Enjoy! – MotorWeek’s Hybrid Round Up:

I could not help but share this article with everyone. After opening up my mind and realizing this is actually where we are headed. Welcome to smaller car world!

The linked article that I have chosen for today comes from Newsweek where they talk about the car of the future. Surprisingly we will not see many hydrogen powered cars on the road in the near future. Instead, we will all be downsizing utilizing new hybrid technologies such as found in the current Toyota Prius and the upcoming Chevy Volt. The Chevy Volt is a new and improved idea of the hybrid car where it does run just off of electricity but it has a very small engine that burns gas to charge the battery that powers the electric motor. Other developments will include simply making “better” hybrid vehicles and more economical “smaller” cars and cross-over SUV’s (CUV’s).

I encourage you to read the linked article below at Newsweek.com.

Newsweek Article: “The Car of the Future”

Drive Sensibly

Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gas. It can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town. Sensible driving is also safer for you and others, so you may save more than gas money.

Observe the Speed Limit Gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph. Each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.15 per gallon for gas. Observing the speed limit is also safer.

	Fuel Economy Benefit:	7-23%
	Equivalent Gasoline Savings:	$0.15-$0.51/gallon

Remove Excess Weight

Avoid keeping unnecessary items in your vehicle, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your MPG by up to 2%. The reduction is based on the percentage of extra weight relative to the vehicle’s weight and affects smaller vehicles more than larger ones.

	Fuel Economy Benefit:	1-2%/100 lbs
	Equivalent Gasoline Savings:	$0.02-$0.04/gallon

Avoid Excessive Idling

Idling gets 0 miles per gallon. Cars with larger engines typically waste more gas at idle than do cars with smaller engines.

Use Cruise Control

Using cruise control on the highway helps you maintain a constant speed and, in most cases, will save gas.

Use Overdrive Gears

When you use overdrive gearing, your car’s engine speed goes down. This saves gas and reduces engine wear.

Keep Your Engine Properly Tuned

Fixing a car that is noticeably out of tune or has failed an emissions test can improve its gas mileage by an average of 4.1 percent, though results vary based on the kind of repair and how well it is done. If your car has a faulty oxygen sensor, your gas mileage may improve as much as 40 percent .

Fuel Economy Benefit: 4-40%   Equivalent Gasoline Savings: $0.09-$0.88/gallon

Check & Replace Air Filters Regularly

Replacing a clogged air filter can improve your car’s gas mileage by as much as 10 percent. Your car’s air filter keeps impurities from damaging the inside of your engine. Not only will replacing a dirty air filter save gas, it will protect your engine.

Fuel Economy Benefit: up to 10%   Equivalent Gasoline Savings: up to $0.22/gallon

Keep Tires Properly Inflated

You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires. Properly inflated tires are safer and last longer.

Fuel Economy Benefit: up to 3%   Equivalent Gasoline Savings: up to $0.07/gallon

Use the Recommended Grade of Motor Oil

You can improve your gas mileage by 1-2 percent by using the manufacturer’s recommended grade of motor oil. For example, using 10W-30 motor oil in an engine designed to use 5W-30 can lower your gas mileage by 1-2 percent. Using 5W-30 in an engine designed for 5W-20 can lower your gas mileage by 1-1.5 percent. Also, look for motor oil that says “Energy Conserving” on the API performance symbol to be sure it contains friction-reducing additives.

Fuel Economy Benefit: 1-2%   Equivalent Gasoline Savings: $0.02-$0.04/gallon

Planning and combining trips

Choosing a more efficient vehicle

Thinking about buying a new vehicle?

You’ve come to the right place.

www.fueleconomy.gov has gas mileage estimates and more information for 1985-2008 model year cars here —- > Chart

Selecting which vehicle to purchase is the most important fuel economy decision you’ll make.

The difference between a car that gets 20 MPG and one that gets 30 MPG amounts to $550 per year (assuming 15,000 miles of driving annually and a fuel cost of $2.20).

That’s $2,200 extra in fuel costs in just four years!

As part of a partnership to be announced Wednesday, the online search leader will dispense driving directions at thousands of gasoline pumps across the country beginning early next month.

The pumps, made by Gilbarco Veeder-Root, include an Internet connection and will display Google’s mapping service in color on a small screen.

Motorists will be able to scroll through several categories to find local landmarks, hotels, restaurants and hospitals selected by the gas station’s owner. After the driver selects a destination, the pump will print out directions.

Eventually, Gilbarco Veeder-Root hopes to enable motorists to type in a specific address and get directions.

“We think the service will create more customer loyalty for retailers,” said Gilbarco Veeder-Root spokeswoman Lucy Sackett.

Greensboro, North Carolina-based Gilbarco Veeder-Root will initially offer the Google service in about 3,500 gas pumps and expand based on retailer demand.

Unlike most of Google’s services, this one will not include ads bringing the company income. But participating retailers will be able to make extra money from other merchants that offer coupons on the service.

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — It used to be horsepower. Then it was fuel economy. Now there’s another number making its way into the big print in car ads: the number of airbags.

Already, Toyota is bragging about its “segment-leading” 10 airbags on the 2008 Lexus LX570 SUV. TV and magazine ads for cars and SUVs often tout the number of airbags as a competitive advantage.

The obvious implication is that a car with more airbags is safer than one with fewer. If a car has 10 airbags while its competitor has only six, you can just imagine the sorts of injuries you could suffer with four fewer bags.

This is not to say that the LX570 will be anything other than very safe – just like every other Lexus vehicle. It’s just that, in the end, airbag counting isn’t the most useful way to gauge safety.

A car with six or eight airbags might protect every part of every occupant just as thoroughly as a car with 10. One long head-protecting side airbag can offer as much coverage for three rows of seats as three separate airbags.

Besides, airbags by themselves don’t make a car safe. They’re complex devices that work with a car’s metal body and its seatbelts to protect occupants. Fewer, better designed airbags in a well-engineered car body are worth more than a whole bunch of airbags in a car that offers little protection on its own.

And the proof lies in crash test results from agencies like the government’s National Highway Traffic Administration and the private Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

No vehicle without head-protecting side airbags has ever earned a top rating in the Insurance Institute’s side crash test. But it must be noted that some vehicles with them earned a Poor rating anyway. Again, airbags are vitally important, but they’re not enough, by themselves, to insure your safety.

Since some types of airbags often come as extra-cost options rather than standard equipment, it’s still good to know what all those airbags do and how. Sometimes fewer can be just as good as more.

Front airbags

Front airbags come out of the dashboard and protect the driver and front passenger in a front crash, and are required by law on all cars. But a few types of front airbags include slight changes that make the airbags themselves safer.

Early airbags actually resulted in injuries and even some deaths in what would have otherwise been minor accidents. In order to open quickly enough to protect occupants, the airbags opened with such explosive force that they could cause injuries – especially to small children or occupants who weren’t seated far enough back from dashboard.

Many cars now have airbags that can open in different ways depending on what sensors detect about the size or position of the person in the seat. If sensors detect a small person, or that the person is leaning forward, the airbag can open slower or to a smaller size.

Side airbags

As the name suggests, side airbags protect occupants from getting hit from the side. Statistics prove that they’re highly successful.

While airbags that protect occupants from the shoulders down reduce fatalities in side impacts by 26 percent, those that also protect their heads reduce fatalities by 37 percent, according to data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

In some SUVs, head-protecting side airbags serve an additional role. In rollover crashes, they can stay open longer to help protect occupants – or their heads and arms – from being thrown outside the vehicle.

Here’s where those tricky airbag counts come in. Airbags that protect the head don’t have to be separate from the ones that protect the ribs. A single airbag can protect an occupant’s body while also reaching up to protect the head.

Either way, the protection should be just as good. Real-world crash data has not shown any advantage to systems that use separate head-and-torso airbags over those that use a single head-torso bag, according to the Insurance Institute.

Side airbags can also protect rear seat, as well as front seat, occupants. If a vehicle has head-protecting side airbags protecting the back seat passengers, they can be separate from those protecting front seat occupants. On the other hand, you might have side curtain airbags that cover two, or even three, rows of side windows. That’s just as much protection as you’d get with two or three separate airbags.

Leg airbags

With more lives being saved by front airbags, leg injuries in front crashes have started getting more attention. Some cars now have airbags underneath the dashboard to protect occupants’ knees and legs.

Whether or not these airbags are effective isn’t really known yet, said David Zuby, the Insurance Institute’s vice president of vehicle research. They may help out in vehicles where leg injuries would a problem otherwise. But so far, there is no evidence to show that people suffer fewer leg injuries in vehicles with them than without them.

Its my in-car navigation system. Its my personal in-car notepad. Its my in-car mp3 player… AHH NO, it’s the new iPhone inside your car. With the hyped up release of the new iPhone in few hours we all search and read about all of its features as well as all of the compatible accessories. But what about use of the iPhone in your car? Well, it is a plethora of products available as well as a invisible list of compatible Bluetooth vehicles for the new iPhone already. Listed below we have a few links to compatible accessories to couple with your new iPhone if you are one of the “lucky ones” tomorrow.

Bad news for those of you who have Bluetooth in your car and want to get the iPhone; they will not work together. Since the iPhone has its own Bluetooth, that is different from the universal Bluetooth we use on regular phones, the Iphone will not connect to your car Bluetooth.The good news is that you can buy a kit from Apple, or another company that has a contract with Apple, to connect your iPhone to your car. I am sure that down the road newer car models will come out with the Apple Bluetooth that connects to your iPhone. It is almost a certainty with the way the new iPhone is all hyped up. Well shall SEE and HEAR!

Accessories for the Apple iPhone (links):

 http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/the-onslaught-is-here/the-floodgates-are-open-iphone-accessories-273236.php 

http://www.everythingiphone.com/iphone-accessories/

http://www.wirefly.com/cell-phone-accessories/Cingular-Wireless/phones/Apple/iPhone-4GB/56214/