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Leno lines up electric Ford Focus for celebs to turn fast laps

Car collector Jay Leno's new prime-time TV show launches a new segment on Friday night, challenging visiting celebrities to set a fast lap time on a track outside the entertainer's studio. The car that Leno hands to his guests is an electric-powered Ford Focus--a harbinger of a battery-powered Focus that Ford plans to put on sale in 2011. Leno's electric Focus uses the more-modern European Focus as its base, not the well-aged U.S.

BMW 1 Series dead in US after 2013

With its successor set to bow at the Detroit Auto Show in a couple of months' time, word's come down from BMW that 2013 will indeed be the end of the line for the BMW 1 Series — at least in the US. It will remain available elsewhere in the world as a three-door and five-door hatch. The coupe and convertible, meanwhile, are being replaced by the 2 Series, in convention with BMW's new naming scheme.

Industry pulse: NHTSA administrator David Strickland talks distracted driving

Editor's note: In an exclusive interview with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration administrator David Strickland, Melanie Batenchuk of Be Car Chic asked about distracted driving and the agency's combined efforts with the Department of Transportation to curb this bad behavior. David Strickland has been championing safer, distraction-free driving since the beginning of his tenure at NHTSA in January 2010. Strickland has been working tirelessly toward this goal alongside stakeholders such as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, private-sector executives, automobile manufacturers and safety advocacy groups.