Fuel efficient or market efficient?

The Atlantic Monthly column by Megan McArdle: One thing is clear about the bailout: congress intends to use it to push GM et. al. into manufacturing more fuel efficient cars. This means cars that are either a) smaller, b) more expensive, or both. When gas prices were high, a lot of people blamed Detroit's troubles on the fact that they hadn't learned to make awesome small cars. But Toyota isn't so successful in the US because of the Yaris and the Corolla; its core business, like Honda's, is American-sized sedans, station wagons, luxury cars, and so on...

New Filter Promises to Save Oil and Money

The Wall Street Journal article by David Patton: The microGreen oil filter from SOMS Technologies is a new design that is similar to the paper oil filters used in most passenger cars and trucks but also includes a second filter... Steve Kirchner, SOMS' chief operations officer says the filter still needs to be changed every 6,000 miles, but the oil can remain in the engine for as much as 30,000 miles...