Drive Smarter | ecoXplorer

Best Funny and Offbeat New Year’s Eve Celebrations in USA

NYC's Times Square is the world's biggest New Year's Eve celebration

Everybody agrees that the two top places to ring in a new year are Times Square in New York City and anywhere in Las Vegas. But there are some other interesting, free, even quirky New Year’s Eve celebrations in the USA, from [...]

Five Top Travel Apps for Safe Holiday Road Trips

The AAA estimates more than 92 million Americans will be on the road during the holiday period between December 23rd and January 2nd, 3.1% more than last year. There is a mind-boggling selection of iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry apps to download that will help make your driving and travel less stressful and perhaps [...]

2011 Best Buy Car: 2011 Chevrolet Malibu Mid-Size Sedan

2011 Chevrolet Malibu wins "best buy" award plus safety awards

The eagerly-awaited extended range hybrid Chevrolet Volt has been getting all the headlines lately, along with many of the top car awards. But so has the 2011 Chevrolet Malibu, which the Volt looks like and even feels like behind the wheel, although the [...]

Electric Cars You Can Buy Now: Wheego LiFe

Wheego LiFe is an electric car you can buy now, $32,995 before tax credits

Wheego has been under the radar while all the attention and headlines about electric cars has focused on Tesla, Fisker and the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt, even though the Volt isn’t an EV at all, but a [...]

2011 Car of the Year Finalists Include Electric Cars, Hybrids and Sportscars

Which 2010 or 2011 model gets your vote of the most desirable vehicle of the year? The best green car? There are three important awards being announced at the press preview days of the important 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show next week.

First, is the title of Automobile of the Year, awarded by Automobile Magazine. [...]

Top Ten Steepest USA Streets

If you think the steepest streets in the USA are in San Fransisco, you would be wrong. A list of the ten steepest streets by an outfit called Infographics rates the Waipio Road in Hawaii, in the historic Waipio Valley, as the steepest, at an astounding 45% angle. And according to this list, Los Angeles has more steep streets than San Francisco.

Be sure to drive, bicycle or walk carefully on any of them, and if you park, be absolutely, positively sure to engage the emergency parking brake before you get out of the car.

The entire list of the top 10 steepest streets in the USA is on the next page…..

A video of riding a Segway up Baldwin St. is on the page after that ……

Top Travel Apps for Holiday Road Trips

There is a mind-boggling number of iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry applications on the market to download to help make your driving and travel experience more user friendly. So which ones are best?

These are my picks for the five best travel apps for holiday road trips, to help keep you save and get [...]

2010 Kia Soul Named A Best Car for Back to School

The 2010 Kia Soul has been named one of the ten best Back-to-School cars for the second year in a row by Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com, although last year it was the 2009 Kia Soul that got the nod. The Kia Soul is an award-winner for its eye-catching style, roomy interior, safety features, fuyel efficiency, and a pricetag that starts at just under $14,000 for the basic model. Those are the kind of features that make it popular with college students, high school students, and their parents, too.

It’s just the latest award for the 2010 Kia Soul. The model also has been named a Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). That’s an important measurement , indicating a car does well in front-back crash tests and side-impact crash tests. The Kia Soul also is on the list of “Best Family Cars for 2010″ by Edmunds.com and Parents Magazine, “Best Hatchback of 2010″ by Cars.com, “2010 Top Cars for Families” by Motherproof.com, and 2010 “Top 10 Coolest New Cars Under $18,000″ from Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com.

A popular feature for the back to school crowd is the Soul’s audio upgrade package, which adds a center speaker, subwoofer, external amplifier and speaker lights that pulse to the beat of the music. That turns the Kia Soul into a private party lounge on four-wheels.