Yesterday, Ford’s president of the Americas, Mark Fields, announced a new online initiative designed to solicit ideas and spark debate about automotive technology. The “Your Ideas” social media portal will be part of the Ford Story Web site, which launched in December 2008. Ford Story already gives people a platform to post their favorite stories, photos and videos related to their blue oval vehicles and to converse with other Ford owners and company management about the problems and concerns they have about their cars. The Your Ideas section will take that managerial commitment to collaboration with consumers and other auto-industry outsiders to the next level, in hopes of building better products that people want -- and need.

Your Ideas will allow consumers to “submit, share and suggest ideas and technologies they believe fit in the automotive space.”

Acura said on Tuesday that it is recalling 1,850 versions of its freshly launched 2010 ZDX crossover for a potential airbag problem.

The recall stems from a dashboard material that was cut wrong, which would cause the airbag to deploy improperly. About two percent of the vehicles recalled are likely affected, spokesman Gary Robinson said.

Do you want to save on your car insurance? Then you should move to Maine or Vermont, according to a recent survey by Insure.com. Those states have the lowest average car-insurance rates in the nation -- $902.85 and $968.58, respectively. Low commuter miles and uncrowded highways were credited with keeping the rates low.

Those who live in Louisiana ($2,510.87) and Michigan ($2,098.29) pay the most for insurance.

In the survey, average rates were calculated for more than 2,400 vehicles in 2010. Rates were based on a 40-year-old male driver who commutes 12 miles to work, has a $500 deductible on collision and comprehensive coverage and carries limits of 100/300/50, meaning a $100,000 maximum injury liability for one person, $300,000 for all injuries and $50,000 property damage per collision.

Click through to see what the average driver pays in your state for car insurance.

BMW took the time to blow its own horn by announcing that the company has produced more than 1 million 1-Series models. Believe it or not, buyers around the globe have found reason enough to snap the car up over healthy competition from other manufacturers. It’s kind of hard to believe BMW has had that much success with the 1-Series, given the model’s less-than-stellar sales here in the United States.

U.S. consumers can have their tiny BMW in either coupe or convertible, with a choice of two powerful engines -- which all sounds good until you start eyeing the price tag. Start choosing your options and before long, you can easily justify the jump to the much larger and more costly 3-Series.

When it rains it pours. But the folks in the Toyota camp have to be saying to themselves: When will it stop? For the first time in nearly a decade, Consumer Reports, a widely respected authority on automotive quality and reliability, is urging its readers not to buy an automobile: the Lexus GX 460. Why has the magazine slapped a “Don’t Buy: Safety Risk” label on the 7-passenger SUV? It could potentially roll over in real-world driving situations, such as when a driver enters a highway exit ramp or powers through a sweeping turn and encounters an obstacle or finds he has entered the turn with too much speed for the vehicle to stay firmly on the asphalt.

The 2011 Chevrolet Volt continues to rack up test miles as it streaks toward launching in the United States late this year.

Engineers said they have put 250,000 miles collectively on test Volts since November, and have flogged the extended range electric vehicle in extreme cold weather conditions. Some individual test cars have more than 20,000 miles on the clock. The Volt, the most anticipated General Motors vehicle in years, remains on track for its rollout in some parts of the nation, officials said.

The Dodge Viper is being placed in mothballs -- for now anyway -- as the 50 "Final Edition" Viper SRT-10 coupes, convertibles and race-ready ACRs get ready to roll off their Motown assembly line this summer.

All will feature a slick graphite-and-black color scheme, and be stuffed with a 600-horsepower 8.4-liter version of the 10-cylinder engine that’s been one of the Viper’s high-decibel calling cards since it first blew away crowds as a concept car at the 1989 Auto Show in Detroit. However, we can't pronounce the legendary nameplate dead yet; there are rumors a new Viper will hit the streets in 2013 that will have just as sharp fangs but be a bit more domesticated than current models.