Click for a high res gallery of the Audi A5 TDI

Click above for the Battle Royale between GM and Chrysler models

Click above for a high-res gallery of the KTM X-Bow "Race"

The American buying public may have a very short attention span. Could it be that memories of the record high gas prices of a few months back have already faded away into oblivion? The answer is a definite maybe, as full-size pickups and SUV sales have rebounded a bit from their historic lows, but are still nowhere near where they were a year or two ago. What's more, automakers seem to believe that fuel prices are set to stay high and the current lowered prices are an illusion. So, don't expect

The last in our series of reports from the discussion panels from last week's Austin Alt Car expo focuses on the panel that had the broadest possible appeal: an overview of plug-in hybrids. Taking place on the Saturday, and therefore more accessible to the working public, the free-form panel featured Ron Johnston-Rodriguez of PluginCenter.com and the Port of Chelan County in Washington State, and Chelsea Sexton of Plug-In America. Austan Librach, who works for Austin Energy and Plug-in Partners

The full-size SUV's future is on shaky legs and now, reports have surfaced that General Motors has killed the next generation Tahoe and Yukon 'utes, just weeks after announcing it would shutter its SUV plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. Of course, if that pair is buried, the Suburban and the Cadillac Escalade that use the same platform must also come to an end, at least in their curren

It looks like the theory behind the creation of full-size hybrid SUVs may not hold water, at least from a marketing perspective. Certainly adding a hybrid drivetrain to a big truck will save more gas for a given number of miles driven than doing the same to a smaller more efficient car. At the same time these vehicles will still use more fuel than a smaller vehicle even at the higher mileage levels they achieve. The pitch from automakers like GM and Chrysler was that some people still need the c

The next CLK Cabriolet -- or E-Class Coupe Cabriolet depending on Mercedes' choice of nomenclature -- is out and about, wearing lots of camouflage. While this rendering looks like it could still be pretty accurate, the front fog lights have given way to LED's, which are lit in this latest round of images. The ext

Thirty different auto manufacturers and technology companies are partners in a group called Car 2 Car Communication Consortium. The point is to create cars that talk to each other -- but instead of swapping secrets only with other cars of the same brand, the group wants to create vehicles that can speak to any other car, truck, or motorcycle on the road.

As I said earlier, the panels at the Austin Alt Car expo were heavily focused on plug-in vehicles. The last discussion on Friday continued the trend and was called "Future Prospects for Plug-in Hybrids" and the participants acknowledged that their presentations were treading over some of the same ground that earlier panelists had covered. Still, Mark Duvall of Sebastian Blanco