cars

Harman Kardon is just about to unleash the successor to its Drive + Play iPod interface, and we got a sneak preview of the new system this week. Imaginatively called the Drive + Play 2, the stylish device offers tons more features than its predecessor did, including the ability to show album art, an alphabetic search function, and a unique means of refining playlists on the move. The DP2 will be hitting shelves next week with a price tag of around $400. Check out our Crave slide show for all the info as well as some beauty shots.

Many of us are more than willing to do our part to fight global warming, but not everyone is quite ready trade the family gas guzzler for a Prius or a diesel Honda. Yet you can still take a small step toward lessening your environmental guilt with a new shift knob designed to promote fuel efficiency.

The "Gaslock Indy Cater" has an LED indicator that reminds the driver what gear the car is in. Some might think it's about as useful as the "qStart"--the gadget that tells you which side of the road you'… Read more

If you're lucky, as I have been in several cities, you might occasionally flag down a rare taxicab bedecked by its driver with disco balls, mood lighting, tinfoil hearts, or even a menagerie of stuffed animals. This week, San Franciscans got the option to hitch a ride in a novelty taxi of a different sort, as start-up Green Cab's single hybrid Honda Civic hit the road. Next month the fleet could total five gas-electric taxis painted in low-toxic green paint.

"It's not only environmentally friendly, it's good financially for the driver," said Green Cab … Read more

When Crave mentions sat-nav, our beloved readers probably think TomTom, possibly Garmin, or maybe even Navman. But, you guys should probably start adding Route 66 to your mental Rolodex of cool GPS devices.

We've just taken receipt of the trendily named Route 66 Chicago 9000, part of the new line of Route 66 sat-navs announced at CeBIT earlier in the year. The 9000 is the big daddy of the bunch and incorporates a 2GB SD card with detailed European maps, plus an RDS/TMC receiver--the anti-traffic missile of sat-nav warfare.

The unit looks fairly innocuous. Its 4.3-inch screen … Read more

Guess what's bringing sexy back these days? Trailers! Well, kind of--these are actually campers, since you hook them up to the back of your car or SUV. But I'm sure that with this precedent, we'll be seeing full-out trailers done up in luxe style before long. Apparently, some people really just can't make their cross-country excursions without high design:

Deseo Caravan. Hailing from the Netherlands, this is marketed as a lightweight, compact, well-designed camper that's sold at an affordable cost. They are pretty reasonably priced, starting at 6,677 euros, which is slightly over $9,… Read more

If you only quickly glanced at the Smart Car, you might think it is something that fell off of a ride at the state fair.

In reality, it's the Smart Car, a two-seater mini-car that's already gaining huge momentum in the U.S. The vehicles, which grew out of a joint venture between Mercedes and Swatch, get about 60 miles per gallon and are fairly zippy to drive, I'm told. But more importantly if you live in a city, you can park it almost anywhere. In person, they actually look pretty cool.

Some run on regular gas … Read more

Feast your eyes on this, car technology and high-mileage nuts. It's a Honda Accord that runs on diesel.

Honda expects to bring the clean-diesel car to the U.S. by 2010. It gets 62.8 miles a gallon on the highway, but otherwise looks and feels like a regular Accord. At that mileage level, the car is about as "clean" as a new Toyota Prius. But if you run it on biodiesel, a form of diesel made from vegetable oil or animal fat, it would be even cleaner than a Prius (Priuses get 60 in the city). … Read more

You can now add LG Electronics to the growing list of consumer electronic companies entering the U.S. GPS market. First previewed at CES 2007, three portable navigation systems from LG are making their U.S. debut: the LG LN730, the LG LN735, and the LG LN740. Here's a quick breakdown of each device; they're all available now for purchase.

LG LN730: An entry-level system with North American maps and 1.7 million points of interest preloaded on the device. The unit is equipped with a SiRFstarIII GPS receiver and offers voice-guided directions, MP3 playback, and a photo … Read more

We can already hear the revving of engines and sense the tension as crazy drivers from across the world arrive in London to race some of the fastest, most souped-up automobiles Crave's shielded little eyes have ever seen. Heaven help us--the 2007 Gumball 3000 Rally kicks off this weekend.

To mark the testosterone-drenched occasion, we're giving away two fancy HTC PDAs, complete with sat-nav--the very same ones used by the Gumballers themselves.

The petrolheads will be navigating their way along the 3,000-mile route at an astonishing pace, using an HTC-designed T-Mobile MDA Compact III, pre-loaded with CoPilot … Read more