The BMW had a different interior than the other E36 3-series of it’s time, but the C-class hatchback? The only difference was the shape of the hood over the instruments, otherwise it looked like any C-class inside.

Without hatchbacks, BMW and Mercedes would have lost the young hipster crowd in Europe, where people under 50 don’t touch sedans with a ten-foot-pole. If exporting them to America was a wise move… I don’t know.

The Avensis wasn’t designed as a Lexus, and by applying the L badge to it without L-finesse in the design, they’ve killed their own styling direction before it ever really got going.

If you look at pictures of an Avensis, it’s clear that it doesn’t share any sheet metal with the HS250h. The shoulder line if the Avensis is Volvo-esque, while the 250 is more slab-sided, the 250 has a shorter hood and more of a cab-forward design, the 250’s C-pillars look like on the IS, while the Avensis has a Hofmeister kink etc etc.

The RX wasn’t designed as a Lexus either (straight rebadge of a Toyota Harrier), nobody ssems to bother in the USA and nobody seems to buy them where I live.

Which is itself not that far off from the Corolla. The universal reaction here seems to be that it looks like an economy car. Hybrid or no, that’s brand-destroying. Look at how much noise has been made about whether the 318ti and C coupé befit their brands.

The Avensis wasn’t designed as a Lexus, and by applying the L badge to it without L-finesse in the design, they’ve killed their own styling direction before it ever really got going. Shame on Toyota for engaging in the type of cheap badge engineering that has destroyed the Big 3.

Yeah, by Valmet, but that didn’t make the Boxster or Cayman any less German. In keeping with the Detroit tradition of insisting that any car made in the US by a company headquartered outside the US was not domestic, I’m going to insist that the Karma is red-white-and-blue-blooded American. I’m not sure what Henrik will think of that, though…

For Tom Cruise.

I read somwhere that GM had chosen LG because their cells were available in a rectangular form factor, which would mean more efficent use of space in multiple-cell packs.

The Fiskers will be made in Finland…

If there were a way to make cars run on hype, there’d be hope for Detroit after all.

I’ve spent additional time in the Karma since writing this piece. If the front seat is all the way back, there is no space for legs behind it–I couldn’t get my legs in the car.

lzaffuto: No one’s going to think CRX when they see the Insight. It strongly resembles the Prius, and that’s not a coincidence.

psarhjinian: The MKT looks nothing like the Flex, inside or out. I can’t warm to the exterior. Maybe others will? Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The interior, though, is very well done.

Slightly?
Only when compared to this “masterpiece”.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y12/vadp/alien.jpg

Great reporting. Thanks.

Honest-to-God, when I saw the profile picture of the Lexus HS250h earlier today, I thought Subaru had “fixed” the 4-door Impreza.

For what it’s worth I chose LiFePO4 as my chemistry of choice when I built my electric bicycle up. It has 576 Wh of LiFePO4, which is rather amusing when the newly-cheapened Honda Insight automobile has only 580 Wh of NiMH at its disposal. Yes, my bicycle has as much battery as a mild hybrid automobile.

“Alien-esque” would be my adjective. Although, I can’t find a good comparison pic of the Alien’s dental structure.

Well, you didn’t think that the EPA was going to approve a battery plant in the US anytime soon, did you? Even if it could be done, the sheer amount of environmental impact assessment paperwork required to prove that your plant which makes batteries that replace that nasty, global-warming causing gasoline won’t cause birth defects in naked mole rats could probably heat the White House for a year.

They’re referring to lithium iron phosphate chemistry, which is also what A123 uses. A123 was originally announced as a Volt battery development partner, but didn’t get the contract. The batteries are powering a smattering of DeWalt tools at your local Home Depots, and RC enthusiasts are busy buying up replacement battery packs to extract the batteries as they pack more punch in a given weight. As I understand it, the challenges right now are cost and shape. The first will be a non-issue given time, and the second may not matter that much in vehicle design. Product designers are currently fond of using lithium-polymer batteries because they can be shaped into a variety of forms other than the typical cylindrical or prismatic cells, but to the best of my knowledge lithium iron phosphate batteries are only available in cylindrical form currently.

Can GM’s rorty turbo four possibly behave as an engine in a $90,000+ sedan is expected to behave?

It’s a series hybrid, so don’t expect it to rev up when you put your foot down. When the batteries are drained, the engine will kick on, rev to its most efficient operating RPM, charge the cells, and then stop. If you temporarily overload during charging, it will probably rev the engine further, but it’s still not a direct linkage from foot down to engine revs. Power delivery is from the electric motors and will be as it always is regardless of whether the engine is running or not, and chances are the car is tuned to muffle the engine as much as possible since there’s no need for the driver to get auditory feedback from the gas engine.

I’m excited for Fisker, not because of the original car (which is drop-dead sexy but probably won’t go a thousand miles without at least one serious mechanical engine that sends it into the shop for a week) but for the promise of a new American car company. The more little eco-wacky companies like this start up, the better the chance that one of these companies will stick around for a while. And hey, who needs more than a 50-mile range to get to the country club and back anyway?

Give me 30 mins