Bmw Black Hat on 2040-parts.com

General Motors combines smartphone functions with the Chevrolet Volt

General Motors is bringing together two of the hottest areas of technology--smartphones and plug-in electric cars. GM's OnStar telematics unit has developed a downloadable application that will let Chevrolet Volt drivers use a Blackberry Storm, Apple iPhone or Motorola Droid to remotely control and monitor some vehicle functions, such as charging. The Volt is slated to go into production late this year and arrive in California utility company fleets by early 2011.

Driven: Volkswagen Passat CC GT

Elegant and refined. Forty years ago these two words would not have been used to describe the Beetles bought in droves by the counterculture in the US; a symbol of the hippy movement and the definitive people's car, designed at a time when Germany sought to put people in motion. With the Passat CC, however, Volkswagen is indeed making a sharp move away from the ‘volks wagen', and these two words rolled off the tongues of those who saw the car in all three countries we drove through on our winter holiday.

One Lap of the Web: It Ain't Easy Being Front-Engined

-- Twitter friend @dudehugs is a Weird Twitter savant and a curator of goofy license plates. To archive the world's silliest vanity plates, you have to understand your subject, comprehensively -- which is why his daily driver Ford Focus has a Louisiana plate that says "KANYE." Thusly inspired, someone decided to chronicle whether every state had a vanity plate dedicated to the notable fishstick connoisseur and hip-hop artist Kanye West: The United Plates of Kanye diligently checks DMV records to see if someone's driving around with KANYE proudly emblazoned. So far, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, and Nevada have their own mini Yeezys.