Natural-gas-powered Honda Civic can stay in California carpool lane

Honda Civic GX drivers in California are smiling this week as they continue to have access to the high-occupancy-vehicle lane, even with just one person in the car. Even though one-occupant hybrid cars have lost access to the carpool lane, natural-gas-powered vehicles get to use it for another four years. Beginning on July 1, yellow-stickered partial hybrids were banned from HOV areas on the highways unless they carried the mandated number of people.

Doomed Saturns, Hummers make assembly-line curtain calls

Two doomed General Motors brands--Saturn and Hummer--are getting their last hurrahs on the assembly line. GM assembled 1,037 Saturn Outlooks last month after not making any Saturns since October. “We are building out a few Saturns to utilize existing material,” GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter said.

BBC probe Top Gear 'practices'

THE BBC has held an internal investigation into Top Gear after a string of controversies involving the hit motoring show. The Guardian said that a report examining its "culture and practices" has been sent to director of television Danny Cohen and that people working on the show were asked if they thought it was racist. The show was found to have breached Ofcom's broadcasting rules last month over a ''racial'' term used by presenter Jeremy Clarkson.