Did you know that the first driveshaft was invented in 1898 by Louis Renault?

Ford is going offer an optional equipment package for the 2014 model year F-150  3.7 liter  V-6 engine that will allow the truck to run on liquid propane gas or compressed natural gas.  This is a factory installed prep package includes pistons, rings, hardened valves and valve seats designed to run on either regular gasoline or natural gas using separate fuel systems. The cost will be $315.00 and will be available this fall.

Yearly the average American Commuter spends about 38 hours stuck in traffic. It's even worse for commuters in big cities like D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco, where the average commuter spends more than 60 hours stuck in traffic annually.

GM offering buyer incentives for its Chevrolet Volt

Three years ago the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt were introduce with high expectations only to consistently miss sales targets. Earlier this year Nissan experienced success with lowering the price of its Leaf battery-electric.  Offering up to $5,000 in incentives to potential buyers for the Volt General Motors is the latest  manufacture to cut the price of its electric vehicle in an attempt to boost low demand for electric cars.  Most notably the Tesla Model S has met its manufactures sales expectations, there are only a handful of battery-based vehicles have come close to meeting their manufactures sales expectations. Whether GM will experience the same success as Nissan by offer the incentives remains to be seen as GM has already reduced the price of the Volt plug-in hybrid.

Did you know that the Ford Crown Victoria was the very last car to have the ability to play cassette tapes?  The 2011 model year had an optional cassette player.

U.S regulators examine Mercedes C- class sedan for brake lights and rear turn signals.

A probed into an estimated 218,000 Mercedes C-class sedans by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failure of brake lights and rear turn signals for model years 2008 and 2009.  According to the NHTSA consumer complaints site the failure to be in the lamp connector, many indicating melted or burnt electrical components and in multiple instances consumers reported smelling smoke and the appearance of burn marks in the trunks of the cars, one report of small flames coming from the rear lamp connector.

If regulators determine that this is a safety issue that needs to be addressed by the manufacture a recall could ensue.

License Plates

The first state to require car license plates by law was New York on April 25, 1901. The very first license plates were not called license plates they were called number plates and were issued  in France in 1893.

September 1, 2014 event data recorders (EDR's) may be mandatory in all new light passenger vehicles sold in the U.S.. The EDR's serve as black boxes for cars.  EDR'S are already present in the majority of new car models, an estimated 96% of model year 2013 passenger and light-duty vehicles are equipped with EDR's according to the NHTSA.

 Some of the information recorded include:

• ·         Whether the occupant's seat belt was fastened
• ·         information about the state of the engine throttle
• ·         air bag deployment timing and air bag readiness before the crash
• ·         crash forces at the moment of impact
• ·         vehicle speed
• ·         whether the brake was activated in the moments before the crash

Sales top the Ten Million mark in total units sold in the U.S. for the Toyota Camry

Toyota announced its best selling Camry model has surpassed the 10 million mark in cumulative sales volume in America.  The Camry has also been America's top selling sedan for the past eleven years.

Toyota began assembling most Camry models in its Georgetown, Kentucky plant in 1988. Toyota estimates that here  today there are approximately 6.4 million Camry's on the road. Recognized as the country's most "American made" car by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration.