smarter traveling, driving and spending
The automobile was born on August 26, 1885. That is the day Gottlieb Daimler filed a patent for his ‘riding car’, the world’s first vehicle with an internal combustion engine. The world would never be the same, and 135 years later, engineers and designers are still tinkering with the size, power and performance of the
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Travel Technology: The world’s first certified aircraft powered by electricity has flown into the history books in Switzerland. The two-seater Pipistrel Velis Electro is used mainly for basic pilot training. It completed its maiden flight over a village near Fribourg, in western Switzerland. The cruising speed reportedly is 90 knots (166 km/h) and maximum autonomy
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Seats five comfortably, head-turning good looks, and costs $37,490 fully loaded with all kinds of safety features not usually found at this price. Ditto the paddle shifters and leather-wrapped steering wheel. I was even more impressed by the fuel economy. I clocked an impressive 51.6 average MPG, nearly 10 miles more per gallon than the
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It makes sense that an automaker known for producing fuel efficient, eco-friendly vehicles would have a program to help its dealers operate with similar energy efficiency. That’s exactly the idea of the Honda-Acura Green Dealer Program. Since it launched in 2012, the program has saved dealerships more than $7.5 million in energy costs, not to
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The new Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle has just set a distance record, and Toyota hopes the zero-emission Mirai will help make hydrogen cars as popular as Prius did for hybrid cars. The 2016 Toyota Mirai, which is a bit larger than the Prius, just set a record 312 miles on a single fill,
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Green hybrid and electric cars are the big news at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which opens to the press on Wednesday, November 17th and to the public two days later. You’ve been hearing a lot about the extended-range plug-in hybrid-electric Chevrolet Volt, and all-electric Nissan Leaf. They are the headliners, for sure. But several
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The new voice of Mercedes-Benz is Jon Hamm, the Golden Globe winning star of the hit series Mad Men. Hamm made his debut — or at least his voice — on the 2010 Academy Award Oscars show, in a commercial featuring the new Mercedes-Benz S400 Hybrid luxury sedan. The 2010 Mercedes-Benz 2010 S400 Hybrid luxury
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The Mercedes-Benz F-Cell hydrogen fuel cell car gets its U. S. debut at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show in December. It’s a compact four-door hatchback, built on the B-Class platform which is popular in Europe and Asia, but Mercedes has not yet brought it to North America. The Mercedes F-Cell boasts the equivalent fuel mileage
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