your progression throughout the night, seeing what makes you drunker as you go, or trying to see how many pretzels it takes to drop your blood alcohol content.  I look for something like this to become the focus of dozens of bar contests as people bet on who’s drunker, or what somebody’s blood alcohol content is.

Best off, they’re not too pricey, either.  You can get one of these for as little as fifteen bucks.

Tags: alcohol, bar bet, blood alcohol content, drunk drivier, drunk driving, key chain

Okay, this was actually too hilarious not to pass on.  Seriously, it’s this good.

I was over on AskMen.com looking for something to talk about when I blundered onto a list of gadgets for the car that are pretty much useless, or otherwise stupid.  And they were talking about the emergency trunk release system for the Lotus.

Now, this is technically a safety requirement, but it’s a lot like those “Warning: Do Not Use In Bathtub” warning labels on the sides of hair dryers.  Because those are also a safety requirement but they’re no less hilarious.  Anyway, the Lotus line of cars has an emergency trunk release system, on the off chance that someone should be trapped in the trunk.

The funny part comes in when you consider that a Lotus trunk is barely large enough for a pizza box, let along a fully grown (or even partially grown) human being.

Of course, you could follow AskMen’s lead and make a joke about Britney Spears here (wonder if she could get Sean Preston into the trunk? ) but it’s sufficient to let it be hair-dryer-warning-label hilarious all on its own.

Tags: car trunk, emergency, emergency trunk release system, Lotus, lotus car

Right now, New York state is pitching the idea of replacing all New York plates with these “Empire Gold” plates. They are similar to plates used in the seventies and eighties, and have the “official New York colors”, which I had no idea were blue and gold.

The reason for this replacement would be safety, and “reduce the number of unregistered and uninsured vehicles on our roads”. However, there is a price. About $25 from every New York driver which would generate $129 million in General funds over 2 years.

As if those pesky Vehicle Registration Stickers weren’t bad enough for New Yorkers.

Source

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We’ve all been there at one time or another, out for an evening, and we’ve had a couple, and it’s not exactly easy to tell if you’re sufficiently blasted to call a cab or you can get your car home without too much trouble.  And frankly, it never helps that the cops have breathalyzers and such–because they can KNOW while you’re left to merely guess.

Now you can improve your guesses with the AlcoHawk portable breathalyzer.  It has a folding mouthpiece and an easy to read LED screen that tells you, just as surely as it tells the cops, just how much alcohol is in your system at any given time.

It’ll detect any range between nothing at all and .40, which is actually where you need to be in order to DIE FROM ALCOHOL POISONING, (the range, depending on tolerance, is actually about .37 to .50) so you know it’ll handle the complete range.

I personally like this idea, myself…if drunk drivers can keep themselves off the road, then that’s a whole lot fewer accidents.

Tags: AlcoHawk, AlcoHawk portable breathalyzer, drunk, drunk drivers, drunk driving

Every former president always sees fit that he should give advice to the current administration, probably because they are the ones who can understand what Obama is going through.

George W. Bush has recently spoken to the Montreal Board of Trade and has said that the Obama administration should “get out of the private sector”.

continue reading "Bush Jr. to Obama: “Leave the Auto industry”"

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It’s a strange dilemma China has on its hands.  And most Chinese will probably never even see this blog due to the massive censorship on its hands.

We all know that China’s so polluted that their air makes Los Angeles smog taste like a crisp mountain stream.  So naturally, they’re really putting the push on to go green and get some more electric cars on the market.

Well, they’re not the only ones there, but China’s got a SERIOUS problem.  Where most of us have been driving cars for a long time, and are starting to seriously think about going green just by ourselves, the Chinese have not had cars all that long.  Well, not INDIVIDUAL Chinese, anyway.  Individual Chinese haven’t had cars all that long and now that they’ve got them, they mean to keep them.

Now along comes the government telling them, oh, yeah, I know you’ve had this car like all of six weeks but we need you to give it back to the state.  Oh, don’t worry–we have electric cars coming out.  When?  Um…soon.  And they’ll only cost as much as what you paid for the last car!  Subsidies?  Um…look…just get back to work, okay?  Or we’ll kill your children.  You know how this works by now.

It’s a tough road China’s got to drive to get its citizens to go green, and there are plenty of ruts and bumps in it.

Tags: china, Chinese, electric cars, Gas, gas cars, going green, green cars

How can I tell?  Well, considering that they’re planning a massive new set of tax initiatives targeting anyone who buys or operates a vehicle, it sure SEEMS like they don’t want you driving anywhere.

How massive, you ask?  Well, in terms of US dollars, you can figure that they’re planning to add roughly FIVE GRAND in taxes to the cost of every new car.  Of course, that particular tax is being phased in in installments over the course of the next eleven years, but still, five grand?  That’s no small feat.

And as if that weren’t horrendous enough, they’re also planning an increase in the gas tax, which will make gas cost, roughly, three pounds per liter, or in US money, roughly thirteen bucks a gallon.

This egregious push is being dubbed “essential” in order for Great Britain to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets, but critics, not surprisingly, are saying that this is all a push to treat drivers like the government’s own personal piggy bank.

This is, of course, nightmarish in its extremity, and hopefully will drive Brits into the streets to protest this sickening abuse of power.

Tags: Engalnd, gas prices, great britain, Law, taxes

For a while there, drivers in Victoria in Australia were about to be forbidden from using their cell phones as navigation devices while driving.

This actually may have been a good idea, if somewhat unenforceable–you’d have to actually see into every car to find out who was doing it, especially if they kept the phone below the window line–because, after all, most cell phones are distractions waiting to happen in cars, and distractions are just accidents that haven’t happened yet.

But VicRoads, the agency that oversees Victorian road use, realized they were sort of tossing the baby out with the bathwater, and instead agreed to allow the devices if they were in cradles or remotely operated.

This is probably all for the best anyway as, when it comes to car navigation, you really want something that announces your turns and such, not something you have to read, especially while you’re driving.  You want your attention focused as fully as possible on the road ahead, not on some LCD screen in your car.

Tags: cell phone, GPS, in-car navigation, mobile navigation, Navigation

Over the course of the next two years, the British government, as announced by transport secretary Lord Adonis, has announced that they’ll be installing a whopping two thousand electric car “charging points” over the next two years.

First to benefit from the new additions will be Gateshead and Newcastle, and the word is that the charge points will be located near shops and other public thoroughfares, likely because that’s where people are mostly likely to be driving their electric cars to.  In an interesting move, some of them will also be placed curbside and in parking lots (park and juice up…now there’s an idea.).

Some of them will be free to use, while others will require an annual subscription fee to access, and hopefully everyone will know which is which well in advance to prevent any misunderstandings.  I can just see people pull up to a charge point with their battery on  low just to discover that they’ve pulled up to a subscription-only point.

Of course, since the subscription includes unlimited use, hopefully good Samaritans will be along to provide a little extra juice in cases like that.  But still–this is a pretty bright idea whose time has more than come.

Tags: charge point, Electric, electric car, free for use, great britain, subscription

You know, I’ve taken a look at my car more than once and, despite the fact that it gets a decent twenty eight miles per gallon highway, I’ve said that most of the time, I don’t need the whole car to do things.  I live maybe five miles from the nearest post office.  Almost ten from the nearest video store and about twelve from the movie theater.  Don’t get me started how far I have to go for a decent plate of Olive Garden.  I can’t just walk or bicycle everywhere, but I don’t need the cargo space my car affords half the time.

But the boys at BMW have apparently heard my lament, because they’ve come up with the half-car, half-motor scooter C1-E.  This all electric vehicle doesn’t require a helmet to drive (at least in Europe) because of its roll cage and reinforced front nose.

I doubt you’ll be able to get this in the US any time soon, but it’s still pretty awesome, either way.

Tags: BMW, BMW C1-E, Car, Electric, electric car, electric scooter, scooter

Well, NASCAR fans, apparently now there’s less to worry about than you might have been afraid of.  Remember how those extra cars went into inspection at NASCAR’s R&D section?  Turns out they’ve gone through two such inspections now and they’ve both been cleared by NASCAR for both tests.

As it turns out, however, the cars only just barely passed inspection, and the crew chiefs of each car were warned not to bring the cars back for the next race.

Rival race companies muttered blackly about alleged “favoritism”, but the Hendricks boys don’t see it that way, rationally pointing out that they actually DID pass inspection, if not by much.

So the Hendricks team will be back for race day next time, but likely in different cars.

Tags: favoritism, nascar, nascar drivers, NASCAR R&D, passed inspection

If recent reports are to be believed we may be seeing a police cruiser based on the late and great Pontiac G8 get unveiled at some point on Monday, October 5th. Make note that back in April we told you that GM would be killing off the Pontiac brand by 2011 but perhaps one of its models will live on.

The reason we point to Monday as its assumed release is because that is when the International Association of Chiefs of Police convention will go down in Denver, CO.

Of course, GM hasn’t actually said that this new cop car would be based on the G8 so until they do we will stamp this as a rumor.

via autoblog

Tags: cop car, g8, international association of chiefs of police, Police, Pontiac, rumor

While the United States has been working on a green campaign for some time now, other countries are still working to catch up with their own campaigns for more environmentally friendly vehicles. The French, in particular, have just announced a 10-year plan in which they will pump €2.5 billion into the production and deployment of all-electric-vehicles.

The French government hopes that with their efforts there will be 1 million charging stations around the country by 2015 and 4 million by 2020. Furthermore, they hope that by 2020 electric vehicles will make up for 16% of new car sales while 2025 will see 27% made up of the environmentally friendly vehicles.

Let’s hope that this plan works and that more national governments across the world hop on board.

Read (Reuters)

Tags: all electric, campaign, ev, France, french government

Question: How do you make a teen driver into a safe driver?

Answer: Rules.  And plenty of them.

As it turns out, when parents make it clear what the rules of car operation within the family are, when parents don’t “give” a child a car to use but rather keep all vehicles for family use, they make their children into better, safer drivers.

I can speak from a personal experience in which rules were made and will personally attest to a lack of accidents on my part.  I may well be one of a handful of people on the North American continent who has yet to receive a traffic ticket.  Like, as in, ever.

It’s interesting, but even a few simple rules about cellphone use while driving, or even just curfew periods or prearranged destinations can make children safer while driving.  And the safer the children are, the better off we all are.

Tags: fundamental rules, rules, safe driving, safer driving, teen driver, teen driving, teenagers

You may have already read our detail of the huge government grant that went to Fisker Automotive for its construction of their new electric sports car.  Well, what just came out in the Wall Street Journal is a bit of explanation as to the WHY behind it.

See, Fisker Automotive has a major name backer behind it; you may recognize the name  when I tell you it’s Al Gore.  That five hundred and twenty nine million is going to Fisker so they can build “a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000″.

Naturally, Fisker cars are also backed by a whole lot of celebrities who all, interestingly enough, voted Democrat in the last election.  Fisker defends itself by saying that most technology starts out pricey, but eventually becomes affordable, and cites flatscreen televisions as an example.

Yes, this is true, but generally we don’t pay foreign flatscreen makers tax money to build them in the hopes that, one day, we’ll get to BUY THEM!  Oh, and those five thousand jobs that Fisker mentioned?  From the look of it, they’ll be in Finland rather than in the United States.

My disgust is palpable.

Tags: electric cars, electric roadster, Fisker, fisker automotive, Tesla, tesla motors