The flying car has been on the tip of every geek’s tongue for decades. We want it. They know it. Despite these facts, it has yet to hit the mainstream. That isn’t stopping Terrafugia from taking the technology and making it into a hybrid vehicle. With a range of nearly 500 miles, the concept would include vertical take-off and landing capabilities, a plug-in petrol-electric hybrid flying car, and the ability to be a four-seater. It may not be in the immediate future for consumers, but we may see it someday according to iol. As the Transition program shifts from research and development to production…

We know it works. We know it gets us better gas mileage than other types of vehicles. We know that it’s quiet, then gets louder as we accelerate. For many of us, we simply don’t know how it does what it does. The hybrid engine is a mystery to most. It doesn’t have to be. This graphic by AutoMD that comes to us from Indianapolis Toyota breaks down the ins and outs of the technology behind hybrids. Click to enlarge. …

After numerous delays, the 2012 Fisker Karma plug-in electric performance car will finally be heading to showrooms by the end of this month. According to British automotive magazine Autocar, Fisker’s first customer will be actor and committed environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio, with Al Gore and Colin Powell set to follow. Just five Karmas will be built per week at Fisker’s assembly plant in Finland until November, when production is expected to increase to 300 units per week. Three thousand pre-orders for the car have been tallied, so Fisker expects all Karmas to be accounted for until…

As the roads fill with the quiet, environmentally-friendly hybrids, most people are now aware of the premise. The electric half of the hybrid starts the vehicle going, then the gas half kicks in once it gets to a certain speed. While the basic concept is easy to understand, there’s a lot more to it than that. This graphic by AutoMD breaks down the ins and outs of hybrids, giving us a glimpse of what really makes the engine go. Gas prices rising makes purchasing a hybrid a potentially valid option. “We thought that the interest in the Prius had hit its peak last year, but it’s gone beyond anything we could…

Hybrid vehicle sales account for less than 3 percent of auto sales overall. Despite this surprisingly low figure in the midst of unrelenting buzz, hybrid technology will only become more prevalent over the next couple of years. Evidence of that was on display at the recent 2010 LA Auto Show, where many automakers showed off new hybrids that were destined to reach showrooms in the near future. But consumers aren’t the only ones looking to gain miles per gallon and curb emissions. Even the most unlikely of vehicles benefits from cutting-edge hybrid technology: street sweepers. “A sweeper…

Toyota’s 2010 Prius is getting a new speaker system upgrade – under the hood, to ensure that the car makes enough noise to alert pedestrians to its presence. Apparently, the cars are now too quiet, and there is a general concern that this might pose a danger to those on foot. There’s no word yet on whether an optional smoke stack can be added to the engine to combat the fact that the Prius doesn’t spit out enough pollution. The speaker system is an optional upgrade currently available in Japan only. Toyota is undecided whether to begin offering the option in North America, worried perhaps that North…