Driving a plug-in electric hybrid requires some extra homework if you want to save gas by topping off the battery every day. I discovered this after a week with the 2013 Ford C-Max Energi, one of Ford's latest plug-in vehicles.

While it’s not a huge hassle, plugging in is not as convenient as pulling up to the pump, especially since I live in Oregon, where it's against the law to pump your own gas. But the more you plug in, the less you have to visit a gas station.

One thing that makes owning the C-Max Energi convenient – and is also just cool technology – is the MyFord Mobile application that lets you control various features of the vehicle and also keep tabs on it.

This isn’t unique. Most cars of this type – the Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S – have their own smartphone apps that let you remotely access features and information about the vehicle.

MyFord Mobile has these covered: Battery charge status, finding the car’s location, activating the climate control system while the car is plugged in and setting a desired temperature. But it also provides much more.

 

Elio Motors unveiled a prototype of its two-passenger, three-wheeled vehicle Wednesday, confirming the all-new vehicle will have a $6,800 base price when it goes on sale in June 2014.

Paul Elio, company founder and CEO, said the vehicle is targeted at first-time or cash-strapped buyers, as well as for families who already have a family car and are seeking something inexpensive for daily commuting.

Its sub $7,000-base price makes it almost half the price of the cheapest car in the U.S. -- the base Nissan Versa, which carries a $12,780 price tag after shipping charges -- and Elio says its quirky three-wheel design cuts weight and improves aerodynamics to help it achieve 49 mpg in the city, 84 mpg on the highway.

 

This July, a wealthy Beatles fan could very well buy a real "Ticket to Ride."

John Lennon's 1965 Ferrari will cross the auction block at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the U.K. on July 12. According to auction house Bonhams, after recording the "Ticket to Ride" hit single in February 1965, the singer bought this blue-on-blue 330GT 2+2 Coupe on the very same day he received his driver's license – at age 25, no less.

That day, Lennon had the showroom brought to him. Local dealerships, having heard the news of his license, flooded his Surrey home with exotic cars. Lennon walked outside and soon chose this 330GT for £6,500 – roughly $171,000 in 2013 dollars – no doubt a slap in the face to the Aston Martin and Jaguar reps hoping he'd side with the British. 

Van maker Vehicle Production Group -- recipient of a $50 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy -- has suspended operations and is in the process of being sold, its former CEO said Wednesday.

 

The Allen Park, Mich., company, which made MV-1 vans for the disabled, terminated about 100 workers and closed its offices in February.

 

VPG was granted an Energy Department loan in 2010 under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program, mirroring struggling plug-in hybrid car maker Fisker Automotive.

 

During the New York International Auto Show, Mitsubishi unveiled the 2014 Mirage in the Javits Center basement. As you’ve seen by now, it probably shouldn’t have bothered. But before we start picking on Mitsubishi, it’s important to put a few things in perspective.

 

The Mitsubishi Corp. is huge. It has, according to its website, “more than 200 Offices & Subsidiaries in approximately 90 countries worldwide and a network of over 500 group companies.” This company almost literally does it all, from high-definition TVs to water chestnuts in the grocery aisle. Try, for example, Kentucky Fried Chicken. If you’re eating that in Japan, you’re eating at yet another Mitsubishi subsidiary. Then wash it down with an ice-cold Kirin lager – Mitsubishi owns that, too. 

On its website, Mitsubishi cars and its North American division are listed several subheads down on the page, at “Machinery Group: Motor Vehicle Business Division, Americas and Australia.” Looking at the automaker like that makes its cars feel almost insignificant to the company as a whole.

 

You know those beautiful photos of new vehicles you see in ads and brochures? As with glamorous shots of a supermodel, you can bet there's plenty of drama going on behind the scenes.

Last week, Chrysler chose a picturesque spot on a Northern California beach to photograph its new Ram Power Wagon. But apparently, someone forgot to check the tides and the truck got submerged in saltwater.

Automotive News got the scoop from nature photographer Matt Hinton, who witnessed the fiasco and shot the photos you see here. The crew on the shoot apparently tried to capture the Ram climbing seaside rocks at low tide on a beach near Trinidad. But the pickup got stuck and couldn’t be freed before the tide turned.

 

All those exotic police cars chasing us in "Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit" used to be the ultimate car game fantasy. Now, it's just another day in Dubai.

This week, the city's cash-rich police force added a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, Bentley Continental GT and the super-rare Aston Martin One-77 to its supercar patrol fleet. They're on display at a travel expo all week.

That's on top of the Lamborghini Aventador the department received last month to "enhance its patrolling abilities," as much as a half-million-dollar car with scissor doors and light bars can be taken seriously. For low-ranking traffic officers, there's a Camaro SS. Another pursuit Ferrari FF is strictly reserved for its female officers.

But while the Benz and Bentley are at least $200,000 apiece, they're nothing next to the Aston Martin. As the name says, this ultra-rare coupe is one of just 77 made and cost anywhere from $1.4 million to $2 million each after it debuted four years ago. As far as we knew, they were entirely sold out.  

Test car drivers get flown around the world to drive prototypes months or even years before they enter production. As expected, it's pretty great if you drive for a company like McLaren, which spares no expense in shipping cars and crews to the Arctic Circle for a little evaluative fun.

The cars themselves usually aren't pretty, rigged as they are with masks, electrical tape and bulbous fake body parts. But until now, no one's made actual money with a prototype, all of which eventually end up in museums or the crusher. Miller Motorcars, a Greenwich, Conn., exotic car dealer of epic proportions, has figured out how.

The MP4-12C you see here is a year-old demo car with 5,000 miles on the clock. That is, it was until the dealership downloaded McLaren's official camouflage body cloak from actual MP4-12C prototypes and had Dallas-based Skinzwrap cover the car's silver paint with trippy black-and-white 3M vinyl. Now, it's a one-off "Greenwich Special Edition" unlike any used McLaren in the world.