Toyota Crown 1996 Combination Switch [0e61500] on 2040-parts.com

Tips for saving fuel on road trips: What's real and what isn't

Gasoline costs are hovering near $4 a gallon this week, and drivers hitting the highway for the holiday weekend are looking for ways to save. In preparation for Memorial Day, the Consumer Federation of America has released a list of tips that will help you pinch pennies at the pump. Most of these are the same evergreen recommendations that pop up for every road-trip holiday, and some of them are getting a bit stale.

Worth a read: Wired's 'Why Getting It Wrong Is the Future of Design'

Wired has just published a series of short articles entitled 13 Lessons for Design's New Golden Age. While there are some interesting examples cited in the piece, the concluding article, ‘Why Getting It Wrong Is the Future of Design' by the former creative director of Wired magazine, Scott Dadich, feels like it has particular resonance for car design. Dadich's Wrong Theory uses disruptive examples from the world of art, plus his own experience of working at Wired, to explain how design goes through phases: establishing a direction, creating a set of rules that define that direction and finally someone who dares to break from that direction.

Geely Englon TXN (w/ Gallery)

Geely is poised to show 39 new vehicles at the forthcoming Auto China 2010 motor show in Beijing, among them will be this new TXN taxi. While most of the new cars on show won't be built around entirely new sheet metal - some will feature new powertrains, for example - the Englon TXN is indeed all-new. Sitting in Geely's Englon range, a sub-brand initially created for the taxicab, the TXN is intended as a replacement for the aging TX4 built by British automaker LTI (as well as at Geely's Shanghai Maples factory).