Stop!

China’s Spring Airlines, in an effort to handle a growing number of passengers, is considering selling standing-room tickets.

GM’s next green dream machine?

OK. GM has crushed the idea of using Toyota’s hybrid technology numerous times. Nonetheless, there is another rumor out today that Toyota and GM are discussing the possibility of re-utilizing their joint NUMMI venture to rebadge Toyota Prius hybrids for GM.

Regardless of the fact that I’m 99.9 percent certain such a partnership would never happen, what would GM have to gain by such a venture?

Almost certainly, GM wouldn’t make any money off these hybrid vehicles, and I don’t think they would provide any more green PR than the Chevy Volt is already providing. Even worse, these cars would cast much doubt on GM’s upcoming lithium-powered BAS hybrid powertrain.

Am I missing something? Why won’t this rumor just go away?

Ooh! Ahh! Everyone loves fireworks—and everyone can learn to snap photographs that better capture their beauty.

We’ve been after you for months to start following the Twitter pages of airlines (to say nothing of, achem, following our account). You no doubt already know that LCC’s like Virgin, JetBlue and Southwest tweet deals every day and are more than worth your time. But what about the big boys?

United is one of the major airlines with a regularly updated Twitter account, which they also use to announce Twitter-only deals. Keep that in mind as our story unfolds.

Real estate: listings of homes sold in East Bay circulation area: Contra Costa County, some Alameda, Solano

In honor of Canada Day we bring you news from the Canadian capital, where a suburban service station has become the first in the world to sell a blend of gasoline and cellulosic ethanol biofuel.
As part of a month long trial, drivers who fill up their Nissan X-Trails or Acura CSXs at a Shell station [...]

Yesterday, we told you about our ordeal trying to get out of a middle seat assignment on a long flight to Paris thanks to Orbitz’s out-of-sync seat maps, but the real culprit is the slew of new coach class “preferred,” “choice,” and “select” seats that are blocked off from assignments until the day before travel.

The airline industry is forecasting losses of about $9 billion by a recent estimate in the New York Times. As a way to squeeze every last penny out of travelers already stretched thin by a la carte (so to speak) meals, fuel surcharges, and additional baggage and airport fees, airlines have started charging for certain coach seats they have labeled as “preferred” to get travelers to think they are somehow worth paying an extra fee to reserve. The question is: are they? The short answer is no.

Tesla, the darling motorcar company of the EV set, promises to have the Model S sedan on the road by 2011. So what does the S bring to the table besides more seats and less cost than the Roadster? The brass answer that question in a video explaining the Model S.

Tesla makes a big [...]