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Two Chrysler designs coming to the Beijing auto show

In celebration of the Year of the Dragon, Chrysler Group just announced its return to the China market at the 2012 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition on April 23, with two new concepts.

According to a press release, Chrysler will unveil a Chrysler 300C design concept and a Jeep Wrangler design concept. Both are designed to appeal to the Chinese consumer.

Although Chrysler did not reveal any details, dark and vaguely revealing photos of the Jeep Wrangler concept show embossed leather seats, large black wheels, and a mesh grille. The Chrysler 300C offers a light, luxurious interior and a dark mysterious … Read more

Car Tech Live 256: New York auto show preview and the last live show ever! (podcast)

The Feds want to ban navigation systems, a preview of the New York auto show, we take a ride in not one, but two very fast cars, and finally we say goodbye to Car Tech Live.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 256 SHOW NOTES

• Fed driver distraction guidelines make navigation unusable

• Piece the 2013 Nissan Altima together from this trio of teasers

• BMW X1 in New York heralds U.S. introduction

• Toyota new sedan

• New Acura Flagship to Debut at the New York International Auto Show

How to tell if a car stereo is too loud (video)

The fact that the operator of this car stereo has to wear protective ear-wear and keep the driver's door of his 1989 Nissan Pickup Truck open to fully demo the system should be your first warning sign that the outcome of the YouTube video below will be either disastrous or hilarious.

The sound-off competition starts about the way you'd expect: with a whole lot of shaking. Then, at around the 20-second mark, the bass (which is already overwhelming the camera's puny microphone) proves to be too much for the Nissan's 23-year-old glass windshield and...well, just … Read more

How does the Nissan Juke-R compare to the GT-R on a wet track?

The Nissan GT-R embarrasses other high-performance cars with its performance. The Nissan Juke simply embarrasses its own driver with its looks. So cramming the GT-R's internals and chassis under the Juke's body to create the Juke-R seems like the perfect storm of embarrassment for all.

But it's not. The Juke-R is actually pretty awesome. We've already seen the world's highest-riding supercar hand a trio of exotics their own overpriced hats in a (rather stacked) race in Dubai, so we know it's pretty fast. But how does this Frankensteined GT-R stack up against Godzilla himself, … Read more

Progressive Automotive X Prize winner earmarked for production

Looking a little bit like the light cycles from Tron, but without the glowy bits, the E-Tracer 7009 placed in the top three of the Progressive Automotive X Prize competition in 2010.

Now the two-wheeled, two-seater has been renamed the MonoTracer MTE-150 and is headed to production, according to Auto Blog Green.

The MonoTracer MTE-150 has a Kevlar cabin and runs on a third-generation 150 kW (200 horsepower) drivetrain from AC Propulsion in California.

While the X Prize competitors were challenged to create a vehicle that could reach 100 mpge (miles per gallon equivalent), the MonoTracer could see about 350 … Read more

Automakers spoof movies in Super Bowl ads, and employ many dogs

You won't have to wait until Sunday to enjoy the latest crop of Super Bowl commercials. And from the looks of it there will be a bumper crop of automaker ads.

Wedged between the notoriously racy GoDaddy ad and various commercials for beverages and yogurt, will be more vehicle ads than ever.

Last week, Audi took a stab at trendy creatures of the night. This week Jerry Seinfeld revives his old shtick--complete with Soup Nazi and other characters--for an ad for the new Acura NSX. Jay Leno and other familiar faces appear in the extended version of the ad.… Read more

Watch a Nissan Juke-R spank a trio of supercars in Dubai

When Nissan showed us renderings of a GT-R powered Nissan Juke-R, we said, "Gee, that's neat." When it started building the darn thing, our interest was piqued.

Today, we have a video of this oddest of skunkworks supercars at a street race exhibition event in Dubai going wheel-to-wheel with the likes of a Lamborghini Gallardo, a Ferrari 458 Italia, and a Mercedes-Benz SLS. Check it out below.

OK, so "wheel-to-wheel" was a bit of an overstatement as the Juke hands the trio of proper supercars their hats around an improvised short course. How did that … Read more

Audi debuts Super Bowl ad on Facebook

Audi of America's new advertising campaign is sinking its teeth into the popularity of vampires with a new 60-second TV spot that will air in the first break after kickoff in Super Bowl XLVI.

The commercial, featuring the new 2013 Audi S7, was part of a contest called Race the Light. Audi fans on Facebook guessed which trend would be "killed off" by Audi's LED headlight technology.

The stylish ad, created by San Francisco-based Venables Bell & Partners, features the song "The Killing Moon" by Echo and The Bunnymen. It can be viewed now … Read more

GM explores rear windows as entertainment displays

When I was a kid and my family went on road trips, my siblings and I played "Punch Buggy," a particularly brutal game of spotting a VW Beetle and punching the kid next to you in the arm. Kids today have less combative forms of in-car entertainment such as DVD players and game machines. But kids in the future may have backseat entertainment that looks like it's straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Recently, General Motors Research and Development tasked researchers and students from the Future Lab, at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel, to … Read more