Biking Kenowa Hills seniors punished: woodtv.comWho Knew Biking to School Could be Considered a Prank? On the second to last day of school, 60 seniors from Kenowa Hills High School in Walker, Michigan, rode their bikes to school. It wasn't an improvised things either, as they had police escort and did it safely, and even the mayor joined them (handing out donuts, which isn't exactly health food, but nobody was forced to eat them). But their principal, out of some sort of "I'll show you who's boss" primal instinct, decided to reprimand them, calling the bike ride a "prank", going as far as suspending them from a traditional year's end celebration at that school.But calling this a prank is taking the "letter of the law" ... Continue reading →

© SpaceXHistoric Day! After being delayed once, SpaceX's Dragon 9 rocket took flight and brought the Dragon capsule to orbit, with the ultimate goal of docking to the International Space Station (ISS). This mission is historic for many reasons: It will have been the first time that a commercial company sends a spacecraft to the ISS, but it also further proves that it is possible to make spaceflight cheaper and safer (it used to take the resources of the biggest nations on Earth to achieve this, and now a privately funded startup is doing it in a few years), and thus make space more accessible.But before we look at the future, let's have a look at the present (or rather, at the recent past):At 3:44 ... Continue reading →

© FordCompetition for Toyota's Prius V With the C-Max hybrid, Ford is aiming squarely at the Toyota Prius V. So much so that Ford's promotion materials are full of refences to the Mama Prius; about how the C-Max hybrid offers "better fuel economy, performance, technology and functionality than Prius v" and how its priced 500 bucks lower than the V. These are nice promises, but the true test will be in the real-world once the C-Max starts shipping to customers in the fall of 2012. Right now, Ford is begun taking orders. We're also waiting for the official EPA fuel economy rating.The C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid is scheduled to follow later in 2012. That one should be even more interesting.C-MAX Hybrid is powered through the ... Continue reading →

Youtube/Screen captureWe Destroy Cars for a Living The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety busted up a few Prius C hybrids to see how they held up in crashes, how much of the energy was absorbed by the car (it's a good thing for cars to crumple up because that's less energy that needs to be absorbed by the passengers), how much intrusion there was in the interior cabin, etc. They found that the new baby Prius did well enough to earn a 'top pick' mention, which is the IIHS's top award for good performance in front, side, rollover and rear impact evaluations.IIHS writes: "The Prius c is a new model and joins the Prius and Prius v as IIHS award winners."Check out the video:Via IIHS, ... Continue reading →

Lexus Kills HS 250h 3 Years After Introduction It seems like it was just yesterday that Lexus introduced the HS 250h hybrid, the first dedicated luxury hybrid (like the Prius, there's no non-hybrid version of the HS 250h). But I never was crazy about the styling, and apparently Lexus buyers weren't either, because sales were slow enough that the company decided to quietly kill off the model barely 3 years after it was introduced.According to Inside Line, Lexus HS 250h sales "plunged 73 percent last year to only 2,864 units, from 10,663 in 2010." Could it be because drivers who have almost $40k to spend on a green(er) car now have more options to choose from? It might not be as luxurious, but the LEAF ... Continue reading →

© Tesla MotorsTesla Motors was about to by the NUMMI plant in California from Toyota and convert it to Model S production in good parts thanks to a $465 million loan by the Department of Energy. At the time, right after the biggest financial crisis in decades, many didn't believe that Tesla would even survive long enough to build a single Model S, never-mind repay the loan. But since then Tesla has had its IPO which helped it raise a nice sum, and its health has improved thanks to deals with Daimler and Toyota, among other things.But forward to the present time, and against all the odds, Tesla is about this ship the first Model S electric sedans to customers and Bloomberg news reports that ... Continue reading →

Recent science has shown how important our minds are to our bodies, but they also reveal how difficult it is to define and promote happiness. skippyjon/Flickr Every day there are new studies linking our mental health to our physical health. Our moods or mental states - positive, neutral, negative - seem to be related to the risk of disease, and indeed, our likelihood of death. Just last month, for example, a study reported that cardiovascular health is significantly better in people who report being happier. On one level, there is an obvious explanation to the phenomenon: Happy people are more likely to engage in the healthy behaviors - exercise and eating right - that lead to good hearts in the first place. While this relationship ... Continue reading →

© City of Portland bike coordinator Roger GellerGreat Biking Cities are Created Jonathan Maus, from the great site BikePortland, got his hands on an animated map created by City of Portland bike coordinator Roger Geller. It shows the evolution of Portland's bikeways from 1980 to the present, and is a good visual reminder that great biking cities are made deliberately; they don't start out already formed, people have to put in the effort of making them bike friendly.Check it out:Pink is for dedicated, off-street trails (also known as multi-use paths); green is for neighborhood greenways (also known as bike boulevards); and blue is for everything else (bike lanes, cycle tracks, buffered bike lanes).It's interesting to see how non-linear the progression is. There are booms and ... Continue reading →

Are we witnessing the birth of a new trend? Will all automakers soon be selling electric bikes as well as cars? Last week we showed you Daimler's award-winning Smart Electric Bike, and this week another German carmaker, Audi, is showcasing a nice electric bike that is called the e-bike Wörthersee. Continue reading →