Concepts

Tricking out a car with Windows sounds, well, sort of lame on its face. But suppose it came with a heads-up display that let passengers play Call of Duty against their buddies?

Or cameras around the car that let you use your smartphones to check out who might be eyeballing your ride? Or turning that phone into a microphone you could use to ask -- nicely, of course -- lookie loos to step away from the car?

That's what the folks at West Coast Customs, working with developer evangelists at Microsoft, have put together for their television program, Inside … Read more

The epic 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race on June 16-17 features a sensational vehicle that may remind one of the Batmobile.

We covered the DeltaWing previously, and now a few new developments and content make the innovative race car worth looking at again. For starters, a fresh black paint job makes this whip appear like it came from the prototype area of the Batcave. This video from Nissan Europe (below) shows some seriously sexy shots of the car and a dyno run. It also includes some introspective thoughts from the DeltaWing project developers. … Read more

Harman International, in looking for a way to personalize the in-car experience, found that the most unique thing everyone carries is a phone. In its demonstration of a new dashboard electronics system, Harman pointed out that people are more likely to loan someone else their car keys than their phones.

At the 2012 Geneva auto show, Harman used Rinspeed's Dock+Go concept car to show off the new system. In the car we had a number of smartphones, each equipped with near field communications, belonging to a variety of different people (set up for the purposes of the demonstration). … Read more

Switzerland has set itself as neutral ground in Europe, a role it plays every year between the automotive manufacturing powerhouses of Germany and France. The International Motor Show in Geneva gives equal time to not only the regional automakers, but interlopers from the United States and Asia.

Geneva's proximity to the wealthy gearheads of Monaco also assures a good mix of exotic and specialty carmakers. CNET will be covering the show's press days, sending back photos, video, and stories during the week of March 5.

Here are some of the cars we expect to see. … Read more

A Prius is great on gas mileage, but sometimes saving your city from a megalomaniacal super villain takes priority over saving the planet--at least I presume that's the ethical calculus Bruce Wayne must have done when he opted to lay down some serious green for the Batmobile.

But just how big of a bank account or estate do you need to drive home in the pinnacle of fantasy supercar/weapons on wheels?

That kind of question sounds like a party to the number-crunching superfan Lehigh University economics students who blog at Centives--you know, the same aspiring pop-culture economists who gave us an estimate for building a real Death Star.

They got together and pored over the list of vehicles that have served as the base model for the Batmobile in various comics, movies, games, and other media forms over the last century. It's a very lengthy list that includes everything from the original Batmobile based on a 1936 Cord 812, to a 1955 Lincoln Futura or the more modern Lamborghini Murcielago. … Read more

To look up an event location on Facebook, Ford wants drivers to ask Sync for directions--and put down the phone.

Ford engineers are testing how drivers can use the Sync AppLink system to tap into Facebook with voice commands. The automaker says social integration is the next evolution for its voice-controlled Sync system, and accessing Facebook events is just one example already being developed.

In a demonstration for CNET, SyncApp Link Product Manager Julius Marchwicki had Sync announce upcoming Facebook events, his RSVP status, and the venue locations. The next steps, he said, would be to get directions to the … Read more

There was a time when Mini's designers did crazy things to its standard models, then presented them as concepts at auto shows. Witness the Rocketman concept, which started out as a standard Cooper model, then added weirdly hinged doors and a big glass bubble at the rear.

But during the Geneva auto show next month, Mini will display what it calls the Clubvan, a new concept based on its Clubman model. And no, the Clubvan does not have disco lights, pumping music, and a crew of 24-hour party people dancing through the night. … Read more

What we could only glimpse as an overexposed silhouette yesterday begins to take solid form today. Toyota has just released two new teaser photos and a video heralding the arrival of its latest hybrid concept, the FT-Bh.

Along with the media, we also got a smattering of details about this concept. For starters, the Future Toyota B-segment Hybrid (FT-Bh) is expected to weigh less than 800 kg (or about 1,764 pounds), making it lighter than Toyota's tiny Aygo--lighter even than the first-generation Mazda Miata by about 300-400 pounds! Toyota also claims that this B-segment five-door will be … Read more

Toyota appears to be doubling down on its hybrid bet. In addition to the world premiere of the Toyota Yaris hybrid, the auto manufacturer will show off a new affordable hybrid city car at the 2012 International Motor Show in Geneva next month. The company released a sketch of the concept before the reveal.

You may think that the pint-sized Yaris Hybrid and the Prius C should already count as city cars, but it appears that Toyota has something even smaller and lighter up its sleeve. Not much has been shared about the car in advance of the world premiere, … Read more