The good oil: Slow drivers face fine

Tackling fast lane dawdlers

Drivers in the US state of Georgia who slow down traffic in the "fast" motorway lane might soon face a fine of US$75 ($107) or more. A bill headed for a vote in Atlanta builds on a rarely enforced state law requiring a vehicle crawling along in the outside lane to either speed up to the legal limit or move over. Lawmakers say the new fine would ease traffic congestion and help to reduce the frequency of people using the middle lane for passing, "causing dangerous close calls or accidents with slower-moving vehicles". Such close calls happen every minute on Auckland's motorway network.

Toyoda diversifies

Toyota president Akio Toyoda used his own money to start Gazoo.com, an online referral service offering information to shoppers about car features, sticker prices and finance plans. It evolved into an online shopping mall selling everything from music CDs to bean paste. Toyoda now hopes consumers will return to Gazoo for Toyota car news, after the recession and the recalls. He trusts company luck. The carmaker uses the "t" instead of the "d" in the family's name - "t" is considered luckier in Japanese numerology than "d".

Fraud aimed right at Texas

US oil state Texas has filed a federal lawsuit to block Environmental Protection Agency restrictions on tailpipe exhaust emissions, or so-called global warming greenhouse gases. The EPA has ruled that since vehicles account for 23 per cent of America's total greenhouse gases, it is obliged to regulate them under the US Clean Air Act. But lawyers for Texas say the EPA's assumptions about global warming are based on "scientific errors and fraud". Texas Governor Rick Perry drops the science argument and focuses on economics, insisting that the EPA's "misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas energy producers and the nearly 200,000 Texans they employ".

Gas, it's a natural

Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, meantime, told a US car dealers' convention to back his call to ditch oil and move vehicles to natural gas. Pickens - who drives a natural gas-powered Honda Civic - says the price of oil could jump from its current US$77 a barrel to US$300 or US$400 within 10 years, which would spell disaster for America and the automotive industry.

Australians take the hint

Pickens has like-minded support in this part of the world, from Australian industry analyst John Mellor, publisher of website goauto. Ford Australia has offered a dedicated natural gas-powered Falcon engine for some years. Now rival Holden is working on a similar powerplant for its Commodore. Both use technology where the liquefied gas is injected into the engine as a liquid. The old, inefficient dual-fuel systems turned the gas to vapour before injecting it into the intake manifold. The new system takes the liquid right up to the injectors and into the intake manifold just as the engine is sucking in the air-fuel mix. Result: a more efficient fuel burn. Says Mellor: "The solution to the price of fuel is under our nose. It's gas."

We are the world

A man who broke into an unmarked police car in Florida and nicked steel handcuffs and a Taser gun called the cops for help - after he zapped himself with the Taser. Would-be Houdini Shane Williams-Allen, 19, told police he handcuffed himself to see if he could get out of them. When he couldn't, he turned the Taser on the chain linking the cuffs ... Williams-Allen was still in a lot of pain when police pulled up.

alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz