The Car Tech blog

This promo video looks more like a video game as professional skateboarders Pat Duffy and Jake Brown take on a 2010 Mustang. The car (with the help of professional drivers and CGI) lands ollies, 360s, and kickflips.

I was doing research for last week's blog about the gas guzzlin' class of 2010 automobiles, and along the way I had read some not-so-positive notes about the 2010 Porsche Cayenne GTS and its rather low gas to mileage ratio. That's too bad; it looks nice on the outside.

Also along the way I began picking up some articles about the 2010 Porsche Panamera, which reportedly marks the German auto maker's first stab at designing and manufacturing a sedan. But if you're thinking that Porsche has traded in horsepower for childproof locks and wood panels, you couldn't be farther away from the truth.

What Porsche has done with the Panamera is put together a sedan with a faux-hatchback rear that still maintains Porsche's signature body style and plenty of kick under the hood. The basic Panamera's V8 revs up in the neighborhood of 400 or so horses, but the twin turbo is said to clock in at more than 500 horsepower--try that in your station wagon! And don't forget about the Panamera's 28 luxury options all at your fingertips. Price tag? I'll let you speculate on that; all I know is I can't afford it.

This exceptional Web video comes from the car geeks at Edmunds.com as they have fun-fun-fun on the Autobahn along the beautiful Bavarian mountains. The driving environment is almost as breathtaking as seeing the Panamera hugging the curves and blasting through the fog. You can tell by the headlights that it's a Porsche, but only once it passes would you say to yourself, "Whoa, was that a Porsche with four doors? Is the world off its axis or what?" Stranger things have happened my friend, so just sit back and enjoy the ride.

This week, we've been taking a look at some of 2010's biggest gas-guzzlers. Not surprisingly, this list has been chock full of utility vehicles, and today's blog chalks up yet another entry for Land Rover. Yesterday, we got a look-see at the 2010 LR4, and our newest inductee into the Low Mileage Hall of Fame is the Land Rover Range Rover Sport (which also wins another award for the most redundant vehicle name ever). The LRRRS boasts average gas mileage of 12 mpg in the city and 17 mpg on the highway--not god awful, but certainly nothing to cheer about.

I was unable to find much compelling Web video to watch on the 2010 model; however, I did stumble onto this little video of a Land Rover being taken off-road and onto a dusty, rocky plain. Apparently, this video is more or less a commercial for Off Roving and Rover Specialties who specialize in making and installing "rock sliders" for protecting the underbody of SUVs. It appears to be doing a good job, as the rocks and terrain in this video look fairly treacherous to a vehicle's underside--I know I'd be worried without 'em. Anyway, this video also provides a semitutorial on the sliders and their attributes along the way. Heaven forbid you learn something while watching inconsequential Web video, right?

What is happening to the Mini in this Web video? Spray-can art! Here's yet another Mini promo video featuring things most people don't do to their cars. It's all to promote the new book "Wash Me," and it features some popular European spray-can artists.

So here we go with another Web video clip of a Class A gas guzzler for the year 2010, the Land Rover LR4, which by all accounts is supposed to take the place of the LR3. This 2010 SUV with a 5-liter V8 engine averages 14 mpg between city and highway driving and sells for nearly 50 grand.

This video is a little different than what I've been presenting here lately; it demonstrates how the surround-vision (my own terminology, thank you very much) cameras in the LR4 can aid the driver of this big ol' SUV. It shows all the different views you can get with the LR4 camera system, and how the cameras can help one navigate off-road terrain such as a backwoods bridge...because we all know how common this problem is for everyday drivers.

Still it's an interesting look at how car makers are willing to put out as many bells and whistles in a car as possible to try and get you to be impressed enough to buy a brand-new vehicle in an ongoing era of economic uncertainty.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Top Safety Pick award for 2010 goes to 19 cars and eight SUVs. And for the first time, the vehicles were tested on roof strength, to measure protection in a rollover. Top Safety Pick winners also must have electronic stability control, which research shows significantly reduces crash risk. This is the second time the Institute has tightened criteria since announcing the first recipients in 2005.

According to the IIHS report out today, Subaru is the only manufacturer with a winner in all four vehicle classes. The automaker earns five awards for 2010, followed by Ford and Volvo, coming in with six winners. Volkswagen/Audi has five, and Chrysler follows with four awards. Two new small cars, the Nissan Cube and Kia Soul, join the Top Safety Pick list for 2010.

The new requirement for strong roofs are in response to the fact that rollovers kill more than 9,000 people in passenger vehicles each year. The Institute estimates that stronger roofs reduce the risk of serious and fatal injury in single-vehicle rollovers by about 50 percent compared with roofs meeting the minimum requirement.

(Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)

A white 2011 My Sorento CUV, rolled off the production line yesterday at the Kia Motors manufacturing plant in West Point, Georgia. The plant is the first in the U.S. and is expected to produce 300,000 vehicles at full capacity and employ 2,500 people, with on-site and nearby suppliers creating 7,500 additional jobs.

According to a news release, Kia Motors has invested $1 billion in the facility that features the world's most advanced manufacturing techniques. The new plant offers more than a half mile of height-adjustable conveyors and wood flooring, for a more comfortable work environment.

The plant spreads out over 2,200 acres, and includes a body stamping facility, a transmission shop where the all-new 2011 Sorento's six-speed automatic transmission is produced, and a two mile test track.

A couple of weeks ago, Lexus made headlines with the unveiling of its first official "supercar" at the 2009 SEMA show in Las Vegas. The Lexus LFA that debuted at SEMA is a performance vehicle that the automaker thinks will set the standard for sports and performance cars that have a high luxury quotient. Lexus has also updated its LX 570 utility vehicle for the 2010 market, and it has bells and whistles galore. It's a good thing you get so many extras with this LX, because you definitely won't get what you bargain for in gas mileage. That's why the Lexus LX 570 makes the cut for this week's video blog look at the Gas Guzzlers of 2010.

This Web clip focuses on the positives of the 2010 Lexus LX 570, making it sound like the SUV of the century. Cosmetically speaking, it is basically the definition of a luxury utility vehicle and carries that air of class that most Lexus vehicles reek of. It has all sorts of neat features like electrically folding back seats, side and back camera monitors, and parking assist in case you aren't aware how close you are to hitting that other car. Hell, it even has a feature referred to as "crawl control," just in case some ritzy white collar couple decides they want to push their nearly $80K SUV up a mountain. I'm sure that occasion comes up all the time.

While the makers of this video clip mention the 5.7L V-8 engine that can kick major horsepower ass, they conveniently neglect that the 2010 Lexus LX 570 has a gas mileage average of roughly 15 mpg between highway and city driving. The fact that the LX 570 weighs nearly 3 tons doesn't help it either. On the other hand, if your wallet's that tight that you're worried about your gas mileage, chances are you're probably not getting in line for this fancy but pricey luxury SUV.

Not too long ago I delivered a few blog posts featuring some big-ol' gas guzzling SUVs like the Hummer and the Dartz Kombat. Well, I was sitting here stumped on what to write a blog about and I thought to myself that I hadn't done a full-fledged theme week with this video blog in a while, and from there I brainstormed what to do: this week's video blog posts are going to take a look at some of the worst new and ongoing offenders in gas mileage. And I figured since I was giving Hummer some air time recently, it's a sure bet to start this week with one of the biggest modern automotive offenders, the Hummer H3.

A recent article from msn.com suggested that the 2010 Hummer H3 Alpha was one of the 10 biggest gas guzzlers of the current/upcoming (depending how you look at it) year, and it's hard to argue. Averaging out at about 14 mpg between city and highway miles, it's hardly economical in this day and age.

Unfortunately, I had some trouble finding quality video featuring the Hummer H3, but I did stumble upon this clip featuring a recent H3 getting its drift on in the snow at the 2008 Arctic Challenge. Yeah, it's not the exact same vehicle I'm picking on for this post, but so what? It's fun, and it serves as a cold reminder that Old Man Winter is lurking just around the corner.