Filed under: Hybrid , Toyota Last week, we told you about an incident in New York involving unintended acceleration in a 2005 Toyota Prius . This accident occurred just after the high-profile case involving Jim Sikes and his Prius in San Diego , but, unlike that incident, where the car eventually came to a complete stop, the Prius in New York crashed into a stone wall with the driver suffering minor, non-life threatening injuries. Now, after a full investigation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ruled that this accident was simply caused by driver error, rather than a faulty brake system. NHTSA delivered this message to reporters: Information retrieved from the vehicle's onboard computer systems indicated there was no application of the brakes and the throttle was fully open. Toyota spokesperson John Hanson says that the accident is being looked over by the Harrison, NY police department, and that the automaker will not comment until the investigation has completed. And, while Toyota did join in with the investigation of Sikes' Prius, it is not clear if the automaker will take a closer look at this second incident. [Source: USA Today ] Feds suggest driver error may have caused runaway Prius in NY originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read

Filed under: Motorsports , MISC , Racing McLaren MP4-12C GTR Longtail renderings - Click above for high-res image gallery When a world-championship racing team unveils a new supercar, some inevitable questions are bound to follow. In the case of the McLaren MP4-12C , people want to know if the company plans on racing it. Seems like logical enough a question, especially considering that McLaren's racing experience extends beyond Formula One, most notably the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans where a McLaren F1 GTR pipped the prototypes to claim overall victory. According to McLaren chief Ron Dennis, the company is not planning their own racing campaign for the MP4. But having learned from the F1 project, which was never designed as a race car but was later adapted to the purpose following demand from racing teams, Dennis suggested that the company could offer and support competition spec versions of the car for privateer entries. While it remains a question mark as to which series the car might be best suited, neither the FIA GT1 World Championship nor Le Mans (and its associated series around the world) would seem out of the realm of possibility. Maybe those renderings of long-tail MP4-12Cs weren't so far-fetched after all. Gallery: Rendered: McLaren MP4-12C GTR [Source: Autosport ] McLaren could develop racing version of MP4-12C for privateers originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read

Filed under: Performance , Hatchback , Alfa Romeo , Rumormill 2011 Alfa Romeo Giulietta - Click above for high-res image gallery Coach Sergio Marchionne has asked his temperamental star player, Alfa Romeo , to raise its game . Working to help that happen, the coach hasn't stopped tinkering with the gameplan, trying to get Alfa out of another quasi-bust sales cycle. It's been said the Giulietta has will " reinstate the marque's reputation for fine handling and performance," and if it does, a properly handling sports car accessible by the masses ought to help restore Alfa's reputation and coffers. The Giulietta given the task is one implanted with a the 1.75-liter, turbocharged TBi engine with Multiair. However, that engine currently makes 200 horsepower in the Alfa 159, but for the Giulietta application, Autocar is reporting that it will be additionally boosted to 235 horsepower. Getting that power down in a front-wheel-drive car is likely to be a trick, so plans reportedly call for the Alfao to be aided by a new electronic differential and active dampers, as well as a dual-clutch transmission. Will all of this make a car that can truly challenge the Volkswagen Golf / GTI - or the Ford Focus family? Fiat claims the current hatch already bests those other two, not that that matters - Alfa has to actually make this spicier variant and let the customers decide which one has the chops. We will gladly admit that right now, though, it at least looks good on paper. Gallery: Geneva 2010: 2011 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Photos by Noah Joseph / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Tesla Motors TAG Heuer Tesla Roadster Sport - Click above for high-res image gallery When Tesla and Tag-Heuer unveiled a special edition version of the electric Roadster at the Geneva Motor Show a couple of weeks ago, they promised a further announcement this week when the car appeared at the Baselworld watch show. As part of Tag-Heuer's 150th anniversary celebration and Tesla's efforts to promote the Roadster , the special car is going on 24,000-mile round-the-world road trip called the Odyssey of Pioneers that will last eight months. Leonardo DiCaprio, who was one of the early buyers of the Roadster, is driving the first stint in the two-tone sports car. The car will make stops in 150 towns and 15 major cities in Europe, Asia and North America along the way. The trip will tracked along the way with a special website http://odyssey.tagheuer.com/ although it doesn't appear to actually be live yet. Gallery: TAG Heuer Tesla Roadster [Source: Tesla] Continue reading Tesla and Tag-Heuer kick off round the world Roadster tour Tesla and Tag-Heuer kick off round the world Roadster tour originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Filed under: Motorsports , Convertible , Performance , Maserati , Celebrities , Luxury Fernando Alonso with his new Maserati GranCabrio - Click above for high-res image gallery What do Formula One drivers drive in their downtime? Well, when you're a two-time world champion like Fernando Alonso, you get to drive pretty much whatever you want. That is, assuming the team you're driving for isn't owned by a specific automaker. Then you'll need to drive whatever the provide you with. And in Alonso's case, notwithstanding his solo 2001 debut season with Minardi-Cosworth, he's pretty much only driven for automaker-owned teams: Renault , McLaren- Mercedes , then back to Renault and now Ferrari . While at Renault, Alonso drove a Megane RS that was later offered for sale on eBay. When he moved to McLaren, he got his finely-honed hands on an SLR 722 . Now that he's at Ferrari, you'd expect him to be driving a new 458 Italia or a 599 GTB Fiorano, right? Almost, but not quite. Ferrari's sister company Maserati has announced that Alonso has acquired a new GranCabrio - to be sold Stateside as the GranTurismo Convertible, lest we be confused. The Spanish driver - who's already off to a great start, having won his first race with the team to which everyone said he always belonged - picked one out in (very) dark gray with a two-tone beige and bordeaux interior with a matching canvas roof.

Filed under: Motorsports , BMW , Mercedes-Benz For the past several years - even more in the case of McLaren - Germany's automakers have been known around the Formula One paddock by their association with two of the sport's most established racing teams. But for the 2010 season, both Mercedes-Benz and BMW have dissolved their partnerships with McLaren and Sauber, respectively. And yet, if you look down this year's roster, you'd swear the associations still stand. In the case of McLaren, the partnership with Mercedes has now devolved into a strict engine-supply arrangement, just the same as exists between Red Bull and Renault or Force India and Ferrari , to mention just two examples. This following Mercedes' acquisition of the Brawn GP team. McLaren, however, is now completing the re-acquisition of the 40% stake which Mercedes parent-company Daimler held in the racing outfit, thus culminating a 15-year partnership between the two companies. Sauber's arrangement is a bit more complicated, however. The Swiss team, which was founded as an independent, was bought outright by BMW after its lackluster arrangement with the Williams team failed to amount to much. The Bavarian automaker withdrew its support at the end of last season, however, leaving Sauber twisting in the wind. The team's namesake founder has since bought the team back from BMW, and is running under Ferrari power like it once did.

Greenlings: What realistic electric vehicle recharge options are there for apartment dwellers? We found four, five if you count moving. Kuwaiti study: Conventional oil to peak in 2014 Who's worried? Report: BYD cutting back electric vehicle production plans Hmmm. Other news: Nissan to build Leaf electric vehicle at British factory from 2013 Toyota to send 400 more EDR readers for investigation of Prius incidents Video: Ferrari does the hybrid thing AutoblogGreen for 03.19.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read

Filed under: Coupe , Performance , UK McLaren MP4-12C at company unveiling - Click above for high-res image gallery Early this morning, at least in the U.S., McLaren Automotive had a coming out party in its home town of Woking, England. We were there in person and witnessed the unveiling of not only a new sports car company, McLaren Automotive, but also its flagship product: The MP4-12C. This will be the first of an entire range of new McLaren sports cars, and the company best know for its exploits on the F1 race circuit appears to have built a doozy of a supercar to kick things off. McLaren F1 drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton were on hand at McLaren's technology center to pull back the sheet on the MP4-12C. The rear-wheel-drive supercar features a mid-mounted 3.8-liter V8 producing 600 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque with an 8,000-rpm redline. Comparisons with the legendary McLaren F1 will no doubt be made, but no performance numbers are available for the MP4-12C yet and, we suspect, their missions in life are not exactly the same. The MP4-12C appears to be a supercar you could live with on a daily basis, more like a Gallardo than a Murci

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , AutoblogGreen Exclusive , Green Daily , Greenlings One of the challenges to making electric vehicles (EVs) "work" in the real world is figuring out how, where and when to recharge them. If you have a garage, then those questions kind of answer themsleves. You come home, take 15 seconds to plug the car into the wall and undo the plug in the morning with a full charge. One previous Greenlings looked at EV charging basics and another Greenlings explained some of the options for home recharging . We recommend reading through those pieces as a primer for the article that follows if you're unfamiliar with some of the underlying concepts for recharging electric cars. As more and more plug-in vehicles come to market, though, we'll need to be able to figure out answers for people who can't easily recharge in their own garage. So, today, we're going to answer a question from reader Kellan O., who wrote in to ask: I live in an apartment along with a lot of other urban residents of the world. How would I realistically recharge a plug-in hybrid or pure battery car (aside from a 200 ft. extension cord out of my window) ? A 200-foot extension cord would indeed be a problem. Continue reading after the jump for some answers. [Image: Jason Pratt - C.C

Filed under: Hybrid , Government/Legal , Recalls , Safety , Hatchback , Toyota In reality, the California Highway Patrol isn't taking sides with anyone regarding the recent speeding Prius of Jim Sikes . But the CHP doesn't see any reason to doubt Sikes' version of events that led to his hybrid reaching speeds of around 90 miles per hour, apparently unable to bring the barreling vehicle to a stop. Also of note is the fact that a Border Patrol agent had also responded and was leading the Prius with its emergency lights on when the CHP officer arrived. The officer that responded to the scene states that he "could see the driver sat up off his seat indicating that he was possibly applying the brake pedal with his body weight... His back was arched and both hands were pulling at the steering wheel." A short time later, the officer positioned his patrol car in front of Sikes' Prius when he "noticed that the Prius' speed had dropped dramatically" before coming to a complete stop on the highway. According to Sikes, this happened after he applied both the standard and parking brakes. Paramedics arrived on the scene and found that "Sikes' blood pressure and pulse rate were very high." Another interesting tidbit is the the officer encouraged Sikes to speak with the media, despite the fact that the driver indicated he preferred not to. Later at the station, the officer took a statement from Sikes, who described his Prius as 'feeling funny' under braking, saying that the "whole car was shaking and vibrating" when the brakes were applied. Sikes also claims to have manually pulled up on the gas pedal three separate times with no effect, and he was afraid that shutting the car off would cause the steering to lock up. The officer reports seeing the car's brake lights on and off intermittently, smelling the scent of worn brakes and seeing that the pads were worn completely down after the event. CHP spokesman Brian Pennings has said that it is the CHP's position that no evidence has emerged to doubt Sikes' version of events. See the CHP officer's complete report in our image gallery below. For a slightly different view, click here and here to see what Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found after inspecting Sikes' Prius