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Justin Wilson was airlifted to a nearby hospital for a head injury after a crash in the closing laps of Sunday's IndyCar race at Pocono Raceway. He suffered a severe head injury and is in a coma and critical condition. The crash occurred with 21 laps to go when race leader Sage Karam spun in turn 1 and debris from his car hit Justin Wilson. Wilson then, seemingly unconscious, veered off and had a head-on collision with the inside wall, which was protected by a SAFER barrier.

Excerpt: ... The agency [ODOT] wants to move away from fuel taxes and instead charge drivers based on the distance they drive. ODOT officials have been conducting a decade long search for ways to do it—and it’s turned into an unfocused, meandering and expensive effort. The latest plan: Starting July 1, the state is seeking as many as 5,000 volunteers to pay the state a mileage-based rate rather than taxes at the gas pump. The pilot program, called OreGo, relies on drivers signing up with one of three companies that will supply plug-in devices to count the miles. But the...

Jake Pultorak chuckles at the mention of “range anxiety,” the fear among some electric vehicle owners that their car's battery will run out of juice before the driver can find a charger. “I had that as a gas-car driver, but the anxiety was over how much I had to pay to get where I was going,” said Pultorak, 44, of Franklin Park, who has owned an all-electric Tesla Model S for about two years. Worries at the gas pumps have diminished over the past nine months as the global crash in oil prices brought the cost of gasoline to its...

Stanford University scientists have invented the first high-performance aluminum battery that's fast-charging, long-lasting and inexpensive. Researchers say the new technology offers a safe alternative to many commercial batteries in wide use today. "We have developed a rechargeable aluminum battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames," said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. "Our new battery won't catch fire, even if you drill through it." Dai and his colleagues describe their novel aluminum-ion battery in "An ultrafast rechargeable aluminum-ion battery," in...

<p>A fleet of brand new Ford cars were reduced to a pile of rubble after their transporter driver's lorry became wedged under a low bridge.</p> <p>The driver was attempting to take a short-cut to avoid queuing traffic when he collided with a 4.4m (14.5ft) high bridge near Long Itchington, Warks.</p>

More pics at link. The Koenigsegg Regera is the latest supercar from the small, Swedish brand, and its specifications will blow your mind as easily as the car can blow you away. The two-seat, mid-motor, carbon fiber machine, whose name means "to reign" in Swedish, features a unique plug-in hybrid powertrain with a total output of 1,500 horsepower, and can reach its top speed 249 mph in less than 20 seconds. And it does it with just one gear.

As the first day with Chrysler in bankruptcy dawns, let’s look at a mad car from an era when the automaker was set to conquer the very skies: the jet-powered Gilda coupé. There is something definitely wrong with the heat exchangers of Italian air conditioners. Granted, they have fans in them and machines with fans will never be silent but cooling a small building by Lake Como should not require a jet engine. There, I said it—and as if on cue, this orange-silver concoction from half a century ago rounds a bend and motorvates leisurely down a service road. The...

PEW pew! For a week last November an internal combustion engine hummed away in a lab near Chicago. Why the excitement? This particular engine sets fire to fuel with lasers instead of spark plugs, burning fuel more efficiently than normal. Laser-fired engines could lead to cleaner, greener cars.

In the latest blow to New Jersey, which is still staggering from the recession, Mercedes-Benz USA said on Tuesday that it would move its headquarters to Georgia from Montvale, N.J.

Startup Seeo has developed batteries that store far more energy than conventional ones, which could extend the range of electric cars. An experimental lithium-ion battery based on materials developed at a U.S. Department of Energy lab stores twice as much energy as the batteries used in most electric cars. If the technology can be commercialized, it could give affordable electric cars a range of over 200 miles per charge, says Hal Zarem, CEO of Seeo, a startup that’s working on the technology. Today the cheapest electric cars, which cost around $30,000, typically have a range of less than 100 miles....

"This thundering thing is the Beast of Turin. The Fiat S76 land speed record car. It's a behemoth, nearly as tall as a man, with a four-cylinder engine displacing a staggering 28.5 liters. In 1911 that massive engine propelled the Fiat S76 to 135-mph, an extraordinary accomplishment at the time,..... .....

The Chevrolet Niva, a mini-SUV produced as a joint venture between GM and Russian automaker AvtoVAZ, is a beige little ute based on a Lada. It's an incredibly boring car in current form, but the next generation Niva concept unveiled today ahead of the Moscow auto show is a strong enough idea to make us wonder why Chevy hasn't tried something like this over here. Even if you ditch the concept-y winch up front, knobbly tires, off-road snorkel and roof rack featuring enough lights to illuminate Norilsk, the new Niva still manages to look far more aggressive than the standard...

I drove race cars for three years. I know race cars and race car drivers. It's time to lay off Tony Stewart. Don't get me wrong. Whatever should be said about him as a human being, Stewart is a phenomenally talented race car driver, likely one of the all-time greats of motorsports. By comparison, my racing was infinitely more humble, including three years of competition in the Sports Car Club of America and the International Motorsports Association — i.e. club and semi-pro — levels. I raced on asphalt road courses like Watkins Glen and Summit Point with left and right...

When it comes to environmental regulation compliance, the Department of Homeland Security isn’t playing — as evidenced by a recent federal raid of a South Carolinian’s home to confiscate a Land Rover that violated EPA emission rules. Jennifer Brinkley said she saw a line of law enforcement vehicles approaching her home and wondered what was wrong, the local WBTV reported. Homeland Security agents then went to her 1985 Land Rover Defender and lifted the hood. “They popped up the hood and looked at the Vehicle Identification Number and compared it with a piece of paper and then took the car...

It’s been an important part of who knows how many stunt-filled car movies: the jump over the car carrier. Now, thanks to alcohol, we know how it would work in real life. The official report is surprisingly free of words like “bad-ass” and “awesome” but some news stories on the incident do contain the word “impaired”. This is pretty much how I always figured a jump over a car hauler would work. Unlike bicycle or motorcycle stunt jumping, the rotation of a car that’s doing a big jump is set entirely by the conditions of launch and can’t be changed...

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Roofs made of carbon fiber. Plastic windshields. Bumpers fashioned out of aluminum foam. What sounds like a science experiment could be your next car. While hybrids and electrics may grab the headlines, the real frontier in fuel economy is the switch to lighter materials. Automakers have been experimenting for decades with lightweighting, as the practice is known, but the effort is gaining urgency with the adoption of tougher gas mileage standards. To meet the government's goal of nearly doubling average fuel economy to 45 mpg by 2025, cars need to lose some serious pounds.

NASCAR racer Danica Patrick could be set to become America's first female Formula One driver after her boss hinted she would be a 'great candidate' for his F1 team. The 32-year-old is the most successful woman in the history of American open-wheel racing and has competed in NASCAR since 2012, finishing inside the top ten twice. Motorsport mogul Gene Haas, for whom Miss Patrick races for in NASCAR is preparing to launch a brand new Formula One team in time for the 2016 season.

China's oldest car company rolled out its first vehicle on Aug. 1, 1958; it was a chrome-lined black sedan designed -- like the pastiche of 1950s cars it resembled, including the Packard-esque Chaika -- to strike equal amounts of fear and inspiration into the revolutionaries. In Chinese, "Hongqi" in means "red flag," the most potent symbol of the Chinese Communist Party, making it a fitting name for a company that supplied the apparatchik.

WASHINGTON – Years late, the Transportation Department issued a rule Monday that will require rearview technology in many new vehicles -- an effort to reduce deaths and serious injuries caused by backup accidents. The final rule issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will require new vehicles under 10,000 pounds and built beginning May 1, 2018, to meet the new rear-visibility standards. The rule includes buses and trucks; motorcycles and trailers are exempt. The rearview cameras must give drivers a field of vision measuring at least 10 by 20 feet directly behind the vehicle. The system must also meet...

A combination of income tax refunds issued in January and February with accessible financing have boosted used-car prices overall in the first two months of 2014. Automotive News reports prices rose 1.1 percent year to date, and 0.8 percent over the past month, according to the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index. Meanwhile, the IRS processed 40.4 million returns in the first two months of the year, refunding $125.8 billion to taxpayers at an average of $3,112, which helped in propping up wholesale used vehicle prices. Easy credit with attractive terms also aided used-vehicle pricing, making the market “more profitable than...