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Buzzing around the floor of the 2009 New York auto show, is the PUMA--the result of a collaboration between Segway and GM. We had a chance to ride in the vehicle, an electric-powered two seater. PUMA stands for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, and works on similar principles as the Segway Personal Transporter. Where on the Personal Transporter, you lean forward to make it go, the PUMA's steering column has to be pushed, which causes the entire cab to slide to the front and move weight forward, making the PUMA go.

The driver of the PUMA cautioned us to … Read more

At the 2009 New York auto show, Land Rover rolled out updates to its top-of-the-line vehicles, showing a new direction for the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, and renaming the LR3 as the LR4. All vehicles share a new 5-liter V-8 engine, with a supercharged version available in the Range Rovers, and new cabin tech, which integrates the navigation and audio control. iPod integration is finally available, at long last, and Land Rover will make HD radio available.

Note: This story was corrected to fix a typo in the company name after it initially published.

The Liv Inizio, an all-electric sports car with specs similar to the Tesla Roadster, is making its debut at the 2009 New York auto show. This new electric car is made by EV Innovations, formerly called Hybrid Technologies, which showed off the Liv Wise, a Toyota Yaris converted to an electric power train, at last year's New York auto show.

EV Innovations claims a 200-mile range for the Liv Inizio and a 0 to 60 mph acceleration time of 5 seconds. Top … Read more

Italian automotive designer Franco Sbarro runs a performance shop in Switzerland, and is known for bringing innovative concepts to the Geneva auto show. This year, Mr. Sbarro shows up with a compact roadster, using hubless wheels and an innovative touch-screen interface by Delphi.

Swiss automaker Rinspeed will debut at the 2009 Geneva auto show an electric concept car that changes shape to conform to the number of passengers on board.

The iChange is a lightweight, 4,280mm (approximately 14 feet) EV sports car with a teardrop-like silhouette designed to maximize fuel efficiency for the single passenger. But with the push of a button, the sloped rear of the car pops up to accommodate two additional passengers, if needed.

The concept sports car forgoes doors, opting for a very ADA-unfriendly clamshell roof. Rinspeed is obviously assuming that in the future, women will no longer wear skirts. … Read more

Honda generated a lot of excitement last year when it announced the 2010 Insight, a new dedicated hybrid. Could it unseat Toyota's Prius from the hybrid throne? But Toyota wasn't about to let this upstart go unchallenged, announcing an update to the current generation Prius, which has been in production since 2004. We got to see both production vehicles at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show, and set them against each other in a series of photos. Will the Insight bring fresh thinking to the hybrid space? Will Toyota sit on its laurels, or give the Prius the update … Read more

McLaren ends its SLR line with a special model named after a British racing legend. The SLR Stirling Moss features supercar performance and looks that, except for the carbon fiber, are right at home on a 1950s racetrack. When the limited production run starts on the SLR Stirling Moss, McLaren will stop building the current SLR line, and currently has no plans to bring it back. But the model is going out on a fine note, as this carbon fiber body has an extremely seductive side line and incredible power under the hood. Think less than 3.5 seconds to … Read more

The VM9423 touch-screen multimedia system is the first of six new Jensen models that will launch during the first half of 2009. This top-of-the-line system has a built-in HD Radio tuner, integrated iPod connectivity, and iTunes tagging. The VM9423 is GPS navigation, backup camera, Bluetooth, and Sirius/XM satellite radio ready--all of which require additional modules to add their respective functions. We cringe thinking about the mess of cables and modules that would have to be tucked behind the dash for the full-blown, all-bells-and-whistles install, but we think this modular approach will let users add the features they can afford … Read more

At its press conference today, Audiovox/Jensen announced a partnership with mobile media provider MediaFLO USA to bring live mobile TV to Audiovox's mobile audio/video offerings.

MediaFLO's FLO TV service currently allows users to watch ten mobile television channels on certain Verizon and AT&T Wireless handsets for $15 per month. The channel lineup is expected to increase to about 25 channels by the time the in-vehicle service launches in Q3 2009. Whether this will also mean an increase in subscription fees has yet to be determined. According to Audiovox representatives, users will be able to … Read more