Porsche 918 Spyder shows its production body

We've seen it (in concept form, in officially rendered form, in flat black, and in Martini Racing livery), we've heard all about its 4.6-liter V8 with 608 horsepower, buoyed as it is by twin electric motors, its sophisticated all-wheel-drive system and carbon fiber monocoque chassis. We've even taken a ride in one. What we haven't had, up until now at least, is had all of these details about the Porsche 918 Spyder in one convenient press blast. And we also now know that it will be a introduced as a 2015 model.

Along with the official specifications, Porsche has seen fit to release a new batch of images showing its production body from all angles. We get a good look at the car's interior bits and pieces, including a few shots showing how people fit underneath the removable hardtop panel.
Porsche sums up its baby with the following words: Maximum driving fun with minimal fuel consumption. We like the sound of that, and we think it's cool that the 918 can travel up to 18 miles on electricity alone, with performance statistics that aren't far off what we had from sports cars from a few short decades ago.

Hybrid taxi drivers find fuel efficiency paying off after Sandy

 by: George Kennedy

One of the major side effects of the power outrages in New York and New Jersey following hurricane Sandy is gas stations' difficulty getting fuel to customers. Shortages have led to seemingly endless gas lines, and in all of this, hybrids have shown their inherent value.

Business Insider says that hybrids are proving to be advantageous for many New York City taxi drivers. The NYC cab fleet is currently a mix of hybrid vehicles and comparatively fuel-hungry Ford Crown Victoria sedans. According to the report, at many taxi companies, cars are assigned to drivers first-come, first-serve, so what they're driving on a given day comes down to the luck of the draw.

One cab driver said that refueling a the V8-powered Ford costs about $45 a day, while the the hybrid taxis can go a couple days before needing to gas up. It's suspected that the Crown Vic drivers, forced to go to great lengths to refuel, will not be reimbursed for their efforts.

Toyota Prius now best-selling model(s) in California

by: Sebastian Blanco

We've heard the Toyota Prius jokingly called the State Bird of California, but recent sales data shows that the world's most popular hybrid is, in fact, the best-selling car in the state. Well, the best-selling vehicle line, at least, since the Prius now comes in four variants.

If you add up sales of the Prius Liftback (aka, the regular Prius), the C, V and Plug-In models, you get 46,380 units for the first three quarters of 2012, according to numbers from the California New Car Dealers Association and reported by Bloomberg. That's enough to move the Prius from fourth place last year to first this year in the sales rankings in America's most populous state. In fact, roughly a quarter of the Priuses that Toyota sold in the US were in California. Reports of $5 gallons of gas are relatively recent, but we have to assume that the state's long-time high gas prices are playing a role in pushing the Prius to the pinnacle there. Nationwide, Bloomberg says, the Prius is in seventh place ("by sales volume among car models").

The Prius is already the best-selling car in Japan, and has been for years, even though the Honda Fit has been nipping at its heals. Worldwide, the Prius family was the third best-selling nameplate in the first quarter of 2012, behind the Toyota Corolla and the Ford Focus.