There's been a lot of hybrid technology-stealing news of late. First, Ukranian emigrant Alex Severinski won a suit against Toyota that accused the automaker of using the technology he developed in its Toyota Prius, for which he was awarded royalties. Now, a former General Motors worker has been accused of stealing documents detailing aspects of GM's hybrid technology and attempting to sell them to Chinese automaker Chery Automobile. According to The New York Times "Wheels" blog:

"From December 2003 to May 2006, the indictment says, Shannon Du, 51, and her husband, Yu Qin, 49, conspired to possess trade secrets. In January 2005, Du accepted a severance package from GM and five days later copied thousands of pages of secret documentation onto a hard drive that belonged to a company that she and her husband had set up, called Millennium Technology International."

 

As reported on the MSN Autos' home page (via AutoWeek) and elsewhere, pricing has been announced for the 2011 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid -- and, surprise surprise, it's exactly the same as the nonhybrid version: $35,180 to start.

This news sets a bit of a precedent. Traditionally, automakers add a premium to hybrid vehicles in order to offset the research and development costs associated with the relatively new type of powertrain. Similarly, what's standard on a hybrid model and standard on its gasoline-powered counterpart can vary by quite a bit (The New York Times' "Wheels" blog cites the Ford Fusion and Fusion hybrid as an example of this). 

Drivers of most 2011 General Motors Co. vehicles will be able to use a smartphone to carry out functions usually found on a key fob -- such as remote starting, activating the horn and lights, and remote locking and unlocking of doors.

Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC, working through OnStar, are developing brand-specific mobile applications than can be controlled on Apple's iPhone and phones using Google's Android operating system.

GM announced the technology today.

Using a mobile phone means vehicle features can be controlled regardless of the driver's distance from the car. For instance, a traveler who forgets to lock the car at the airport can send a locking signal from inside the terminal.

 

How about some pure, luxury performance-car fluff to waste some office time on this fine Thursday?

Car and Driver has a short but entertaining video of the Aston Martin Rapide versus the Porsche Panamera Turbo. Well, "versus" may be a bit too strong a term: The head-to-head is not too in-depth -- just a skid pad test and a zero-to-60 mph sprint -- but there are plenty of great shots of the cars driving through Chicago and around Dan Schnitta's GingerMan Raceway (he also owns the GingerMan Tavern in town). The real surprise, though, is the significant 1.3 second difference in the zero-to-60: 4.8 seconds versus 3.5. Can you guess the winner? 

America’s highways used to be ruled by sedans: big, powerful, lumbering beasts with massive engines and a similarly large thirst for fuel. During the mid- to late '60s, anyone could walk up to the dealership of their choice and order a 4-door with more than 350 horsepower without breaking a sweat, or the bank. Eventually, rising fuel prices drove those dinosaurs to an early grave, but not before they had lodged themselves in the collective American psyche as the pinnacle of the automobile.

Since then, we haven’t seen too many full-size sedans waltz past the 400-horsepower barrier, and even fewer manage to be a sales success while doing so. A rumor has just popped up that Ford may be interested in waltzing back into the megapowerful-sedan game once again, this time with its new Taurus SHO. 

This is actually pretty major news: Soviet emigrant Alex Severinsky just won a case against Toyota. Unintended acceleration, you ask? Corporate negligence, re: safety issues, leading to lower resale value of his car, perhaps?

Nope. Severinksy sued Toyota claiming it stole the system for powering gas-electric hybrid vehicles that he patented in 1994 -- and he freaking won.

Severinsky started his career developing instrumentation for anti-tank warfare after receiving his degree in electrical engineering from the Kharkov College of Radioelectronics in Ukraine in 1967. He later earned his Ph.D. in the same field from Moscow's Institute for Precision Measurements in Radioelectronics and Physics. Then, in 1977, he immigrated to the U.S. What happens after then is where the story really kicks off. 

Laws are good for discouraging certain types of behavior and for punishing those who choose to disregard those laws. Certain laws, though -- like the ones in place in some states banning texting while driving -- are harder to enforce than others. There are simply too many cars on the road and not enough law enforcement in place to properly discourage someone who decides to read and/or send texts while behind the wheel. A Georgia company and a Texas company have teamed up, however, to create a software program that effectively steps in and does what law enforcement, for the most part, cannot: stop drivers from using text, e-mail and Web-browsing functions on their mobile devices.

Manage Mobility, based in Alpharetta, Ga., has teamed up with WebSafety Inc., of Irving, Texas, to create a software application for government agencies and business owners that want to ensure their drivers comply with the law in order to cut down on liability issues. WebSafety's technology originally grew out of software intended to stop teens from texting while driving.

Click below for a map, from USA Today, of the current state-by-state breakdown of texting bans -- or lack thereof. 

In a piece about consumer groups railing against automakers that oppose the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2010, The New York Times' "Wheels" blog takes a look at some of the contentious issues and goes into further details about the legislation.

One thing the automakers don't like? The per-vehicle fee slated to go directly toward boosting the coffers of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (As previously reported, this fee would start off at $3 per vehicle before moving up to $6 and, eventually, $9 in the third year.) The manufacturers argue that the added cost is prohibitive. As the "Wheels" blog points out, though, manufacturers themselves typically tack on fees that are many, many times larger, such as the hundreds of dollars consumers can pay for delivery fees.

An issue that's quite contentious is the raising of the maximum penalty from $15 million to $300 million if a manufacturer fails to promptly notify NHTSA of a safety issue. The manufacturers call this excessive, though the $300 million price tag is a maximum, not a standard, and it's widely accepted that a $15 million penalty for a major manufacturer amounts to little more than lost pocket change.