Fading, it seems, is the save-and-buy rite of passage for teen drivers -- and it's going quickly. According to USA Today, the market for used cars sold for use by new teen drivers shrank to 4.2 million this year, down from 7.5 million just five years ago.

Its not just numbers, but percentages: Whereas five years ago a full 17.4 percent of used cars were sold for use by teens, this year it's less than 11 percent. 

The Automotive X Prize is nearing the finish line.

The $10 million contest to produce a highly fuel-efficient car has moved to the validation stage, where the competitors will be tested on a dynamometer. The entries that exceed 100 mpg and meet performance and emissions requirements will win. Cash will be given out in September.

The event began in 2008 and had an original field of 136 vehicles from 111 teams all vying for a piece of the bounty. Now, just nine vehicles from seven teams remain. They just completed on-track testing at Michigan International Speedway and passed technical inspections.

 

When even the iconic Ford Explorer ditches its body-on-frame construction for a crossover platform, the writing is on the wall for other full-size SUVs.

So it seems for Toyota's full-size Sequoia, whose days -- according to reports from Pickuptrucks.com -- are numbered. Looks like Toyota will discontinue the massive sport-ute at the end of its current lifecycle. This is likely due not only to slow sales but to an effort to comply with upcoming government fuel-economy regulations that will go into effect in 2015. The four-wheel-drive versions of all three V8 engines get a measly 13 mpg city/18 mpg highway. 

Saab has kicked off its new, post-GM era, looking to recapture its Scandinavian heritage -- along with the fanatically loyal fans who abandoned the brand as its products grew stale and its competitiveness foundered.

 

Dutch attorney and entrepreneur Victor Muller, founder of tiny sports-car maker Spyker, acquired Saab in a GM fire sale this year for just $74 million in the ultimate David-buys-Goliath scenario. And while Muller’s audacious rescue of Saab made for a great story, now comes the really hard part: reviving the moribund badge. Saab sold just 8,000 cars in the U.S. last year, down from a high of 49,000 in 2003. It didn’t help that for more than a year, not a single new Saab was unloaded at U.S. docks, as GM wound down the brand and looked to sell off whatever was left.

 

“It’s hard to make a Saab buyer go away,” the company's chairman told me yesterday at Monticello Motor Club, a private racetrack north of New York, where I drove Saab’s handsome new 9-5 sedan. But with huge millstones around Saab’s neck, including a scanty lineup and a 9-5 that hadn’t been redesigned for 13 years, GM-owned Saab managed the difficult task of sending those loyalists elsewhere -- and Muller doesn't need a detective to know where many went.

 

“Audi stole all our customers,” Muller said, citing the German brand as the one most often chosen by former Saab owners. Now Muller, along with Saab President and CEO Jan Ǻke Jonsson, plan to steal customers back with the widest-ranging lineup in Saab history. It includes the 9-5, followed next year by the 9-4X crossover, a new 9-3 in 2012, and probably a small 9-2 after that.

 

Nearly as soon as Toyota announced that it would bring the FT-86 concept car to life, rumors about the project's demise started circulating. While some insiders, myself included, were busy salivating over photos of the vehicle -- which is one of the most attractive to roll out of the Japanese automaker’s design studio in years -- others with more conservative minds were saying that the company needed to put the FT-86 on the back burner in favor of other, more pressing projects. Given Toyota's recent troubles, it makes sense that the company would want to postpone more fun-loving projects like the FT-86. So why am I left feeling that shelving this car would be a major error in judgment?

 

Following on the heels of the spectacular 918 Spyder revealed at the Geneva Motor Show, Porsche is upping its green-car efforts and will test three all-electric Boxsters in early 2011.

The move is part of a test program in Stuttgart, Germany, to analyze electric drive components, batteries and infrastructure.

 

Kia Motors has announced a new video contest centered on its new Soul, er, "Urban Passenger Vehicle," as the manufacturer now calls it. Grand prize is $10,000, and Kia's motive, ostensibly, is to find "the next big Internet star." The real motive, of course, is increased media attention for the Soul and the brand overall, which we're blatantly helping them with here.

Based on the tagline for the Soul, "a new way to roll" -- made popular through TV and online spots featuring hip-hop hamsters reprising a Black Sheep classic -- users are asked to submit Kia Soul-themed videos showing "how they roll." (Yes, this is all a bit painful, but it's $10,000 and we thought the video-savvy among you might like to know.)

 

Chrysler Group's product renaissance is a drama in two acts.

First, the company is breathing new life into its existing lineup. Highlights include the redesigned 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which the automaker started shipping to dealerships in early July, and the re-engineered and restyled Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger rear-drive sedans, both coming in the first quarter of 2011.

Altogether, Chrysler says it is revising 16 vehicles starting this year. Most were in the pipeline before the automaker emerged from bankruptcy under Fiat management in June 2009.

The critical second phase starts at the end of this year when the Fiat 500 minicar arrives, followed by a wave of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram vehicles based on Fiat platforms.