quickspin

A Sneak Peek At Our Three-Cylinder Future Remember the good old days, when compact cars were powered by six-cylinder engines? Yeah, neither do we. It's been a long time since a mainstream brand offered anything other than a four-banger in its econoboxes, and for good reason. While a half-dozen ...

Leaping Past Others In The Premium Hybrid Chase It is now clear that gas-electric hybrids, while constantly being refined, are simply never going to gobble up huge slices of any major car market. They are needed, sure, but consumers are already wanting to see what's next, what's even more ...

Prelude To A Beetle Speedster? Driving $2 million prototypes on public roads is risky, so rather than increase the count of gray hair on their heads, Volkswagen's public relations team invited us up to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to spend some time in its all-electric E-Bugster Concept. But don't ...

The EV Incognito You know those "spot the difference" side-by-side photos that are commonly reserved for Highlights magazines in a dentist's waiting room? "Can you find seven differences between these two pictures?" Park a 2012 Ford Focus Electric next to its gasoline-powered kin and you'll ...

Mild-Mannered Fun At 45 mpg The world doesn't need another automaker claiming to have cracked the code for a fun-to-drive hybrid. The concept hasn't worked particularly well in any application. Just ask Lexus. And Honda. Twice. Granted, we don't know how Volkswagen plans to pitch the 2013 Jetta ...

Getting Deliciously Dirty With Clean Diesel Back in July, our man Bowman got his first chance to drive the new Mercedes M-Class in the wilds of Montana, and he came away particularly impressed by the ML350 BlueTEC 4Matic. It's great news that this updated diesel powertrain is coming to the ...

Ahhh, the beautiful and elegant Audi e-tron Spyder. As much fun as it was to ride in the all-electric e-tron back in 2010, getting a chance to drive the updated topless coupe was something our lucky companions at Autoblog could not pass up. We wanted to let ABG readers know where to find it ...

A Chinese EV From California's Newest Automaker "Simple." The word floated around the room and landed gently on our notepad during the morning press conference. Initially, it seemed like a perfect fit. But the more we learned about the new all-electric 2012 Coda sedan, the more we realized that ...

A Feature-Packed Family Hauler That Sips Every time we read Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, we find something new. Adams was able to spin phrases that hit on multiple levels, and his work requires repeated attention to be enjoyed in full. We wouldn't be surprised if the ...

Bankruptcy Brings This EV's Range To Zero We're all passionate about saving the world, but the amount of enthusiasm we each have is different for everybody. What's your passion level? Let's turn the question into a sliding scale; on one end sits, say, BP, while on the other end, we find Ed ...