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Popular Science magazine's Best Of What's New 2012 all ate up with cars

Popular Science has named the winners in its Best of What's New awards, the victors coming in the categories of aerospace, automotive, engineering, entertainment, gadgets, green, hardware, health, home, recreation, security and software. The automotive category did not go wanting for lauded advancements:
Tesla Model S: the Grand Award winner for being "the standard by which all future electric vehicles will be measured."
BMW 328i: it's 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder gets called out for being more powerful and frugal than the six-cylinder it replaces.

Recharge Wrap-up: unofficial Tesla ad, VW will produce Budd-e

An unofficial Tesla commercial pays homage to the automaker's namesake. The video, which shows the Model S driving through a dusty, petroleum-addicted landscape reminiscent of a Mad Max film, features words from a speech by electricity-obsessed inventor Nikola Tesla. While Tesla (the man) talks about advancing technology into the future through electricity, the cars surroundings switch from the barren oil village to a green countryside dotted with wind turbines. See the video above, and read more at Treehugger. Famous rapper Akon is a Tesla fan who wants to power Africa with solar energy. Akon, who once boasted a collection of 28 exotic cars, traded them in for four Teslas, including a Model X. Also, his organization Akon Lighting Africa provides free solar electricity and lighting to communities that need it. Clean Technica talked to Akon about solar power, Tesla and EVs in a video. See the video and read more at Clean Technica, and get more perspective from Teslarati. The Volkswagen BUDD-e EV may be moving to production. The electric vehicle, built on the MEB modular platform with looks borrowed from the Microbus, made its debut as a concept vehicle at CES this year. Volkwagen's Dr. Volkmar Tanneberger tells Car magazine, "You will see a car that looks a lot like this, on the MEB platform, reach production. I can't say exactly when, but 2020 or thereabouts." He also says that the California camper van and Transporter van will continue production with internal combustion engines. Read more from Car. The 2017 Kia Soul EV will have more range. While it is scheduled for some minor updates, upping the electric Soul's driving range from its current EPA rating of 93 miles will hopefully attract more customers than a simple facelift. Autocar spied the next Soul EV testing in some heavy camouflage, but it offered no other details about the range beyond its reported expansion. Read more from Plugin Cars.

Ohio senator with deep dealer ties proposes anti-Tesla bill

The fight against customer-direct car sales by Tesla Motors continues around the US, and the California-based company can now count dealership groups in Georgia and Ohio among its adversaries. In Ohio, Tesla has opened company-owned stores in Cincinnati and Columbus and is now fighting a state dealership association that's pushing for legislation that explicitly outlaws direct dealer-to-public sales after a lawsuit against Tesla was dismissed last week, Automotive News says. The proposed law (Senate Bill 260) would prevent any entity from selling vehicles if it "is a manufacturer, or a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliated entity of a manufacturer, applying for a license to sell or lease new or used motor vehicles at retail." Under Ohio's current laws, Tesla says its stores are perfectly legal, but clearly that would would drastically change if SB260 becomes law without some sort of provision to 'grandfather' dealers opened before the legislation passes. Ohio's dealers say Tesla threatens their network since it sets a precedent for other automakers to use the same practice. The politician behind the bill received at least $42,825 from dealership owners, employees and PACs. The politician behind the anti-Tesla bill in Ohio is Senator Tom Patton (R-Strongsville), who "received at least $42,825 from state and national auto dealership owners, employees, and political action committees (PACs) between 2002 and 2013," according to Media Trackers. His Facebook page is filling up with negative comments about his "crony capitalism" actions. Meanwhile, a Georgia exemption from that state's prohibition of automaker-to-public sales states that a company can directly sell as many as 150 zero-emissions vehicles a year, the Atlanta Business Chronicle says. Tesla sold about 500 of its Model S sedans there last year, with the rest of the cars being registered in California. The automaker is looking to expand that exemption tenfold to 1,500 vehicles. Georgia and Ohio join states such as Massachusetts, New York and Texas that have done battle with Tesla and its business model, with Texas thus far being the most formidable opponent. CEO Elon Musk said last year that he may go to the federal government to get such laws changed on a national level. That's not surprising since Tesla's preparing to start selling its Model X crossover and could unveil its cheaper EV (possibly called Model E) at the Detroit Auto Show next year.