Hasta La Gadget!

On the same day last month that BMW announced the BMW Active E electric vehicle (see story), the CEO of BMW of North America announced, “From a practicality point of view, (EVs) won’t work for most people.” That was April 18, the week of the New York International Auto Show. Detroit may not at full strength in the automaking business, but the Detroit News knows a good car story when it sees one, and jumped all over it. Now BMW NA CEO Jim O’Donnell has issued a clarification saying he was speaking personally and he’s also disappointed that U.S. policy rewards EVs with fat tax credits ($7,500) but hasn’t done much to jumpstart clean diesel technology in the U.S.

Scion now has a sexy $30,000 sporty vehicle in the Scion FR-S concept car to help rebuild the Scion momentum of the early 2000s, back when the brand was quirky, cool, and desirable. The FR-S is one of the top cars of the 2011 New York International Auto Show. FR-S stands for Front engine, Rear drive, Sport. To lower the center of gravity, Scion and parent Toyota turned to Subaru for a boxer engine, meaning a horizontal layout with four opposed cylinders – as on the Porsche 911, VW Beetle, or Subarus. Think of the FR-S in the same class as the Hyundai Genesis Coupe.

The 2012 Honda Civic is the best small car ever built, as we noted in a review this week. It debuted publicly at the New York International Auto Show in multiple versions: gas-engine sedan or coupe, high-efficiency gas-engine sedan, sporty sedan or coupe, hybrid, and natural gas vehicle. The i-MID 5″ LCD display in front of the driver at the base of the windshield is almost as good as a $1,200 head-up display. There’s a USB jack standard. But Honda leaves Bluetooth off the majority of Civics it will sell in the U.S.

The Chevrolet Malibu is so important to GM’s future that it got a simultaneous debut at the 2011 New York and Shanghai auto shows this week. The next generation of Chevy’s midsize, best-selling  sedan arrives in 2012 as a 2013 model with four-cylinder engines only; no V6’s. Tech features include Chevrolet MyLink (like Ford Sync) with Pandora and Stitcher SmartRadio, lane departure warning, forward collision warning, and rear camera. There will be an ECO model with an estimated 38 mpg highway rating and, on some models, active grille shutters to reduce wind resistance.

The 2012 Honda Civic may be the best compact car ever made (see review), but a boneheaded marketing decision leaves the majority of Civic buyers unable to get Bluetooth, an important safety and convenience feature. The Bluetooth Handsfree Link feature is only on the Civic EX and EX-L models. It’s not on the barebones Civic DX that nobody cares about, but it’s also omitted from the next model up, the Civic LX, which has accounted for just over half of Civic sales. And it’s not on the Civic HF, the eco model sitting between the LX and EX designed to eke out a few more mpg.