click above for high-res gallery of the 2009 Dodge Challenger SE and R/T

Back in April we reported a top Chrysler executive had leaked to The Detroit Free Press that the 2009 Dodge Challenger SE would start at $23,995. Apparently this executive is not very much in the loop, as Dodge officially announced today that the base model Challenger SE would start at just $21,995, which includes $675 for destination charges. Just to refresh your noodle, the Challenger SE is the base model and comes with a 3.5L V6 producing 250 horsepower and 250 pound-feet of torque. And for comparison’s sake, a 2008 Ford Mustang V6 starts at $19,650, though that’s excluding destination charges. The next best Challenger is the R/T model, which Dodge says can be had with a 370-hp 5.7L HEMI V8 starting at $29,995. Finally, the 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8 that’s already been on sale for a year will get a hefty $2,000 bump in its starting price from $37,995 to $39,995. The only new items on the SRT8 for 2009 are a standard limited-slip differential, High Performance Red and B5 Blue paint colors with black hood stripes, and a “pistol-grip” shifter with the Track Pak. Otherwise, the 425-hp muscle car remains largely the same. Does the $2,000 jump in price matter much, though, if you’ll never be able to buy the car without a big dealer markup? Regardless, all three models will be available this fall and dealers are already taking orders.

TAKEN FROM www.autoblog.com

The BMW GINA Light Visionary Model that was seen via video being installed in the BMW Museum in Munich last week has finally been revealed, and the futuristic design study shows how BMW designers are thinking outside of the box when it comes to the materials that make up a car and also how the car relates to the driver. GINA stands for “Geometry and Functions in ‘N’ Adaptations”, which basically means that designers from both BMW and BMW Group DesignworksUSA were allowed to throw out the rulebook. This is most evident in the GINA Light Visionary Model’s outer skin, which is made entirely out of textile fabric that’s pulled taut around a frame of metal and carbon fiber wires. The skeleton of the car is controlled by electro-hydraulic devices and can actually move and change shape beneath the fabric skin. For instance, the headlights of the concept can be exposed or hidden by the car’s skin just like blinking eyes, and the hood opens from the center as the fabric parts to expose the engine. This idea extends to the interior, where BMW designers have made visible only those instruments that are required at a certain time, while the rest of the time the same fabric interior “blinks” them out of view. The car itself looks somewhat like a Z4 Roadster, though after viewing the extensive gallery of high-res images below, you’ll be amazed how much the outer skin looks like normal sheetmetal. Until, that is, you see how the doors open. They lift up in a semi-scissor fashion and since there are no exposed hinges, the fabric artfully binds up as the door swings open. While the design of the GINA Light Visionary Model is very Bangle-esque with concave and convex surfaces intermingling everywhere you look, it looks appropriate and natural here. The car is very much a concept, meant more to inspire BMW’s own designers and engineers rather than excite the public, but now we’re excited about shape-changin, fabric-covered cars, anyway.

TAKEN FROM www.autoblog.com

Around Memorial Day, the chances are good that either you or somebody that you are sharing the road with today has been out and about, spending the day with family or just enjoying their time off. There have surely been many hours spent behind the wheel for drivers across the country. Hopefully, drunk driving is kept to a minimum. But, there is another possible problem-driver on the road: the drowsy driver. It’s likely that most of us have had that feeling behind the wheel, where we struggle to keep our eyes open. A new study from the National Road Safety Foundation, which is a non-profit group that produces driver aids, suggests that those drowsy drivers are equally as dangerous as drunk drivers. According to its research, a third of drivers polled admit to falling asleep behind the wheel in the last year alone. Suggestions for combating drowsiness behind the wheel include the obvious: pulling over, drinking a coffee or two and waiting about half an hour for the caffeine to hit your bloodstream. Consider this a friendly reminder to be safe out there.

TAKEN FROM www.autoblog.com

DETROIT – Norway’s Think Global AS, with backing from U.S. venture capital investors, plans to produce and sell a small all-electric car in the U.S. that could go as far as 110 miles when fully charged – fresh evidence that the race to woo American consumers with electric cars is heating up and drawing interest from the same investors that helped build Silicon Valley.

Think Global AS

Norway’s Think Global plans to launch an electric car, called the Think City, in the U.S. in 2009.

The Oslo-based electric carmaker, which recently set up a U.S. office in Menlo Park, Calif., is trying to determine what geographical areas to focus its sales activities on, with an aim to launch the car – the Think City – in 2009. Think, a Ford Motor Co. unit until the U.S. auto maker sold it to a Norwegian company in 2003, is also searching for a site in the U.S. and Mexico to assemble the car.

Jan-Olaf Willums, Think Global chief executive officer, said Think plans to sell the City, to be priced less than $25,000, in densely populated cities because of the car’s limited range. The car is just hitting the market in Norway, Sweden and Denmark where a typical user drives the vehicle for a relatively short commuting distance and plugs it into an electric outlet in his garage to charge it overnight.

“What we have is a city car so we would focus on big cities,” Mr. Willums said, noting that Think may focus on markets on the West Coast such as San Francisco and Seattle. “But we think there’s an opportunity for us also on the East Coast, or any city in the U.S. that wants to encourage use of pollution free electric cars. We don’t care if it is in Texas, we will be there.”

Mr. Willums declined to estimate U.S. demand for the City car, but Ray Lane, managing partner of venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins, Caufield and Byers, which has invested in Think, believes Think could eventually sell as many as 30,000 to 50,000 City cars a year in the U.S. once production ramps up and a sales network for the model is fully established. In Norway, Think is rushing to boost production to 10,000 a year this year to meet demand in Europe.

According to a Think spokeswoman in Oslo, Think Global has raised about $95 million from an array of investors in Europe and the U.S., including GE Energy Financial Services and RockPort Capital Partners. In addition, the company also received backing, which Mr. Willums described as “substantial,” from Kleiner and RockPort to set up Think’s North American unit.

Mr. Willums said Think’s North American executives, among other tasks, are currently looking for a site to produce the City. “Because of the dollar’s extreme weakness, it doesn’t make sense to ship cars across the Atlantic.” The Norwegian executive said Think would like to see which state and city could provide the “best deal,” referring to investment incentives such as tax breaks.

In addition to the City, Think plans to add to its product lineup in late 2010 in Europe a second all-electric vehicle: the Think Ox, a five-seat car-SUV crossover. Using currently available battery technology, the car has a driving range of about 150 miles when the vehicle is fully charged. A U.S. launch is expected to follow shortly after, Mr. Willums said.

Kleiner, one of the key investors for Think, is perhaps Silicon Valley’s best-known venture-capital firm and a backer of household tech names such as Netscape Communications, Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. Kleiner and other venture-capital investors who helped build Silicon Valley are now clamoring to back the race to develop and market an electric car in the U.S., investing in little-known upstart companies such as Aptera Motors Inc. and Phoenix Motorcars Inc., both southern California companies. Tesla Motors Inc., the high-profile company that is close to shipping a $98,000 electric sports car, has raised $105 million from investors, including VantagePoint Venture Partners, Technology Partners, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Think’s planned entry into the U.S. market follows decisions by General Motors Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. and others to market electric cars with a small gasoline engine they describe as a driving “range extender.” Those small combustion engines work as generators to feed electricity to the car’s batteries when they run out.

Other companies, most notably Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., plan to go a different direction. The two Japanese auto makers believe battery technology has not advanced far enough to make electric cars practical and are focusing their efforts on making gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius, more fuel-efficient and affordable. Toyota has said it plans to test the feasibility of an electric car with a range extender, however.

The Think City, when it hits the market in the U.S., will be equipped with three optional, high-powered batteries. U.S. consumers will be able to choose from what Think describes as a “sodium battery” system with active materials composed of sodium, nickel and iron, as well as from two types of lithium-ion batteries from two U.S. companies: A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass., and Enerdel. Enerdel is the joint-venture battery company owned 80.5% by Ener1 inc. and 19.5% by auto-component supplier Delphi Corp.

TAKEN FROM online.wsj.com

With all the changes in the automotive world, there’s never a shortage of crazy ideas floating around.

Fortunately for car enthusiasts, many of those wacky ideas actually see the light of day — and we’ve got the 10 best for you right here.

Environmental-friendliness and a concern over high gas prices are the driving forces in today’s auto trends, according to Wes Siler, road test editor for the popular car Web site Jalopnik.com.

Siler says the hybrid and “green” car revolution is here to stay, but that the supercar market is a niche one and there’ll always be someone willing to shell out big bucks for an exotic ride.

With that in mind, here are 10 of the most outrageous, extravagant, or just plain cool autos to look for in the coming year, from green car to supercar and beyond:

Lamborghini Reventon

To start off, here’s the car that you absolutely can’t own, no matter how much money you’re willing to spend. Only 20 of these fighter jet-inspired supercars will be made, and they’ve already sold at over $1 million a piece. Still, it may be one of the most talked-about exotic cars of the past year, and is certainly worth keeping an eye out for on the roads.

Smart Fortwo

For the wannabe-European in all of us, the Smart Fortwo is the new American counterpart to those classic Euro smartcars. Small enough to fit in half a parking space, these zippy little cars can reach up to 90 miles an hour, all while getting 33 miles to the gallon, according to the company specs.

With a base price of only $11,000, it’s the perfect replacement for that road-hogging SUV.

Bugatti Veyron

If the Fortwo is the cheap transportation alternative for the non-car enthusiast, then the Bugatti Veyron is the dream machine of every supercar fan on the planet. Its 1,001 horsepower will pin you to the seat at over 250 miles per hour, but only for a few minutes. At top speed a tank of gas will last just 12 minutes, so fuel economy is not something to think about when buying this beast.

Most of us regular drivers shouldn’t even worry about getting our hands on one, because at just over $1.5 million, the Veyron is one of the most expensive (albeit fastest) cars on the planet.

Tesla Roadster

Somewhere between the Veyron and the Fortwo, there’s the new Tesla Roadster.

At first glance its Ferrari-like body, $98,000 price tag and sub-four-second zero-to-60 time look like any other high-performance supercar, but there’s a catch. The Tesla is actually the world’s first fully electric supercar.

Unlike previous electric cars, the Roadster has no backup gas tank whatsoever, just a rechargeable electric engine that the company claims will get you up to 220 miles on a single charge. Production has already started, so expect to see them hit the streets in the next few months.

International CXTenvironment on this whole list, the International Truck and Engine Corporation recently released the largest production pickup truck on the roads. Built on the same platform as a dump truck, it’s the everyday pickup on steroids. The perfect six-figure truck for the boy in all of us who still remembers playing with Tonka Toys when they were younger.

Hummer HX

The latest concept truck from Hummer moves even further away from its Army-styled road tanks of the past and into dune buggy territory. Designed as Hummer’s competition for the Jeep Wrangler, the HX takes some styling cues from its bigger brothers and adds a few tweaks. What you get is a small, off-road capable, convertible truck that will be a welcome addition for Hummer fans feeling the effects of high gas prices.

Scion Hako

Scion has never been accused of making plain cars, and its latest coupe concept is no different. Resembling an orange box with wraparound windows, the Hako will definitely turn heads and create a love it or hate it opinion similar to every Scion car before it. The younger generation is once again Scion’s market, as the Hako includes plenty of interior technology, such as Bluetooth phone capability and video cameras instead of side view mirrors, with the images shown on screens inside the doors.

Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe

Described as less eco-friendly and more ego-friendly, the newest offering from the classically opulent automaker is a two-door sporting car sure to get you noticed. Designed more to be driven and not driven in, in contrast to most previous Rolls models, the Phantom Coupe is sleek, fast and fun. The extravagance continues to the interior, where a “starlight” headliner entertains passengers with flickering lights resembling the night sky.

Jeep Renegade

Jeep’s newest concept debuted in auto shows earlier this year and was an immediate topic of conversation. The boldly styled Renegade is an open-air off-road 4×4, but with an electric motor. Jeep uses one of these motors (which get up to 40 miles on a charge) on each axle for true four-wheel drive.

Meanwhile, a backup diesel engine will get you where you need on longer drives. Jeep finishes off the unique design by covering the truck’s exterior with rubber accents, hidden storage compartments, and shortened windshield and doors.

The newest model in the ultra-lavish Maybach lines solidifies the company’s understanding of the word “luxury.” Even though its turbocharged engine can get all 6,200 pounds accelerating at Ferrari-like speeds, if you’re the one driving this car then you’re doing it wrong.

It’s better thought of as a high-powered limo, and the list of amenities for the passenger section in back is endless. A mini-fridge, wine cooler, leather armchairs for seats, automatic window curtains, auto-tinting glass roof, and personal video screens for every passenger are only the more normal options available.

If you want to be driven around in speed and style, grab about $500,000 and give Maybach a call.

TAKEN FROM finance.yahoo.com

One dark and freakishly stormy night several years ago in San Diego, my car stalled at a flooded intersection. As I pushed the car out of the intersection, lightning was going off all around like flash bulbs. I felt lucky to be able to restart the engine and drive safely home.

Recently, the State of California sent me my tax refund, and curiously, some $328 had been deducted from it. After quite a bit of research, I found the missing amount was courtesy of a traffic court in San Diego, which asserted that I had an unpaid ticket from years earlier. I contend I was never notified of it and unaware of committing a violation. But it apparently stemmed from that freak thunderstorm. To condense a longer story: one of those flashes apparently was a camera’s flash — from a red light camera.

Why this came up so much later, I’ll never know. But there was no contesting the issue, even though I was never shown the photographic “proof” upon which the citation was based. So much for due process. And that’s enough of a reason for me to think that red light cameras are a scam.

Call me sour grapes, but I’m know I’m not alone.

In 2001, a San Diego judge threw out 292 red-light tickets in one celebrated case. Judge Ronald Styn found that the city had given too much law enforcement authority to an outside company, Lockheed Martin IMS, which was hired to operate the cameras:

Arthur F. Tait III, part of a legal team that represented 292 drivers, argued that the arrangement, in which the contractor received $70 from each $271 fine, was creating an incentive for the company to ‘’prosecute for profit.’’

‘’The contractor was able to charge innocent people with criminal conduct to raise revenue,’’ Mr. Tait said.

Hugh Burns, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, said that the system in San Diego had been operated according to police instructions.

The San Diego judge also found that the company installing the red light cameras had tinkered with (by shortening) the duration of the yellow lights, to make them impossibly quick, so more people would be caught running the red; more money for the camera operator and the municipality.

But after all that, San Diego quickly reinstated its red light cameras and transferred the contract to run them to Affiliated Computer Services, which, as of 2005, was the
largest red-light camera service provider in the country.

Recently, The Los Angeles Times reported that red light cameras don’t even work as intended — up to 80 percent of the time. The reason? The cameras tend to catch people instead who are turning right on red:

“I’ve never . . . seen any studies that suggest red light cameras would be a good safety intervention to reduce right-turning accidents,” said Mark Burkey, a researcher at North Carolina A&T State University who has studied photo enforcement collision patterns.

Some cities with photo enforcement opt not to target right turns. Others limit camera use for those citations.

“We’re kind of very leery about right turns. . . . They’re not really unsafe per se,” said Pasadena’s senior traffic engineer, Norman Baculinao. Only one of that city’s seven camera-equipped intersection approaches is set up to monitor right-turn violations, he said.

“This is intended to be a traffic safety program. People who make right turns generally are going at a low speed,” and resulting accidents tend to be a “sideswipe at most,” he said.

Just how many things wrong with it does an idea have to be before it is considered discredited?

Perhaps a better way to reduce red light running lies in improving the design of the intersection. Studies have shown that extending the duration of the yellow light by just two seconds has significantly decreased the number of red light violations. In Dallas, longer yellows and signs warning motorists of red light cameras have helped reduce the violations so dramatically that the cameras are no longer generating the revenue needed to keep them in operation.

Proponents of red light cameras can always cite figures about how red light cameras have reduced fatalities by some percentage or other. In 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that 1,000 people are killed each year in red-light violations. But there are also studies that suggest accident rates actually increase at intersections with red-light cameras, especially the rear-end collision variety, as people jam on their brakes to make abrupt stops.

According to Pat Bedard, editor at large for Car and Driver, in his September 2002 column:

In Charlotte, North Carolina, station WBTV had this to say, “Three years, 125,000 tickets, and $6 million in fines later, the number of accidents at intersections in Charlotte has gone down less than one percent. And the number of rear-end accidents, which are much more common, has gone up 15 percent.”

In Greensboro, the News & Record reports, “There has not been a drop in the number of accidents caused by red-light violations citywide since the first cameras were installed in February 2001. There were 95 such accidents in Greensboro in 2001, the same number as 2000. And at the 18 intersections with cameras, the number of wrecks cause by red-light running has doubled.”

If safety is really the issue, fix the lights first. But in fixing the yellow lights, nobody makes any money. So, instead, the expensive red light systems are installed — along with a bureaucracy to maintain and prosecute them.

TAKEN FROM wheels.blogs.nytimes.com

As gas gets more and more expensive and drivers become more and more afraid of trips to the pumps, more people than ever have found themselves stranded on the side of the road with no gas in the tank. Trying to push it way past “E” is something I’m familiar with, but after hearing about this, perhaps I’ll be a little more careful.

According to the AP, there is a growing national trend of drivers putting less gas in their cars and then trying to drive as far as they can. Getting better gas mileage is definitely worth doing, but you’re going to get the same mileage whether you fill up all at once or in thirds…and running out of gas isn’t exactly the quickest way to get somewhere.

In Philadelphia (my hometown) alone, calls to AAA from drivers in need of some extra gas have doubled since 2007, a trend that they say is mirrored all across the country. Over the entire Mid-Atlantic region, AAA fuel calls have only increased 15%, but the summer driving months are just starting to settle in, and that number will likely increase in the coming months.

TAKEN FROM www.ecomodder.com

Well, here it is folks. A company has finally gone and built the controversial hydrogen hybrid system (or hydrogen injection, or Water4Gas or HHO system – choose your poison) into what appears to be a true production car. Not only that, the car looks, well, stunning… to put it mildly.

Ronn Motors of Austin, Texas, yesterday unveiled what they’re calling “the key to a new generation of “green cars.” The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Ronn Maxwell, had this to say about it:

“What we are revealing today is an innovation in the automotive industry and demonstrates American ingenuity at a time of real need. We’re designing and building cars with performance components and unique styling with the objective of making the new environmentally friendly vehicle stand out with never before seen style and approximately 40 mpg plus efficiency.”

I recently featured this type of hydrogen-on-demand hybrid system in a Gas 2.0 post about potential fuel saving scam devices. At the end of that post I had to say that the jury was still out on these types of systems. There was plenty of back and forth from folks who felt that hydrogen hybrids were scams and those that claimed they had installed the devices and they actually worked.

If Ronn Motors has truly built it into a production supercar, and it works, that would kind of put the kibosh on any naysayers out there now, wouldn’t it? Not only would the development and production of this car validate the functionality of hydrogen hybrids, it also could spur a broader public interest and recognition of the technology.

As of right now, it’s only a test car and some of the quotes from Ronn executives suggest they haven’t actually installed a hydrogen generator into the vehicle yet. But as the Hydrogen Cars & Vehicles blog puts it: “Move over Bugatti, Lamborghini and Saleen, the Ronn Motors Scorpion is a supercar that will scoot 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and achieve 40 mpg, too.” I mean, if it’s true, this appears to be an awesome development.

TAKEN FROM gas2.org

Toyota has developed a new fuel cell hybrid, a green car powered by hydrogen and electricity, that can travel more than twice the distance of its predecessor model without filling up, the automaker said Friday.

The improved model’s maximum cruising range is 516 miles (830 kilometers) compared with 205 miles (330 kilometers) for Toyota’s previous fuel cell model, the maker of the Camry sedan and Lexus luxury cars said in a statement.

The FCHV-adv model, which received Japanese government approval Tuesday, will be available for leasing in Japan later this year, Toyota Motor Corp. spokeswoman Kayo Doi said. Pricing and other details weren’t available, and overseas plans were still undecided, she said.

Fuel cell vehicles produce no pollution by running on the power of the chemical reaction when hydrogen stored in a tank combines with oxygen in the air to produce water.

The FCHV-adv from the world’s second biggest automaker also comes with an electric motor and works as a hybrid by switching between that motor and the hydrogen-powered fuel cell. Toyota’s Prius hybrid switches between an electric motor and a standard gasoline engine.

Fuel efficiency in the FCHV-adv was improved 25 percent with better braking and other changes, Toyota said. The new fuel cell vehicle can also start and run in temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 Celsius), it said. Getting a fuel cell to work well in cold weather is a technological challenge.

Major automakers around the world are working on fuel cells and other ecological vehicles, including electric cars and plug-in hybrids, which recharge from an electrical outlet. And consumer interest in alternative fuels is increasing amid soaring gas prices and worries about global warming.

Rival Honda Motor Co.’s revamped fuel cell vehicle for leasing in California is rolling off a Japanese factory floor later this month.

For 2010, U.S. automaker General Motors Corp. is planning a Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric vehicle, while Tokyo-based Nissan Motor Co. is planning electric vehicles for the U.S. and Japan.

Fuel cell vehicles are usually marketed through leasing arrangements since the technology is too expensive for most people to buy in an outright purchase.

TAKEN FROM www.sfgate.com