Climate Transportation

How plug-in cars can face up to winter’s challenges

Plug-in and hybrid vehicles face particular challenges in cold weather. But new technologies in the works could help those cars cope.

Ride the line: What one activist learned biking the Keystone XL route

"Renewable rider" Tom Weis biked the over 2,000 miles of the U.S. portion of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline route, learning along the way that opposition to the project doesn't fall along party lines.

Cycles and cents: One city sets out to prove that bikes are good for business

Known as a car-addicted city, Long Beach, Calif., creates the nation’s first “bike-friendly” business districts, and it seems to be working.

Weird new all-electric cars debut at Detroit Auto Show

Volkswagen E-Bugster

Hitting the "on" button on this car (because in the future, all cars will be started the same way you start up a laptop) makes the interior flash blue like you've just stepped into a light cycle from TRON. Check the video, below, for the full effect.

David Bowie riding the subway

The Thin White Duke turned 65 (I KNOW) yesterday, and Flavorwire has put together a slideshow of him doing normal stuff, just to prove he can. Here he is making use of public transportation, even though he could totally summon a shimmering gargoyle to fly him to wherever he's going. Going car-free: It's cool! David […]

Ladies, here’s your new tough biker chick mascot

Have you been looking for a new role model for mixing biker-chick toughness with button-boots style? If you have, comics genius Kate Beaton has you covered, and if you haven't, now you know why you should have been. This badass velocipedestrienne (no, seriously, velocipedestrienne) is based on a 19th-century cartoon about "The Awful Effects of […]

Take off your pants and hop on transit

D.C. is having its annual No Pants Metro Ride this Sunday, to raise awareness of … public transit? Indecency laws? People's bottoms? (Actually, according to the Facebook page, they're just trying to raise awareness of how funny it is when 400 people are not wearing pants, but let's go with "public transit.") This will easily […]

The only defense of electric cars you really need

Maggie Koerth-Baker is one of the most responsible energy journalists on the planet, in part because she writes for the blog of all blogs, BoingBoing, which has never felt the need to cloak its writers' opinions in trumped-up objectivity and false balance. So it was refreshing to see her refute the latest turd lobbed over the wall by the internet's favorite tabloid, Gawker Media: "You Are Not Alone. America Hates Electric Cars.”

Fixies to the people! Building a business on no-frills bikes

Here's the formula: Take a bike, boil it down to the basics -- frame, wheels, pedals, seat, handlebars. Offer it online, cheap. Then stand back and watch people snatch them up.

Barbie gets a bike, and knees to ride it with

Barbie’s finally got an awesome set of wheels to go with that solar-powered dream house. The good folks at the One Speed Go blog in Phoenix recently tipped us off to the Barbie Glam Bike, a sparkly pink beach cruiser with matching fenders and chain guard. What’s more remarkable, though, is the accompanying doll, who sports […]