Hasta La Gadget!

Attention, Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf: Step aside (or be moved aside?). Now Rolls-Royce has an electric car, the one-off Phantom 102EX. The three-ton electric debuts at the Geneva Auto Show in a week. “We have engineered the world’s first battery electric vehicle for the ultra-luxury segment,” said CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös.

Drive the speed limit. That’s the succinct message being driven home by a town in Victoria, Australia, which is changing its name from “Speed” to “Speedkills,” in hopes of raising awareness for traffic safety. The name change will be in effect for the month of March.

GM has an answer for the Ford Sync infotainment package. It’s called Chevrolet MyLink and it delivers a seamless connection for smartphones and services such as Pandora, Stitcher Internet Radio, and Gracenote. Other cellphones and music players work, too. MyLink arrives later this year in a very limited rollout on the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid and Chevrolet Equinox SUV, three-plus years after Ford Sync.

To Europeans, nothing says sporty like a well-tuned station wagon. The new, 2011 Acura TSX Sport Wagon is a perfect example of the breed, with just enough of the absolutely right technology and no more, so the price stays reasonable for the genre, in the mid-thirties. The new model also looks better thanks to a toned-down front grille.

Toyota got mostly good news this week when the Department of Transportation concluded that ill-designed floor mats but not electronic throttles were to blame for sudden-and-unintended acceleration issues in Toyotas and Lexuses. That and driver error. But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood chose to say “pedal misapplication” instead of “driver error,” leaving the impression that drivers needn’t shoulder any of the blame. All this may leave Toyota with the same oh-what-a-lousy-feeling as former Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan when he was indicted in a widely publicized fraud case then acquitted on all charges in court. Donovan asked, “Which office do I go to get my reputation back?”