TheScraper has it right, "it" is devolving, not improving. But "it" means several things:

Seriously, I think "Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 GTR Stirling Moss" wins, and then when you add the "AMG Black" and aftermarket packages like "ASMA Perfectus ", you've long since run out of room on the trunk lid. I want to get a base SLR just so I can stick all those words on the back in Pep Boys faux diamanté…

Good for him, if you don't do this at the sight of several models then you're a jaded poseur, not a car enthusiast. I still park my beater to peer through the windows of a nearby Bentley/Lambo/Lotus dealer. And the first and only time I saw a BMW M1 on the street it turned my frown upside down and had me leaping…

What are you on about? $10,000 non-toxic battery packs are already safely recycled, just like the highly-toxic lead-acid batteries in conventional cars. There is no hard evidence that making them is significantly more polluting than the steel and nickel and plastic in conventional cars. Obviously adding a thousand…

Phenomenal video, thanks!

while your mom's Toyota has a weaksauce 98-horsepower drivetrain

Yes it's silly marketing (our battery is relatively small so it charges quickly!). Anyway the charging time is irrelevant if you have a garage with a plug. Every morning your car is ready to go 18 miles all-electric, cheaply and overall-less-bad for the environment, after that the hybrid's engine can kick in.

Hey Mr. Okulski, did Jalopnik just wake up? Over a year ago back in June 2011 other car sites all covered Winterkorn's statement (translated from German): I am firmly convinced that plug-in hybrids are the right solution for the next ten years. You can drive 50 to 60 kilometers all-electric and have the full…

Yes! The "longroof" design for the 1984 Civic hatckback, one of the most beautiful city cars ever made. Designers have lost the knack of putting an upright rear window on a hatchback, look at the wasted space at the back of the Fiat 500 and Audi A1. They can square off the back of a Nissan Cube or Kia Soul, but they…

What part of "it's a hybrid that, with the drag coefficient of a greased football, gets more than 100 mpg" do you not understand? Fish-inspired vehicles achieve better aerodynamics, so get used to them.

That's European cycle, where the identical Prius gets 60mpg. And most of those excellent diesels are smaller cars with stop-start, i.e. they're micro-hybrids.

Everything you're now saying is more or less true, but you're changing the subject to avoid admitting what you started off saying is wrong. Have you driven the pokey underpowered Polo 1.2L diesel? Also the European cycle is a lot more forgiving than USA, the same 50 EPA mpg Prius gets 60 mpg there. And in Road &…

Supposedly stop-start doesn't benefit EPA mpg figures, from which, as I understand it, CAFE requirements are derived by complicated regulatory math. So it's been a long time coming in the USA. I think a few Porsche and M-B models are starting to come over with the feature intact.

I'm curious, where did you read that?

it gets about the same gas mileage as a well sorted diesel

As @wkiernan says elsewhere, "absolute bullshit, sheer unmitigated bullshit, disprovable bullshit, bullshit that flies in the face of both arithmetic and common sense, 101% bullshit, bullshit with rocket-assist". Just because Clarkson handwaved on TV doesn't make it true.

Uh, if you do the math you'd realize that over 120,000 miles a Prius will save 3 tons of gasoline and 10 tons of CO2 car compared with a TDI.

For all you jealous wanna-bes[*] calling Jon Olsson a d-bag, he's beaten you to it! He's sponsored by douchebags™ !, [mydouchebag.com]

The blank bar is for the front license plate (NOT the Audi rings!), but since he has no license plate why not remove it and expose the entire grille? Google image search shows lots of Audi R8s without that bar...

Where's the "Fools"? The Prius v, plus a rebadged Highlander Hybrid, and the Tesla-engineered RAV4 EV.