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Updated at 8:12 a.m. PDT March 30 with details on the CityZenn and Zennergy prototypes from Zenn Motor.

Zenn Motor is expanding its lineup to include a highway-legal electric car and an all-electric drivetrain for other automakers, the company announced Thursday.

Zenn (for "zero emission no noise") has been working on these particular products for some time.

In 2007, the company offered the public a low-speed Zenn car with a range of 35 miles per charge that was limited to the 25mph legal limit for cars in a certain class. In 2008, it improved its all-electric … Read more

Above the desk of Andrew Farah, the Volt's lead engineer, hangs a clock counting down the days until GM begins the production of 80 Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid prototypes.

Production begins on June 1 with plans to ramp up to 10 prototypes a week until 80 have been made. The 30 that have been cruising around have the final preproduction powertrain, but not the final interior or exterior.

These prototypes "will look, taste, smell, and feel like the Volt. They are the Volt," Farrah is quoted saying to GM's blog about the Volt, "my goal … Read more

General Motors plans to build prototypes of its Chevy Volt electric car this summer based on successful development of its battery powertrain technology to this point.

Despite GM's grave financial problems, the Chevy Volt is still scheduled for release in November 2010, company executives said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. The four-door sedan can go 40 miles on a full charge and has an internal combustion engine to charge the battery for longer trips.

During the call, executives said GM engineers have been able to meet its battery performance goals and that the company is already … Read more

GM associated with the B word again, we have the hottest cars from the Geneva auto show, BMW wants their car keys to work like credit cards, figuring out the Toyota Venza.

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• CNET's Geneva auto show coverage

• Toyota Venza review

• Just try to dent an Aptera 2e

• Electric charging station map

• Artificial intelligence coming to BMW navigation?

• Best Buy to sell Enertia motorcycle?

The third car with GM's Voltec series hybrid power train was announced at the Geneva auto show, the Opel Ampera. The two cars preceding it were the Chevrolet Volt and the Cadillac Converj. The Opel Ampera shares a platform with the Volt, and the cars are nearly identical. Where the Volt has horizontal slits at the front corners for headlights, the Ampera has big gouges going down from those headlight slits to the fog lamps, but the roofline is basically the same. The Opel badge, looking kind of like a lightning bolt, is probably more representative of the electric … Read more

DETROIT--In General Motors' viability plan given to the Treasury Department, company executives pledge to boost the number of gasoline-electric hybrids in GM's lineup to 26 models by 2014, from 8 today.

The technology will be ready. But GM may be unable to deliver the goods, mainly because of potential parts shortages, said GM's top powertrain executive.

"When we put our viability plan together, we had to use the assumptions we have today on the components that are available," Tom Stephens, GM executive vice president of global powertrain and global quality, told Automotive News. "There are … Read more

General Motors just announced it intends to exercise its option under the GM/Delphi Master Restructuring Agreement to acquire the Delphi global steering business. The deal includes employees, facilities, products, technical capability, and intellectual property.

Delphi would be a standalone business much as it is today and, at least in the near term, will be held in a wholly owned subsidiary of GM. A diverse customer base and the ability to self-fund the operations will be essential to the business' long-term future, the company said.

GM expects the transaction to be completed in the second quarter of 2009. Terms of … Read more

The competition between Microsoft and open-source software reaches into the automotive space with the announcement of a new alliance among automakers and technology providers called Genivi. The goal of the alliance is to build a Linux stack that will provide a common architecture for automotive infotainment systems.

At the same time, Microsoft announces version 4.0 of its own automotive platform, on which Ford's Sync and Fiat's Blue & Me systems are based. The new Microsoft platform now supports Intel chip architecture and includes what Microsoft calls "common head unit functionality," meaning that the platform comes with standard modules for integrating CD playback and ripping, along with other applications.

Version 4.0 supports a common voice command structure that works for typical car applications, such as navigation and Bluetooth cell phone integration, so users won't have to go back to a top-level tree structure to issue commands for different in-car applications. … Read more

A few tech blogs on Monday morning are highlighting some choice quotes from a Melinda Gates interview that appears in the most recent issue of Vogue.

According to the Vogue piece, Bill and Melinda Gates, in addition to making their home a no-iPhone/iPod zone, have forbidden their three children from using the devices (no word on rules for other Apple products).

The article's mainly about the Gates Foundation and how it's trying to solve "hunger in the world." We certainly appreciate that, but we'll stick with the inane superficial stuff here, thank you very … Read more