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Ford’s New Plan Makes Buying a Car or EV Surprisingly Easy This Summer

With no money down, no interest, and no payments for 90 days, Ford wants to move metal before the $7,500 EV tax credit starts vanishing on September 30.

Tesla Knocks Facebook Off List of Top Five U.S. Companies by Market Cap

Elon Musk’s march towards either overseeing one of the biggest stock market bubble pops in recent history or being the guy who opens a solar-powered portal to Hell on Mars continues unabated: Tesla is now one of the country’s top five companies by market cap. Per CNBC, on Friday morning Tesla overtook Facebook to become…

A Steelworker Explains Why Your Car Is Made Of Aluminum (For Now)

What’s your car made of? There was a time that the answer to that question was pretty simple, at least for most parts of it: iron. But, today, the answer is just as likely to be something else. Here, a steelworker explains how that transition happened — and why it might swing back. Commenter amp0730…

Elon Musk Describes the Future of Self-Driving Cars

Elon Musk isn’t afraid to speak his mind—and it always feels like he’s about to change the world. So when the Tesla, SpaceX and PayPal billionaire sat down with Nvidia’s CEO to talk about his self-driving cars, we listened carefully. (Not because he always delivers on his promises, mind you.) Here’s how Musk described the…

Why are Ferrari, McLaren, and Porsche hybrid-crazy? As our Jalopnik pals explain, they’re tech companies at heart.

Fit This Radio Into Your Classic Caddy, Play It With Your Smartphone

You have a vintage car, but you have normal ears and want a sound system that’s up with the times. RetroSound’s new classically styled Model Two in-dash radio runs like a new-fangled modern setup because it is a new-fangled modern setup, with Bluetooth and all. The Model Two has bunch of custom enclosures and bezels…

GM’s OnStar Future Car: 4G and a Dash Full of Apps

As had been promised, so GM has delivered: a demonstration of what it’s like to have 4G LTE—and apps, so many apps—in your car. Angry Birds in your dashboard might help your road rage, but is it safe? https://gizmodo.com/onstar-to-demo-in-car-video-chats-that-sounds-safe-rig-5870021 Well sure, according to GM’s Nick Pudar, who talked me through some of the finer points…

Volvo’s Newest Concept Car Just Wants to Be Touched (Updated)

Volvo revealed its newest concept luxury car at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show and finally answers the question of how many touch screens you can cram into a car’s interior. Hint: It’s four. Dubbed the Concept You, this prototypical luxury sedan is packed to the gills with technology. The control center consists of a digital…

Are Rising Gas Prices a Cure For Obesity?

There may be one benefit to the rising cost of gas. It could make Americans less fat. Some economists like Dr. Charles Courtemanche, from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, suggest a dollar increase in gas could curb driving and slash the obesity rate by 10%. Other economists believe five million obese adults could…

Dick Schaefer is a True Junkyard Artist

Dick Schaefer is a junkyard artist. He takes scrap metal from old cars and junkyards and builds these leftovers into wonderful sculptures. Quite appropriately, he worked as an auto dismantler and is obviously using these skills in his backyard creations. He has fashioned a Volkswagen Bug into a spider, created a bumblebee from a cement…

FYI: Car Stereos Don’t Get Viruses From iPods

If a car dealership ever claims your stereo unit got a virus from pirated MP3s on an iPod connected via 3.5mm audio cable, they’re wrong. Dead wrong. So wrong, in fact, you should punch them in the face. [Reddit]

Feds Say Toyota Problems Aren’t Electric

280,000 NASA-reviewed lines of code later, the Transportation Department has officially decreed Toyota’s problems—you know, the ones that caused terrifying accidental acceleration—to be mechanical in nature. With software cleared of all charges and numerous recalls addressing the mechanical issues, it looks as though it’s safe to drive a Toyota again. Although I’d still rather take…

When Was the Last Time You Listened to a Cassette Tape While Driving?

According to automotive experts, the last car to be factory-equipped with a cassette deck was a 2010 Lexus. As that final model—a Lexus SC 430—rolled off a production line somewhere, a bit of our childhoods faded away. Or did it really? Being a child of the late 1980s, I now struggle to recall a time…

Watch This Massive Australian Flood Clear an Entire Parking Lot

Queensland, Australia is in the midst of a massive flooding disaster that’s already claimed (at least) eight lives. Now, we’ve got some amazing amateur video of the flooding that shows—in horrifying glory—its full, powerful, car-moving devastation. Watch inside. [The Daily What]

Texting While Driving Might Not Be So Bad When It’s Hands Free

Similar to OnStar’s September launch of voice-activated Facebook and texting, Windows Embedded Automotive 7 has evolved to enable voice commands that let you keep in touch without touching your phone. https://jalopnik.com/gm-is-shoving-facebook-and-voice-texting-into-your-onst-5638161 The upside: a lot less accidents due to keyboard fumbling, hopefully. The downside: every email sounding like it was sent by Rosie the robot.…

Mercedes-Benz Thinks Cars Like This Could Be Grown In Labs

The Los Angeles Design Challenge always brings some crazy idea, but this year one in particular caught our attention: The Mercedes-Benz BIOME concept car. It’s an eco-friendly, biodegradable, ultra-light hybrid vehicle—which would be custom grown in a lab. The folks behind the concept explain that the various parts of the vehicle would be grown separately:…

Microsoft’s On-Demand Store, Games For Windows Marketplace, Will Sell Games on the Cheap

Relaunching November 15th, Microsoft’s Games For Windows Marketplace is their new online, on-demand store for downloading PC games. Big-name publishers such as Capcom, Rockstar and 2k Games will be selling their games on there, with all you need is a Windows Live ID, Xbox Live gamertag or Zune tag to grab titles such as GTA:…

Your Car Desperately Needs This Button

Your car has so many features that you probably don’t even know how to use half of them. Unfortunately what it lacks happens to be an incredibly important little button. Republished with permission from Matthew Inman aka “The Oatmeal,” a former web designer turned comic artist. You can see more of his work on The…

Test Driving Google’s Driverless Car

Click to viewThat driverless car Google’s been working on? Good Morning America spent some time behind the wheel. They even played chicken with it. https://gizmodo.com/google-is-road-testing-cars-that-drive-themselves-5659935 The car’s already traveled 140,000 miles, depending on cameras and a scanning laser to do the driving so you don’t have to. You just tell it your destination and it…

Electrified DeLorean Heads Back to the Future

Hold on to your Huey Lewis and the News cassettes: An all-electric DeLorean DMC-12 will be rolling through the country roads of Italy just in time for the 25th anniversary of Back to the Future’s original European release. Our friends at Wired Italy are big fans of the movie. They’re also fascinated by electric cars,…