Last month, Toyota issued a massive recall of nearly 4 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles. The recall is intended to fix a very dangerous defect which can lead to unintended acceleration of the vehicle. Initially thought to be an issue with the floor mats interfering with the gas pedal, the real problem involves the cars’ electronic throttle system.

So, what should your response be if your accelerator sticks? Watch this video to find out, it could be a very important safety lesson!

Duration : 0:2:34

Technorati Tags: electronic throttle sysem, Lexus, recall, response, safety, Toyota, unintended acceleration

What Are The Fuels Of The Future?

The auto industry, struggling in the current recession and possibly (finally) facing the fact that oil is now a dwindling resource, has to execute a fundamental shift toward acceptance of new technologues. In this interview, Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with Vijay Vaitheeswaran, a correspondent for The Economist and the co-author of “Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future,” about what he calls the coming “end of the age of oil.”

Duration : 0:3:49

Technorati Tags: alternative energy, auto industry, fuel, innovation, technology, Vijay Vaitheeswaran

The New-Technology HCCI Engine

The internal combustion engine powering today’s cars and trucks has stayed pretty much the same during the hundred years or so since its invention. Engineers have tried for decades to improve the engine’s efficiency, without running up significant cost increases. The homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine design does exactly that.

It runs more efficiently and produces fewer toxic emissions. It does this by burning the fuel through a flameless combustion process that isn’t triggered by a spark plug. This is valuable even for hybrid vehicles, since they’re generally still using an internal combustion, gasoline powered engine.

By replacing the internal combustion engine with an HCCI engine, fuel efficiency can be improved by more than fifteen percent. GM is already looking at putting this engine design into production in its future releases.

Duration : 0:2:11

Technorati Tags: car, combustion, economy, efficiency, engine, flameless, fuel, gas, GM, hcci, hybrid

“An examination of why the auto industry is in trouble, the role of banks and management, the bailouts and what the solutions might be to fix the problems.”

This is old news, about a year old in fact. And we know the manufacturers got their money and stayed in business, for now anyway. But it’s a good, broad look at the issue and shows that no problem this big is as simple as the finger-pointing by any one camp might suggest…so I stuck it in.

Duration : 0:10:50

Technorati Tags: auto, bailout, Banks, Brown, Industry, Maddow, Rachel, Sherrod, Show