LA Auto Show Design Challenge to tackle future CHP vehicles

When one thinks of Los Angeles, the near future and police vehicles, one particular conveyance comes to mind — the Syd Mead-designed Spinner from Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi classic, Blade Runner. Perhaps cognizant that the time of the film's dystopian setting, 2019, is less than seven years away, the L.A auto show Design Challenge group has set a date of 2025. What will California look like 13 years in the future?

The no-show cars: a reader rant on mad concepts

Instigated by Harley Earl at General Motors in the late 30s with the quaintly named Buick Y-Job, show cars, or concept cars, were presented to an excited public eager for new things. As the world recovered from a depression and then a war, these vehicles pointed to a better future that many people believed in, including the people who produced them. And, although many of the concept cars of the 50s, with their Jetsons plexiglass roofs and notional nuclear powered engines seem ludicrous now, in their time they weren’t that cynical.

Automakers try to stop increase in ethanol limit to 15 percent of gasoline

Automakers are seeking to head off an EPA ruling that would allow gasoline to contain 15 percent ethanol, up from 10 percent now, and they've won some bipartisan congressional support. The two main automaker industry lobbies have argued that the U.S. Department of Energy has done insufficient testing to assure that gasoline containing up to 15 percent ethanol won't harm vehicles.