1970-1973 Firebird Front Grilles on 2040-parts.com

A profile of Steve McQueen: Autoweek archives

For today's Autoweek archive feature, we are highlighting an article by Denise McCluggage from February 1981. McCluggage knew McQueen and recalls her encounters with the “King of Cool” through the years until his death. Before becoming a star, McQueen and McCluggage met over their mutual love of automobiles, more specifically the MG-TC, which both subsequently owned.

Tesla Model S hits the UK second-hand market – at a premium

You can have a Tesla Model S now, but it’ll cost you The Tesla Model S is now, finally, starting to the UK in RHD, and it offers, for the first time, an electric powertrain that comes very close to offering the same convenience in use as a normal ICE car. True, it’s a far from cheap car to buy – prices start from around £50k and go up to around £100k if you throw caution to the wind and spec up almost everything on the Model S options list. But despite the steep prices, the Model S can be something of a bargain, especially if you’re a business user.

MIT researchers rethink electric-car batteries

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say a new battery design for electric vehicles could be a lightweight and inexpensive alternative. The goal for the team's three-year project, launched in September 2010, is to have a functioning prototype ready to be engineered as a replacement for existing electric-car batteries. At this point in the project, the prototype uses a “semi-solid flow” to separate the two functions of a battery--storing energy and discharging it when needed--into separate physical structures.