White House pushes for Friday deal on fuel-economy regulations

The White House wants to announce as early as Friday that it has reached agreement with most automakers on a plan to raise corporate average fuel economy targets to 54.5 mpg by 2025, manufacturers' representatives said Wednesday. While no automakers have signed on to the Obama administration plan yet, most--including Ford, Toyota, General Motors and Chrysler--are generally supportive and intend to do so, the industry officials said. Each manufacturer is trying to iron out technical issues with the White House before endorsing the proposal.

2012 Honda Civic: First detail, photo and video

2012 Honda Civic - suitably disguised If you think about Honda cars the first car that probably springs to mind is the Honda Civic because the Civic seems to have been around for ever. In fact, the 2012 Honda Civic will be the ninth generation of the Civic over nearly 40 years. The original Civic arrived in 1972 with all its Japanese build quality and reliability intact from the start, and it was something of a revelation for a motoring public that were still buying new Austin 1300s and the later model Humber Sceptres.

EV maker Coda trims staff

Not much more could go wrong for electric-car maker Coda, which has struggled to sell its four-door EV in the United States since officially launching it here in March. But Web reports, first seen at www.plugincars.com, say the company laid off 50 employees, or 15 percent of its workforce, last week, mostly in the sales and marketing departments. Efforts by Autoweek to contact Coda have not been successful.