Infiniti G37X S Coupe smoothly covers all seasons
Infiniti G37X S strikes a sporty pose, concealing AWD capabilities.
By John Gilbert
When a car has really smooth handling, we say it feels as if it’s riding on rails. But no rails I’ve ever ridden on come close to the level of smoothness of the Infiniti G37X S Coupe.
Smoothness: A subjective thing, usually difficult to quantify. But not this time. This one’s easy. The Infiniti G37X S belongs on the list usually reserved for some models of Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Acura, or Lexus.
There are a lot of memorable features about driving the Infiniti G37X S for a week in all imaginable weather conditions, but the most impressive is that remarkable smoothness when cruising on a freeway. That is not to diminish the Samurai-sword precision with which the G37X S carves around curves, or accelerates, stops and handles.
But at $41,450, the 2013 G37 Coupe with all-wheel drive can be the perfect prescription to cure the midlife-crisis-blues as a legitimate sports car to ease the aging process, but the AWD is worth the added base price because it lifts the car to all-weather, all-climate performance. Appearance-wise, the G37 has a sleek, GT look, and that signature Infiniti grille still shows a resemblance to a stack of sword blades, twisted slightly at either end.
The 3.7-liter V6 blasts off with 330 horsepower and 270 foot-pounds of torque, and the 7-speed automatic harnesses all that power either gracefully or with neck-snapping force — you pick, using the slick-shifting Drive-Sport mode, with its impressive steering-column-mounted shift paddles. The transmission has rev-matching throttle blips. Programmed to function when you’re in manual shift mode and click the left paddle for manual downshifts, the revs pop up as though you had a stick shift and were heel-and-toeing on a road-racing track. Read more
Prius V gives Toyota versatile hybrid entry
Addition of longer, larger Prius V gives Toyota well-rounded group of hybrids.
By John Gilbert
The world of alternative-energy vehicles is expanding virtually by the month, or week. Hybrid vehicles, electric cars, turbo-diesels, cars with tiny gas engines, and combinations of those, such as turbo-hybrids, all seem to have validity and are marketed to be better than the others. All we know is, there is no single answer to the problem of clean and efficient running, just a number of varied answers, all contributing to a cleaner world of automotives.
It makes sense, then, to reboot the ol’ analytical brain by going back to Toyota, to examine how and where the Prius is situated. The Prius was the first hybrid, although it was beaten to U.S. sales outlets by Honda with its Insight. Since then, The Prius has soared to great popularity, outselling all hybrids with the trusty Hybrid Synergy Drive.
The Prius line itself is almost a separate entity. While Toyota became best-known for its top-selling Camry midsize sedan, when car-buyers slowed down and then retrenched, many observers now say that Toyota is best identified by the Prius line. Along with the standard Prius compact sedan, Toyota brought out two cousins, the subcompact Prius C this year, and the elongated Prius V a year ago.
The Prius V is best described as a wagon-like hatchback with the same drivetrain as the standard front-wheel-drive Prius, but with a larger storage area behind the back seat and a higher, squared-off roof. While the smaller Prius C starts at just over $20,000, and the plug-in version of the Prius sedan can run to a high of over $30,000, the Prius V is priced at between $27,500 and $30,000. Read more
Minnesota heads for wild Wild finish
By John Gilbert
If the Minnesota Wild make the playoffs, they won’t have a game with higher intensity or drama than their 2-1 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday at Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul.
A capacity crowd at the X stood and cheered through the final minutes, as Niklas Backstrom and the Wild strained every nerve in the building to hold off the attacking Kings. The Wild got goals from Charlie Coyle and Cal Clutterbuck 13 seconds apart in the first period, and held on against a curious stretch in the second period. Play got particularly intense, with a nasty climax when Dustin Brown KO’d Jason Pomerville of the Wild with a perfectly thrown elbow.
Pomerville caught the flagrant elbow right on the chin, and went down on his back, smacking the back of his helmeted head on the ice. Pomerville got up, stumbled to the bench, and then the dressing room, and didn’t return. Brown didn’t even get a minor penalty, but the play is sure to be reviewed by the NHL, who, if they want to stress cutting down on blows to the head, will have no choice but to hit Brown with a suspension.
The Wild went into the game locked with Columbus at 51 points, in a tie for the final two playoff spots in the West. They played with full intensity for all 60 minutes, and any wavering would have cost them the game. Coach Mike Yeo made a couple of moves, promoting hard-hitting Clutterbuck to the second line, with Matt Cullen and Devin Setoguchi. Coming on right behind the Mikko Koivu-Zach Parise-Charlie Coyle line, that proved to be a 1-2 punch when first Parise went deep on the left and fired a pass out front that Coyle put away, then Clutterbuck, a right-handed shot, dashed in on the left and fired a bullseye into the upper left corner for the 2-0 start.
The finish came down to Backstrom hurling himself across the crease to make the save of the game with 12 seconds left, and the Wild gained two extremely important points. The Wild moved up to 53 points, two up on Columbus, and three up on Detroit. The Kings, hoping to move up from fourth, stayed at 57 points and had to travel to Detroit for a huge game Wednesday night, knowing that St. Louis was only one point behind them, and San Jose two points back.
Without a doubt, the Wild game against the Kings was just like the best playoff game you could see, and suddenly the Friday game against Edmonton doesn’t look so imposing. A Wild victory in that one will clinch a playoff spot.
CRITICS RISE
If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, how scary is no knowledge? If you read the columnists or listen to the talk-radio guys in the Twin Cities the last couple of weeks, you’d think the Wild is in collapse mode. The Wild went on an impressive tear a month ago, and charged into the midst of the Western Conference’s eight-team playoff picture. That included a victory in Vancouver that I thought might have been the best game I’ve ever watched the Wild play. The next game was in Detroit, and the Wild played at least as well to also beat the Red Wings. That victory over the Red Wings could prove pivotal as the teams head into their final weekend of play, their final two games.
Two weeks ago, the Wild struggled in three home games, against Chicago, St. Louis, and Columbus — three of the league’s best — then went on their last road trip and won convincingly in Calgary and Edmonton, before heading for San Jose where the Sharks feasted. Those media folks who don’t go to hockey games unless their continued absence would embarrass them, ripped the Wild for not doing better in San Jose. One talk-radio guy got his cohort to agree that it was ridiculous to play ace goaltender Niklas Backstrom at both Calgary and Edmonton, where they were assured of winning, because the load might be too taxing for Backstrom
That’s like saying with a half-dozen games to go, the Twins should rest Joe Mauer, or with two weeks to go, the Vikings should sit-out Adrian Peterson. At the risk of submitting a couple of facts serving as evidence, there are no easy games, no sure things, at this stage of the season, and especially a season condensed into a frantic pace by the lockout that eliminated the first half of the season. You play Backstrom at Calgary and at Edmonton because you should win those games, and if you don’t play your best goaltender and lose, the failure to secure those two points might cost you a playoff spot. At Calgary, the Wild roared to a 4-1 lead, and as the fans booed the Flames, they flared to life and rallied for two late goals. Backstrom held on, and the Wild won 4-3. Taking nothing away from the Stars backup goaltending, but a few great late saves by Backstrom proved the merit of him being between the pipes.
The loss at San Jose, yes, that was not the Wild’s finest hour, but it wasn’t a bad night to be off, because the Sharks are good enough to beat you when you’re at your best.
That brought about the current, final homestand, with the Wild playing host to Calgary, Los Angeles, and Edmonton, Friday, before going on the road to face Colorado on Saturday in the finish of the regular season. The race was so tight that winning at Calgary and Edmonton lifted the Wild to third place in the West, but losing at San Jose dropped them quickly, and coming home and losing to Calgary left them tied with Columbus for seventh and eighth places in the West with three games left. The critics hissed about the Wild faltering against Calgary, but they played very well, dominating the first two periods, but couldn’t score after Zach Parise gained a 1-1 tie late in the first period.
The most precarious image was caused by Detroit and Dallas. The Red Wings — still one of the NHL’s elite teams — lurked only one point behind the Wild and Blue Jackets, and the Stars were only two points behind the Wings after winning in San Jose Tuesday night. All had three games left.
That’s why Tuesday night’s victory at Xcel Center over the Los Angeles Kings was so enormous. A loss by the Wild wouldn’t have spelled doom, but it would have allowed Detroit and Dallas to make it a photo finish. And, when you think about it, the Red Wings and the Stars have about a thousand times more tradition and experience about what it takes to make the playoffs than the still-maturing Minnesota Wild.
FORMULA 1 INNOVATION
The Bahrain Grand Prix, fourth in the long and tangled Formula 1 auto racing season, was broadcast at 6:30 a.m. last Sunday by NBC-Sports, a new sports network that swiped the Formula 1 rights from Speedvision. For years, Speedvision has done a magnificent job of presenting the best auto racing series in the world, with Bob Varsha’s deep and familiar voice doing the play-by-play, and David Hobbs, the clever Englishman and former racer himself, doing the color.
NBC-Sports, which wants to be a challenger for ABC’s ESPN stronghold, does a similarly good job with the broadcast, and they kept David Hobbs, but they’ve replaced Bob Varsha with Leigh Duffy. Now, Duffy does a very good job on play-by-play, maybe even as good as Varsha, but he, like Hobbs, is a proper Englishman with a proper English accent. Apparently nobody listened to any auditions by the two together, but when you hear an Englishman’s accent on play-by-play, and pertinent comments by another Englishman’s accent on color, it comes off as entirely too much English accent. The contrasting voices are no longer in contrast, and after four races, I appreciate the job Varsha did for over a decade even more.
As for the race, which was rebroadcast at high noon — a definite improvement from Sportsvision’s dawn-or-else telecasts — it was thoroughly entertaining from start to finish. The impressive 3.4-mile road-racing track is plopped down in the desert of Bahrain, wide enough to allow passing in several areas, and with three high-speed stretches where the F1 guys are all well over 180 miles per hour. I can’t recall seeing as much passing and side-by-side racing in a Formula 1 race.
Sebastian Vettel, the youthful German driver for Red Bull, won his fourth race in a row, but it was not without high drama. After Lotus driver Nico Rosburg surprised everyone and won the pole, he had a good start and cut across Vettel’s bow before Turn 1, allowing Fernando Alonso to also squeeze by for second in his red Ferrari. For three laps or so, the three shuffled positions in a breathtaking skirmish, before Vettel got ahead, then opened a small gap.
The fact he was able to maintain it throughout the rest of the 57-lap sprint around was a proper show of strength, but the dicing behind him was ferocious, and the cameras did an excellent job of capturing duels between the rest. After 18 laps, Vettel led and Red Bull teammate Mark Webber was second, but then it got crazy. Paul di Resta of Force India had his best race and contended up front most of the way before settling for fourth. Alonso had the flap that opens on the high rear wing stuck open, and he had to pit to have it sealed shut, and much as he struggled to stay with the leaders, he ultimately finished eighth.
One of the highlights of the race was that 50 percent of the commercials were done on a split-screen arrangement, where one-third of the screen stayed on the race leaders, while two-thirds flashed ads for Blackberry, Mobil 1, promotions for upcoming NHL broadcasts, Husqvarna, Mercedes, T-Mobile, Infiniti cars, CanAm ATVs, Rolex watches, Bridgestone tires, Evinrude outboards, Tire Rack, Mother’s car polish, Citi, and GoPro cameras. I can’t remember who ran the other ads, because when they interrupted the race, I dashed to the kitchen for more coffee. The no-interrupt idea is a good one, although a 50-50 split would be even more impressive, or an inset into the full-screen broadcast. And it’s something that sports like hockey should adopt, because it would be far better than the minute or two breaks that interrupt anything resembling rhythm.
With 10 laps remaining in the race, Kimi Raikonen, in the No. 1 Lotus, had gained second, trailing Vettel by about 11 seconds, while di Resta had all he could do to hold off Romain Grosjean, in the second Lotus for third. Close behind those two, Webber and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton were battling for fifth. With five laps to go, Grosjean squeezed past di Resta for third just about the time Webber repassed Hamilton for fifth. Sergio Perez, in the second McLaren, had a bumping battle with teammate Jensen Button, then got by him, and remarkably passed Alonso. With two laps left, Hamilton and Webber were side-by-side through several turns, in one of the race’s top moments, and Hamilton edged ahead on the final lap to take fifth. Webber sagged just a bit after Hamilton passed him, and Perez also snuck by Webber just before the finish.
That left the finishing order: 1. Vettel; 2. Raikkonen; 3. Grosjean; 4. di Resta; 5. Hamilton; 6. Perez; 7. Webber; 8. Alonso; 9. Rosburg; and 10. Button. All 10 had their moments in contention in the race, something that rarely, if ever, has happened in Formula 1 in the last two decades. Vettel, on the podium for Red Bull with Lotus teammates Raikkonen and Grosjean joining him, made the comment on how it was a big day for Renault engineering as well, since the top three finishers all were powered by Renault engines.
Actually, it was a big day for Formula 1, because it proved the series can be more than a chess-match of manipulating tire compounds or trading 3-second pit stops. Wheel-to-wheel racing is the best, and when you see the world’s best drivers in the world’s best cars, on the world’s best road courses racing that way, it’s a solid 2 hours of entertainment.
Boston Marathon changed forever
By John Gilbert
You probably remember where you were, exactly, when the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center took place on 9/11/01. If you’re old enough, you also remember exactly where you were when John F. Kennedy was shot. It will be a similar memory, that will come back with haunting regularity, about where you were and what you were doing when you heard about the bombs that blew up at the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15, 2013.
The date itself won’t be that significant, tax-day or not. But from now on, whenever you hear about the Boston Marathon you will think of the chaos we all witnessed, mostly by video replays that seemed interminable throughout the afternoon and night of Monday.
I had gone home, after my morning radio show on KDAL, which got the bulletin just as we were signing off that Rita Jeptoo of Kenya had won the women’s portion of the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon, in 2:26:25. We announced that, just as the closing music was playing, and we were done. The significance of that is that we were all hoping that our own Kara Goucher might pull off a huge upset and win, or at least run with the leaders. Turns out she did, finishing a strong sixth at 2:28:11.
My Monday routine included meeting a fellow who had driven up from Chicago to exchange test-drive cars with me for the upcoming week. Then I drove home. I had to write a few things on my computer, so I heated up some leftover warshue duck from the Chopsticks restaurant, then I flipped on the radio for background sound and started in on the computer. It was about 2:20 p.m. when I heard Joe Soucheray say, almost casually, that he had just seen a bulletin saying there was “some kind a bomb went off at the Boston Marathon.”
I leaped up and ran across the room to turn on CNN, and saw the earliest replays of the first explosion, and I noticed the finish-line timer read 4:09:43. The men’s winners had clocked something around 2:10, so obviously this was occurring two hours after the first finishers had crossed the line. On the second replay, I noticed a puff of smoke on the left edge of the screen. It was the second explosion, a block or two away. It was nearly an hour later before the television folks realized that the second puff of smoke was even visible, and by then, on about the 20th replay I watched, I had counted off from the finish-line timer that the second blast had happened exactly 11 seconds after the first.
The chaos that was evident, and completely understandable, was gripping, and to me, there was also a vague sense of familiarity. When I realized the finish line was on Boylston Street, it hit me. And when the announcers talked about Copley Square, and a witness said he had been watching from where “Comm Av and Mass Av” intersected, I realized that the area was a place I had visited often. I’ve never been to the Boston Marathon, and I never realized that the finish line was right on Boylston Street, and Copley Square, and the wonderfully nicknamed Mass Av (Massachusetts Avenue) and Comm Av (Commonwealth Avenue). It right there, near Northeastern University, and closer to Boston University.
When I wrote for the Minneapolis Tribune, I made dozens of trips to Boston to cover the North Stars playing at the Bruins, and the University of Minnesota hockey team playing at Boston University, nearby Boston College, as well as Northeastern and, right across the Charles River, Harvard. I’ve also covered the Minnesota Twins playing the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park, back at about the same era. I’ve stayed at the Mandarin Hotel, which is right near where the second bomb went off, and I’ve frequently wandered around Copley Square, and enjoyed the BU Bookstore, which was the only place I could buy the giant yellow legal pads, college ruled, on which I would chronicle an entire season of pro, college, and high school hockey games. That area has big, wide sidewalks, the better for window-shopping or just walking along.
In the aftermath of the horrible tragedy, in which at least three people died, and a dozen more had limbs blown off by shrapnel, among the 173 injured, it took several hours before anyone had the courage to utter the word “terrorist,” even though the person or persons who planted those crude, but cruelly effective bombs was, or is, a terrorist. A person doesn’t have to belong to Al Queda, or to a White Supremacist group, or any other organization to be a terrorist, but there is no mistaking that someone who executes an act of terror is, by definition, a terrorist. There is a report that a publication put out by Al Queda urges followers to read instructions in how to make a bomb, and then look for large gatherings of people and try to create as much devastation as possible. It urges committing such acts anywhere, but preferably in the U.S. We don’t know if the perpetrator of the bombings in Boston was part of such an organization, or acted alone, or took inspiration from such outrageous writings. We’d just like to see the criminal or criminals brought to justice.
From a thousand miles away, we can identify with the shock and terror that everybody at the scene felt. We can sympathize with the victims, and we can be thankful that those we might have known at the scene escaped injury. We can listen to some “expert” on television talk about how many mistakes, or oversights, there were to allow this to happen, but there is no way to assure safety, and to insulate ourselves from some deranged or driven person who is intent on committing this sort of act. We are a nation who likes to blame someone for making an error that might contribute to something so evil, but nobody was guilty of any mistake in this case, and only the person or persons who planted the bombs is guilty of anything.
But we can never let our guard down. At an airport, or a shopping center, or an event, or anywhere. The Boston Marathon comes on Patriot’s Day in Boston, to celebrate the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord, if memory serves me. Schools are let out, and the civic mood is celebratory. The Boston Red Sox are playing their home opener at wonderful Fenway Park, which is only a few blocks away from the scene of the finish line. With 23,000 runners, and hundreds of thousands of people crowding toward the finish line to watch, along with the schools being out and the Red Sox throng, it is one of the biggest scenes in the country.
We now must worry about upcoming major events, such as the Kentucky Derby, and the Indianapolis 500 — other places where huge crowds of people.
Life will go on, and we’ll watch some beautiful scenes of nature, as well as some spectacular sporting events. We will enjoy them, all of them. But from now on, whenever we hear the two words Boston Marathon, our minds will immediately flash to April 15, 2013. Even if we forget the actual date, we won’t ever forget what happened there, and how it changed all of our lives.
HOCKEY STILL IN THE AIR
It was a superb NCAA hockey Frozen Four, and Yale was the perfect champion, defeating No. 1 ranked Quinnipiac in the championship game. Who could have ever guessed that two ECAC teams would make it to the final? Both were quick, balanced, strong offensively and defensively, and in the end, Yale’s combination of quickness and tenacity won out — just as it had been in upsetting Minnesota, and North Dakota, then Massachusetts-Lowell, before knocking off a Quinnipiac powerhouse that had beaten Yale all three times they met earlier in the season, by a combined total of 13-3 goals.
Drew LeBlanc, from St. Cloud State via Hermantown, gives Duluth its second straight Hobey Baker winner.
St. Cloud State got to the Frozen Four, then had a horrendous start, getting down by three goals before getting into their game against Quinnipiac in the semifinals. I felt bad that seniors Drew LeBlanc of Hermantown, and Ben Hanowski of Little Falls, didn’t really do their thing at the Frozen Four. But as if to prove that life goes on, LeBlanc went on to win the Hobey Baker Award as the nation’s best college hockey player, the day after St. Cloud’s crushing loss. How great is it that the 2012 Hobey Baker winner was Jack Connolly from Duluth and UMD, and the 2013 winner is Drew LeBlanc, from Hermantown and St. Cloud State? We’d never had an actual Duluthian win the Hobey, and now we have two in a row.
Hanowski, meanwhile, signed with the Calgary Flames, went off to Calgary instead of taking his final exams, and scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game — against the Minnesota Wild, even — as the Wild beat Calgary 4-3.
Maybe it won’t be such a tough transition to springtime after all. We still do get to have springtime, don’t we?
For a while it appeared sports fans in Northern Minnesota would be left to consider shoveling and watching the ice floes go back and forth from the Duluth Harbor as the only verifiable spring “sports.” All we really had to cheer for was the Minnesota Wild, and just about then Matt Cullen and Dany Heatley went down with injuries and the Wild seemed to go into the old, familiar free-fall that we’ve seen from many of our other sports teams in recent years.
Fortunately, Cullen returned from that dreaded “lower body” injury, and the Wild, who were 1-4-1 during his absence, won that big 4-3 game at Calgary on Monday, and followed it up with a 5-3 victory at Edmonton on Tuesday. That sent the Wild winging on to San Jose for a Thursday night date, right in the thick of the playoff scramble in the Western Conference, but suddenly looking like the tight race couldn’t throw anything at them that they can’t handle.
TWINS ON THE RISE
There are no guarantees that the Minnesota Twins will rise to contention in the American League, or even that they will ever play a home game with temperature above 50 in their boutique-like Target Field. But as long as we get to watch Joe Mauer hit, all will be worthwhile.
For the first few weeks of the season, Mauer was mired in a slump the likes of which we’ve never witnessed. He was not getting hits, and more than that, he was swinging and missing. Joe doesn’t do that. But he struck out repeatedly. Three times in one game. And he was hitting something like .225.
Finally he started to make contact. Then he started stringing hits together. He hit safely in seven straight games going into the series with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, or whatever they’ve decided to call them this year, and he had improved his batting average to .298.
On Monday, Joe Mauer went 4-for-5 with a home run, double, and two singles, driving in three runs, and his average jumped to .346. On Tuesday, Joe Mauer went 4-for-5 again. Those were the 20th and 21st times in his still-young career that Mauer has gotten four hits in a game, and his batting average skyrocketed to .386. Almost every hit came with two strikes, which is the way Mauer likes it — getting a good look at whatever any pitcher can throw at him, and then daring him to throw a third strike past him.
“He is the best hitter with two strikes I’ve ever seen,” said manager Ron Gardenhire, in a post-game press conference after Monday’s game. And then he proved it again, the next night.
We can cheer the Wild for as far as they can go into the playoffs. And then, no matter how far that is, we can tune in to watch Joe Mauer swing his bat and smack those line drives all over the park. Any park.
Fiat 500e is nothing short of electrifying
By John Gilbert
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. — The Fiat 500 is cute, fun, efficient, and economical, but nobody would really call it electrifying. Until now.
For 2014, the Fiat 500 will come in a version called the 500e, with the “e” standing for electric. Before consumers in 49 states get too excited about the 500e maybe becoming their electric car of choice, however, the car will require a little California Dreamin’ because the only showrooms it will reach in its initial launch will be in California.
The normal 500 has a distinct minicar look to it, and the designers and engineers have done an impressive job of smoothing out all the little quirks and wrinkles, spending 140 long hours in wind-tunnel testing to reduce the aerodynamic drag by 13 percent, to a 0.3111 coefficient of drag, said Brett Giem, who is chief engineer on the electric Fiat project. The smoothed-over frontal area makes it appear that a very sophisticated and high-class custom shop took the normal 500 and did a prize-winning job of altering it, leaving a unique look, but unmistakably a Fiat 500.
Inside that thoroughly revised bodywork, there is a structure and suspension strengthened and stiffened to optimize handling — the Fiat “fun” quotient — but something is missing. The small but effective little 4-cylinder engine with its clever MultiAir system that powers the normal Fiat 500, or the turbocharged version in the Fiat Abarth, are nowhere to be found, replaced by a powerful Bosch-supplied electric package, which consists of a liquid-cooled and heated 364-volt lithium-ion battery with 97 individual cells, created by Samsung. Computer wizards can figure out the equations, but the electric 500e develops 111 horsepower out of its 83 kilowatt electric motor, at 4,000 RPMs, with 147 foot-pounds of torque, which peaks at 0 RPMs.
Rear view of 500e shows mini car with surprising room.
Fiat, which now owns Chrysler LLC, is building the Fiat 500e in Toluca, Mexico, at the same plant where the regular 500 is being built, and the reasons for making the 500e available first in California includes: maximum demand for no-pollution alternative energy cars, an impressive array of rebates for electric cars, and an infrastructure of charging stations that set a standard for the rest of the country.
That doesn’t mean the 500e will be out of sorts in other regions. The development team did cold-weather testing in Bemidji, Minnesota; high-altitude testing in Denver; hot and dry weather tests in Las Vegas; varied weather and road surfaces in Michigan; and hot and humid testing in Naples, Florida. At the same time, Chrysler LLC was developing a climate-controlled test facility in California that can recreate desert heat, rainforest humidity, plus freezing rain and snow.
Electric cars and hybrids are carving out their own niches in the automotive world, with the critical difference coming in drivability, and range. Concerns about price seem reasonable, given that the Chevrolet Volt is over $40,000, and cars such as the Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus EV, which are the prime competition for the 500e, also cost more because of the expense of the electric motor system. The 500e costs $32,500, but starts out with a $7,500 federal tax credit, which reduces the price to a workable figure. The 500e is offered for a $199-per-month lease deal with $999 down, and there are other California rebate and incentive deals with zero-pollution cars that can be manipulated to create another lease deal of $169 a month with 0 down. Read more
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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