Ownership costs of traditional versus alternative fuel vehicles

As gas prices remain high, and an increasing number of automakers roll out plug-in hybrid cars and full-electric vehicles, it's becoming easier to be tantalized with the idea of driving right past the gas station and simply "plugging in." The debate ensues when it comes to cost: These alternative fuel vehicles mean a larger outlay of cash at the onset, but the long-term fuel savings could make the purchase worthwhile. To help straighten out this numbers game, we use the Department of Energy's Vehicle Cost Calculator to compare alternative fuel vehicles with their gasoline-only counterparts. For each scenario, we assumed that our hypothetical owner was able to get the full $7,500 federal tax credit and a $2,500 state tax credit, such as is available in California.

Nissan Juke-R – first picture

Nissan Juke-R - the first official picture from Nissan With all things in the car world seemingly focused on fluffy bunnies and green halos, it’s great to see Nissan pushing the envelope at the other end with the Nissan Juke-R, a bonkers version  of Nissan’s compact SUV with the heart of Godzilla – the Nissan GT-R. We first reported the Juke-R – which we dubbed ‘Super Juke’ - at the end of last month when we didn’t know whether the Juke-R would be a one-off or a production model. But within weeks Nissan had come out and confessed our Juke-R story was real and that they really were working on a monster Juke with the heart of a Nissan GT-R.

Toyota to release ‘back to basics’ GT 86 for JDM tuners

Toyota is releasing a back-to-basics version of its GT 86 in April, specifically for the Japanese aftermarket tuning scene. The RC version is intended to be a blank canvas for customers to modify and customize according to their preferences. So wing mirrors, door handles and front and rear bumpers are unpainted, and front foglamps, tailgate lamp, intake manifold cover, stereo and speakers are all removed.