In the name of better gas mileage

You know GPS tracking has gone mainstream … when it shows up on a shelf at Target. The red-dot stores will soon be selling DriveSync, which lets you monitor how and where a car has been driven. Notice I said "has been," as this $329 product isn't a live tracking gadget but rather a data recorder that shows you where your car has been after you download data to your PC via its removable USB key. The DriveSync software generates turn-by-turn trip logs, which is kind of cool for the sneaky parent or private investigator.

	ie8 fix

Inappropriate emissions: they aren't just from teenage boys anymore. XM is now pulling a number of its add-on radio adapters off the market due to excessive RF emissions. Sirius has had similar problems with some of its adapters, too. In this latest round, XM has yanked the Delphi XM SkyFi2 and Audiovox Xpress, and it may also have to suspend the Roady XT and the Sportscaster. If you don't mind growing a second nose or some other radiation-induced deformity, the remaining stocks of these noncompliant radios could be desirable, as they probably hit your car radio with a really strong signal.

I often gripe about carmakers making us choose either XM or Sirius as a factory sat radio. Having to make that choice is like having to pick AM or FM: there is no right answer. So it's intriguing to see reports of Sirius EVP/CFO David Frear saying a merger of XM and Sirius would indeed "make sense from an economic standpoint," though he has the usual questions about whether it would ever get antitrust approval.

I'm one of the only people who liked the original hybrid--the goofy, plucky little Honda Insight. Compact doesn't begin to describe it; its lines make a statement, and you have to be comfortable as a person to drive anything with wheel-well fairings in this day and age! It introduced the world to alternative power in cars (previous attempts never made it past oddity status), all while making the Toyota Prius look frumpier than your grandmother's everyday shoes. But the Insight sold miserably, and now it has been cancelled. To replace it, Honda will create a new hybrid-only model that will debut by 2009. Expect it to be a lot more like a Prius in overall "family practicality" and to go a long way toward erasing the MSRP penalty hybrids carry today. Also coming from Honda are I-4 and V-6 diesels. But I'll still miss the Insight.

What would you give up to save gas? Kelley Blue Book surveyed its site users to find out what they would sacrifice from their current car to get 5mpg better mileage. Here are the results:

• Vehicle size (step down in vehicle class/size): 27 percent
• Brand cachet or perceived status: 12 percent
• Pay more money: 8 percent
• 100 horsepower or more: 8 percent
• All of the above: 23 percent
• Not willing to sacrifice anything: 22 percent (there are the SUV drivers!)

I don't know about 100 horses, but I would give up significant horsepower to save fuel. Most of us waffle around, never using the top 20 percent of our car's horsepower, yet our engines still have to squirt something into all those loafing cubic inches, and that something would be gasoline.

When trucks crash. A major new study of big-rig wrecks urges that Class 8 rigs be equipped with lane-departure warning systems, which alert the driver he's drifting into another lane and about to squash a car like a bug. Thirty-two percent of the time a big rig is involved in an injury or fatality crash, it's because of a bad lane departure, making it the number one cause.

RDS-TMC could be a goner. And you don't even know you'll miss it. RDS-TMC is one of two technologies that feed many of today's GPS nav devices with live traffic (the other is XM satellite data), but RDS-TMC is already looking long in the tooth, according to a new study from ABI Research. Why? Too little bandwidth to handle richer applications. RDS-TMC uses scraps of bandwidth on local broadcast radio stations, and since ABI sees "very strong demand for traffic services over RDS-TMC in North America" in the next couple of years, it will run out of breath. What will replace it? Who knows, but the bets range from cellular, satellite, VICS, DSRC, DMB-T, HD Radio, and maybe even an enhanced version of RDS-TMC.

Cayman with fewer teeth on the way. Porsche is doing something unusual: the company is releasing a lower-spec model of the Cayman, its newest model that is slotted between the Boxster and the 911. Carmakers almost always push their nameplates upmarket, but this new Cayman comes in at an MSRP of $49,400, about $9,000 less than the original Cayman S. It arrives at the end of July. Part of the cost cutting means it will share the 2.7-liter flat-six found in the Boxster. This vehicle is probably a very profitable unit to make. Credit Suisse has divined this interesting profit-margin math in Porsche's line:

1 911 Turbo = 4 911 Carreras or 7 Cayennes or 10 Boxsters

I suspect this new base Cayman will fit between the Cayenne and the Boxster but closer to the Cayenne.

Now, this isn't a car technology per se, but it should be. A piece of software with the unfortunate name of Naggie prompts you with location-based reminders from your to-do list. Let's say you're driving by the dry cleaner; Naggie reminds you to pick up the cleaning. When it senses you have arrived downtown, it will remind you to book a reservation at that hot new restaurant for tonight and so on. It runs on only the RIM BlackBerry 7520 for now, but it's one of those location-based technologies that makes total sense in cars.