Passing Scene

"BMW i" is a new global sub-brand that is going to be as much about the German car maker's mobility solutions efforts as new vehicles, Karl Greenberg reports in Marketing…

Kudos to the Washington Auto Show for adding a little “Sex And The City” flavor to this year’s event. The show partnered with the capitol’s 200,000-member social networking group, Professionals In The City, to offer the nation’s first speed dating go-round at an auto show. Popular Washington Post columnist, “love guru” Carolyn Hax kicked it off with a Q &A session, then the males went from car to car in the General Motors exhibit while the ladies stayed put (No doubt in the driver’s seat). One female participant said the excitement of the show and the new cars made it, “a perfect icebreaker; there was no trouble making conversation.” Post-event participants gave the event three stars out of a possible four stars and Professionals in the City prexy Michael Karlan said comments included, “awesome”, “fun” “exciting” and “enjoyed the privacy” He said they had a decent turnout for a weekday night and they would welcome the opportunity to do it again next year.

The first and so far only photos received from the Quatar Auto Show were of people. Dignitaries, yes, cars, no. . . . The Detroit Bureau reports, “cognitive researchers at the University of Rochester have found that playing video games can train drivers to make the right decisions, and quickly. But other studies suggest that gamers may also be less tolerant of the decisions others make – at least on the highway.” . . . Automotive News reports General Motors is diving into the murky world of creating entertainment as well as building cars and trucks. GM is the sole automotive sponsor for a new weekly half-hour TV show Inside the Vault – “aimed at entertaining and informing today’s classic man.” GM and other sponsors collaborate on creating the content. Hailed as a new approach for new times, it sounds like the bygone days of radio and early television when ad agencies bought the time and created content to please their clients.

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Dan Ambrose "refudiates" long-held beliefs that giving away content on the Internet accounts for the serious drops in print pubs circulation and revenue. Headlined "Wrong All Along" in Online Publishing…

Associated Press has dropped the “writer” from its byline because, according to a staff memo by AP Standards editor Tom Kent: “These days, the byline on an AP story may…

Riverside (Calif.) International Automotive Museum is holding a reception and book signing October 16 for Lenny T. Miller author of “Racing While Black.” . . .To raise funds, the ladies of the U. K.’s Doghouse Club (Women’s Motor Racing Associates Club) are producing a 2011 Calendar that features not themselves in provocative poses but race car drivers including Sir Stirling Moss and Michael Schumacher among others – in racing but not racy settings.

The $10,000,000 Progressive Automotive X Prize was divided among three teams that produced test vehicles able to get more than 100 miles per gallon of gasoline. Edison2 of Lynchburg, Va. Won $5,000,000 for its “mainstream” entry that achieved 102.5 miles per gallon running on E85 ethanol. The remaining $5,000,000 was shared equally between Li-ion Motors Corp. of Mooresville, N.C. and X-Tracer from Winterthur, Switzerland. They both built futuristic electric vehicles, with the Swiss car achieving the equivalent of 205 mpg. . . . Members of the U.K.-based Motorsports Industry Association, which bills itself as, “the world’s leading trade association for motorsport’s performance engineering, services and tuning industry” will spend five days in early December touring NASCAR facilities and landmarks in Daytona, including the newly re-paved track.

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