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As an automotive dealer, generating web traffic to your car dealer website is as important as the frequency of prospective customers visiting your brick and mortar showroom. The more the web traffic to your car dealer website, the greater are your chances of generating sales conversions. A lot of your competitors are aware of this and there is fierce competition online as dealers try might and mane to gain qualified web traffic to their car dealer websites. The widescale popularity of social networking sites like Facebook has created a happy hunting ground of sorts for automotive dealers to drive web traffic to their sites. With close to 600 million users now on Facebook, it is difficult for most automotive dealers to resist the lure of the social networking site and capitalize on its viral nature. Imagine the amount of web traffic you can “drive” to your car dealer website through your Facebook fan page? The sky is the limit!

• Use Facebook apps – There are some great apps on Facebook to keep your visitors glued to your business page. There are some cool games that can be integrated with your Facebook business page. Once you are successful in engaging your visitor, you can easily drive his attention to your car dealer website. Qualified web traffic generated from these tools can quickly get converted into buyers and long term customers.
• Expand your Facebook network – In the world of online marketing, your network is your greatest asset. The same holds true for your online automotive dealership as well. Placing pay per click advertisements on Facebook can rapidly expand your network on your Facebook fan page and in turn generate an influx of web traffic to your car dealer website.
• Install a podcast widget on your fan page – Podcasts are basically audio files that can be downloaded to your computer. They are a great way to boost web traffic to your car dealer website. By installing the Facebook podcast widget on your automotive dealership fan page, people from your network can listen to your podcast which would inform them about all the new cars and services that have been launched. This would prompt them to visit your site and in turn increase your web traffic statistics.

There are a myriad ways to gain web traffic from your Facebook fan page. The ones mentioned above are some of the most reliable and popular methods to drive a stream of traffic to your car dealer website. As long as Facebook continues to grow, a lot more tactics will be devised along the way to assist automotive dealers to effectively gain visitors to their site.

DeAngelis Advertising is an Automotive Advertising firm based out of Florida. Real World Results for Dealers Nationwide.

As the days for Nissan’s test with electric car success come nearer, the Environmental Protection Agency has rated it a 99 MPG. This means that the mileage of a Nissan Leaf is 99 miles over a gallon of gas. Now, we know the since it is an electric vehicle what is the logic behind numbers? It is simple. The EPA wants people to know that the per gallon equivalent in case of Leaf is 99 miles, thus nearly doubling the mileage achieved by a Toyota Prius.

The EPA has also rated it a full charge mileage at 73 miles. So, this again means that the car will go up to 77 miles on full electric charge. The company says that the full recharge of the car can be done in 7 hours.

In a nutshell, you need to charge the car every for 7 hours before you can drive it for 70 miles. It may be easy for some folks and cumbersome for others to leave the charging station on the entire night.

The Indian Government has announced that it has successfully migrated over to the Euro-IV and Euro-III fuel types for petrol and diesel, thus ensuring that the country achieves the deadline ahead of the scheduled date.

The Euro-IV fuel variant that signifies European Grade – IV fuel was already launched and implemented in 13 major cities on 1st April and the remaining country was gradually migrated to Euro-III fuel variants.

The use of cleaner fuel is expected to reduce environmental toxins and also make the air quality better. Not everyone is happy though, because use of cleaner fuel has meant that subscribers have to pay slightly higher price for the fuel. The general mood however, is quite positive and people seem to have liked the idea of using cleaner, low-sulphur fuel for a better and green living.

A recent sentencing of a UK man who defrauded his employers of 21000 pounds by using the company fuel cards fraudulently has rubbed the entire fuelcard industry in a wrong way. To give you a background of the case, this person actually stole the fuel card that was used to pay for the petrol for his company.

Since the employers did not realize the theft or they forgot to get the card de-activated in time, the 31 year old man, Wayne Mitchell used it to buy fuel worth 5,000 pounds for himself before lending it to his friends who used the card to add to the misery of the company. The card was used between 21st July 2008 to 24th December 2008 at multiple petrol stations. During these 5 months, the employer lost out on 21,000 pounds of fuel. You may be left wondering as to how could this employer let the fuel card be abused for 5 months and not notice it.

The accused admitted to his fraud in an early hearing and was given a 2 year prison sentence and suspended for 2 years. He was also told to work for 150 hours without pay at the Oxford Crown Court. And in the recent Court order, he was ordered to pay 5 pounds as a nominal charge for the fraud committed by him. Interestingly, the Court did not consider the full amount of 21,000 pounds before sentencing the man and instead it took into account the actual fraud of 4985 pounds that was committed by the person.

Needless to say, the fuel card fraternity says that the blame lies with the company in question because it chose to ignore fraudulent purchases over a period of 5 months. One of the fuel card company’s representatives told us that these days petrol and diesel cards come with zero-liability insurance and this is more than sufficient to guard against any liability arising out of stolen cards. All that a person needs to do is to call the customer support and get this card blocked and within 24 hours of the call the petrol or diesel card gets blocked.

This episode also raises some very important questions.

1. How could the company have prevented the fraud?
2. How could a company limit the extent of liability arising out of criminal use of petrol cards?
3. And what would be the liability of a fraudster who chooses to sell a stolen card in grey market?

The Court sentencing is going to raise a few questions on what can be done better to ensure that this sort of theft does not take place in future, or at the least how can a company protect its petrol cards from potential frauds.

A123 Systems has opened what it says is the largest lithium-ion battery factory on North America, a sprawling 291,000-square foot facility in Michigan where it will develop, test and manufacture prismatic cells and assemble battery packs for hybrid and electric vehicles.

President Barack Obama lauded the factory, which was funded in part by a $249 million grant from the Department of Energy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The state of Michigan kicked in another $125 million in incentives. The factory is located in the Detroit suburb of Livonia.

A123 Systems manufactures prismatic cells roughly the size of a license plate. Each cell produces 20 amp hours and 66 watt hours. Company officials said the factory will allow it to increase cell assembly capacity from from 100 megawatt-hours to 750 megawatt-hours by the end of next year.

Not surprisingly, the company’s stock surged 8.82 percent on news of the opening, which the president hailed in a conference call today with company brass and Gov. Grohnholm.

Photo: Argonne National Laboratory / Flickr. Argonne researcher Panagiotis Prezas checks the voltages of A123 Systems’ lithium-ion batteries before a test.

Rumors that McLaren Automotive is working on a hybrid supercar swirling again with word that the company is looking for an electrical engineer with gas-electric experience.

The British firm wants someone to work on the “concept, design and development of the electrical package and wiring system for a hybrid electric vehicle,” according to a McLaren advert spotted by the blokes at Britain’s Autocar magazine. The job posting renewed speculation that kicked up last year when McLaren was looking for a hybrid drivetrain engineer.

McLaren, of course, had no comment beyond telling Autocar, “Hybrid technology is something that we are looking at and assessing. It is something we are interested in.” That’s pretty much what it said about the first ad.

Still, it’s worth noting that Ferrari — which is the company’s biggest competitor, both in Formula 1 and in the supercar arena where the forthcoming McLaren MP4-12C (pictured) will compete — unveiled the 599-based HY-KERS hybrid earlier this year. Ferrari has patented a gas-electric system, and Lamborghini teased us with the sweet Estoque hybrid concept two years ago.

Clearly the incentive is there, and building a hybrid would monetize the kinetic energy recovery system McLaren developed for the the 2009 F1 season.

Photo: McLaren Automotive

Public transit riders in the Los Angeles foothills can be forgiven for missing the bus, as it’s been a lot quieter the last few days. With a Proterra EcoRide BE35 in the fleet, Foothill Transit is the first transit agency in the United States to use the world’s first rapid-charge electric bus.

We first told you about Proterra in November when the company showed off its EcoRide BE35 bus on Capitol Hill. Now, one of their buses is plying Foothill Transit’s line 291 between the Los Angeles County cities of Pomona and La Verne.

Branded as the “Ecoliner” and paid for by stimulus funds, the Proterra bus features lithium titanate batteries from Altairnano. Lithium titanate batteries don’t expand and contract during recharging, so they’re very resilient and can hold up to frequent partial recharges. The Ecoliner’s lithium titanate batteries can propel the bus for three hours after a ten minute rapid charge. That won’t be any problem for line 291, as the Ecoliner will be able to recharge every half hour at a drive-in docking station installed at the Pomona Transit Center.

According to Proterra, despite its high purchase price the $1 million BE35 can save transit authorities $300,000 in total lifetime operating expenses, not to mention a 400 percent improvement in fuel economy.

Even if other California transit authorities weren’t swayed by those attractive numbers, they’ll undoubtedly be clamoring for more Proterra buses before the California Air Resources Board’s Zero Emission Bus (ZBus) regulation goes into effect in 2012. By then, 15 percent of buses ordered by the largest transit agencies in California will have to be zero emissions.

Foothill Transit has an even more ambitious goal, aiming for a 100 percent clean-fuel fleet by 2011. That means while the Ecoliner is the transit authority’s first green bus, it’s hardly the last.

Videos: Youtube/nwfblv6, leko1224

Ah, Monza. One of the most storied tracks in all of motor racing, a place where long straights, fast curves and tight chicanes make for exciting racing. Mark Webber of Red Bull Racing narrates a lap of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

Of the 1,800-plus hours Boeing 787 test pilots have flown so far, few are as dramatic as the recent trip to Iceland for crosswind testing. The 787 team flew to Keflavik airport after weather forecasts indicated conditions most pilots try to avoid — wind across the runway.

Boeing pilots made several takeoffs and landings on Runway 02 with winds of 30 knots, gusting to 39 from a heading of 120 degrees. This gave the 787 Dreamliner flight test team what it was looking for — nearly perpendicular winds at or exceeding speeds most airlines consider the limit for landing.

Keflavik is becoming the go-to location for crosswind testing, as Airbus tested the A380 in Iceland.

For most pilots, whether a student pilot or a veteran airline captain, making a good landing is matter of pride and something that is never guaranteed. Crosswind landings are typically among the most challenging.

Airport runways typically are normally aligned with the prevailing winds to make landings a bit easier, and many airports have runways aligned in different directions to account for changing wind. But the wind doesn’t always cooperate and at some point, every pilot has to make a landing with the wind blowing perpendicular to the runway.

Crosswind testing is important for the airplane makers because it allows them to confirm how strong a crosswind can blow while still allowing pilots to attempt a safe landing. All airplanes, big and small, have a limit to how much of a crosswind they can land in. This is usually dictated by how much the control surfaces (ailerons, rudder and elevator) can be used to keep the airplane flying along the runway heading despite being either crabbed or slipped into the wind.

In the 787 and other big airliners, pilots typically crab into the wind by using the rudder to point the nose of the airplane into the wind. When the airplane is very close to the ground, the pilot pushes on the other rudder pedal to align the nose with the runway while simultaneously using the ailerons to prevent the airplane from being blown down wind across the runway.

Unfortunately this can be a tricky balance of controls and without constant practice, the skill required to land in a crosswind can get rusty.

Most smaller airplanes have limits around 20-25 knots of wind coming straight across the runway. Large airliners may have limits of more than 30 knots.

The work performed by test pilots to find the limits of an airplane while landing in a crosswind are put to the test from time to time. In the video below, pilots of an Airbus A320 are attempting to land in Hamburg where winds were reported to be 35 knots, gusting to 47 roughly 60 degrees across the runway. The limit for a direct crosswind for the Airbus A320 is 33 knots, gusting 38.

While the co-pilot (who was flying during the landing) is de-crabbing close to the runway, left aileron input is applied and the left wing touches the runway, damaging the wing tip. The crew immediately elected to perform a go around. The airplane safely landed on a different runway more closely aligned with the wind about 20 minutes later. A full report on the landing can be found here (.pdf).

Lamborghini is rolling into the Schloss Bensberg Classics with some beautiful vintage iron, which isn’t especially newsworthy but gives us a reason to run some pics of the Miura P400 SV.

The Italian automaker will have a Miura, along with a 400 GT, a Silhouette and a Gallardo L 570-4 Superleggera, at the show. Fine cars one and all, but the Miura…. oh, the Miura. Just look at it. Marcello Gandini designed one of the prettiest cars ever, and the Miura was the first production mid-engine sports car.

The little factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese started building the Muira P400 in 1966. It was designed from the start for the road and track, with a transversely mounted 3.9-liter V12 from the 400 GT. It was good for 350 horsepower. Lamborghini gave the car some minor upgrades in 1968, including power windows, air conditioning, a locking glovebox and — most importantly — another 20 horses. The revised model was called the Muira P400S.

And then there was the Muira P400 SV, for SuperVeloce. Different carburetors and revised cam timing bumped output to 385 horsepower. The last of them got limited slip differentials. It also got wider rear tires and different tailights. Lamborghini built 150 Muira SVs in 1971 and ‘72. The company built 764 in all.

Valentino Balboni, Lamborghini’s chief test driver — and oh what a sweet job that’s gotta be — will drive the Muira SV in the Rallye Historique during this weekend’s Bensberg Classics show.

Photos: Lamborghini. More after the jump, of course.

See Also:

• Selling It All to Roam the Country in a Lamborghini
• Lego Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Polizia
• A Lamborghini as Fast as the Man It’s Named For
• Oh, Murcie! Latest Lamborghini Packs 670 Horsepower
• Mama Mia! Italian Police Roll in a Lamborghini

The Miura is a timeless car beautiful from every angle, and one of Marcello Gandini’s best designs. Gandini also designed the Lancia Stratos, Maserati Ghibli and Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 2+2, among others.

The chassis and doors were steel; the front and rear hoods were aluminum.

The 3.9-liter V12, taken from the 400 GT, fit within the Miura’s slight body. Barely.

Random shot of the rear suspension.

Famed designer Walter de’Silva penned the Muira Concept, a one-off that Lamborghini brought to the Detroit auto show in 2006. The concept commemorated the 40th anniversary of the original’s appearance at the Geneva Motor Show.

Eager to keep the streets of Gotham safe from drunk drivers, transportation officials in the Big Apple have created an iPhone app that makes finding a cab so easy even the drunkest fool can do it.

The app is called “You the Man” — we’re not making that up — and it uses the iPhone’s built-in GPS to find the nearest city-licensed cab no matter where you are in the five burroughs. It also provides directions to the nearest bus stop or transit service for those who drank away their last dollar.

“The technology in the ‘You the Man’ app knows exactly where you are, even if you don’t, and it provides practical, safe options for getting home for people who decide to drink,” city transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said in a statement. Sadik-Khan calls the app a form of “drunk dialing” people won’t regret in the morning.

If you’re not sure whether you’re too drunk to drive, you are. But just to be sure, the app includes a blood alcohol level calculator.There’s also a “spin the bottle” game to help choose your designated driver before you start knocking them back.

Next up — the Walk of Shame app for those trying to find their way home the next morning.

Photo: Jack Delano / Library of Congress. Shipyard workers knock back a cold one after work in this photo from December, 1940.

The guys over at Sonex Aircraft in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, have had a very busy year so far. After starting the year with the announcement of the first engine runs on their single seat DIY jet known as the SubSonex, the company has been busy with the development of another new single-seat airplane and improvements to existing models.

Unfortunately, similar to the development of other recent jet aircraft (787 & Joint Strike Fighter), even the little guys can run into a few hiccups along the way. The SubSonex is no exception.

After firing up the tiny jet engine for the first time last winter, the team at Sonex were excited to make the first flight in their single seater. But initial taxi testing uncovered some stability issues with the ground handling and the engineers went back to the drawing board.

At Airventure in Oshkosh earlier this summer, the SubSonex was back. Now it has a more stable tricycle gear configuration as compared to the single wheel/tail dragger configuration that caused concern during the taxi testing.

Sonex founder John Monnett remains committed to the SubSonex and says the issues facing the new jet are all part of the research and development process. The company runs the project out of its “Hornet’s Nest,” the R&D side of the hangar, sort of like a small scale Skunkworks.

“The challenges we face with the SubSonex perfectly illustrate our reasoning for unveiling this project under the banner of the Hornets’ Nest Research and Development program” Monnett says. “We have been very deliberate in not publishing timetables for development of the aircraft or guarantees of kit availability because there are no guarantees in R&D, despite our best efforts.”

During much of the summer the jet project, which Monnett himself calls his “Walter Mitty” airplane, has been put on the back burner at Sonex while the company focuses on some of its other new projects including a more traditional piston powered, high-performance single seater. And a new turbo charged version of its Volkswagen based engine.

Sonex's SubSonex Jet

Like the SubSonex, the new OneX features just a single seat and promises a lot of performance. But unlike the jet, which could cost well north of $80,000 (though the company has yet to announce a price), the tiny OneX is expected to cost just $21,000 ready to fly.

Such a low price eliminates one of the main complaints of many pilots and would-be pilots, the cost of buying a fun to fly airplane. Sure there are a fair number of older, used airplanes that could be bought for the same price. But with the OneX you’re getting a brand new airplane that is fully aerobatic and capable of cruising at 140 miles per hour.

“Obviously some assembly required,” notes Sonex CEO Jeremy Monnett.

Sonex's Single Seat OneX (canopy removed)

Like all Sonex designs, the OneX falls into the experimental category of home-built aircraft and can be flown with a light sport pilot license. The younger Monnett says most of their planes are built in about 700 hours. The single-seat OneX has fewer parts and combined with its smaller size it should take less time to build. Because many of the parts come ready to assemble from the factory, the DIY airplane doesn’t require previous experience, Monnett says.

“You have to have a lot of motivation to finish a project like that, but you don’t have to have a ton of skills.”

The experimental moniker is actually a bit misleading as the airplanes aren’t really an experiment. It’s simply the term the industry uses to describe aircraft that don’t fall under the Federal Aviation Administration’s rules for factory-built and certified aircraft. There are tens of thousands of these kinds of experimental aircraft safely flying around the world.

Best of all with the Volkswagen-based Aerovee engine, the low-fuel burn keeps the cost low once you’re flying, just four gallons per hour during typical cruise.

“Our airplanes are like little roadsters,” says Jeremy Monnett.

The analogy is a good one. Like cars such as a Porsche Boxster or Mazda Miata, the Sonex airplanes are fairly minimalist and don’t have any room to bring the family. But they are really well designed to head out and have a lot of fun on your own or with a friend.

And like many of the roadsters cruising the mountain roads and valleys, Sonex is no stranger to boosting the power. The company recently unveiled a turbocharged version of its Aerovee engine.

AeroVee with Turbocharger

Still in development, the new turbocharged engine should be welcome news for pilots flying at high altitude or who find themselves needing power during take off on a hot day.

The stock Aerovee engine produces 80 horsepower. No word yet on how much additional power the system will provide.

Photos: Sonex, Jason Paur/Wired.com

Motor madman Travis Pastrana has made the fastest ascent yet of the Mt. Washington Auto Road, reaching the summit of New England’s tallest peak in a blistering 6 minutes and 20.47 seconds.

The four-time Rally America national champion averaged nearly 72 mph on the 7.2-mile road at the wheel of his Subaru WRX STi rally car. Pastrana shaved more than 20 seconds off the record set by Frank Sprongl in 1998. He had the course to himself, the lucky SOB, because Mt. Washington Auto Road officials were testing road conditions ahead of next spring’s return of the Mt. Washington Hillclimb Auto Race, aka the Climb to the Clouds.

“This is an amazing road. It’s just so much fun,” Pastrana said. “It’s extremely challenging, there is no room for error and the scenery is epic. The Mount Washington Auto Road has some amazing history to it.”

Indeed.

Mt. Washington Auto Road is, like the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, among the toughest challenges in motorsports. Drivers negotiate a tarmac and gravel road lined with trees and rocks as they climb 4,618 feet to the summit at 6,288 feet. We’ve driven this road, and the average grade is 11.6 percent with some steep drops along some stretches that include about a mile of dirt.

The road was finished in 1861. It hosted the inaugural Climb to the Clouds race in 1904 — seven years before the first Indianapolis 500 and 12 years before the first Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Harry Harkness won the inaugural running in a Mercedes with a time of 24 minutes and 37 seconds.

The race ran sporadically through 1961, then came back in the 1990s. The last race was run in 2001 and cut short due to extreme weather. It isn’t unusual for things to get ugly quickly on Mount Washington, and the summit is routinely battered by the wind. In fact, the highest wind speed ever recorded in the United States — 231 mph — was recorded at the summit in 1934.

Things weren’t nearly so crazy when Pastrana and navigator Marshall Clarke made their runs on Wednesday. But the visibility quickly dwindled to almost nothing at the summit after his first run, so the three subsequent sprints to the peak were slower than the first.

“Travis’ run was incredibly thrilling on a number of fronts,” Howie Wemyss, general manager of the Mt. Washington Auto Road, said in a statement. “It’s amazing that he was able to drive that car to the summit in 6:20, and all the more so when you realize that he and his co-driver had just seen the Auto Road for the first time the day before and the top quarter mile was in thick fog.

The Climb to the Clouds makes it return June 22-26 as part of the 150th anniversary celebration of the Mt. Washington Auto Road.

Photos: Brian Nevins / Red Bull

See Also:

• Video: Climb Pikes Peak With The Monster
• Video: Red Bull Races to the Clouds
• Audi’s Robotic Car Drives Better Than You Do
• Video: Racing Flat-Out to the Clouds

Footage of Frank Sprongl’s run in 1998 in an Audi S2. Video: y2kquick2 / YouTube

Pastrana, on his way to a record-setting time of 6 minutes and 20.47 seconds.

Cars tend to handle better with all four tires on the ground.

Not every run went so well as the first.

Hyundai says its first electric vehicle will roll into showrooms in 2012.

The Korean automaker unveiled the BlueOn today in Seoul, where company execs went for a spin in the little EV with President Lee Myung-Bak and various government ministers. The company promised to deliver a test fleet of 30 BlueOns to the government by the end of next month.

The move comes as the rest of the industry scrambles to bring us cars with cords, and Hyundai risks being left behind as Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota and even Honda develop electric vehicles. Hyundai boasted that the BlueOn is the first “full-speed electric vehicle” developed in Korea.

“Consumers’ interests and demand for eco-friendly cars are rising, and securing such advanced technology is critical in becoming an industry leader,” Dr. Hyun-Soon Lee, vice chairman of Hyundai’s corporate R&D, said in a statement. “Hyundai is dedicated to reducing its carbon footprint and satisfying market needs.”

Hyundai rolled out an electric version of its i10 hatchback last year at the Frankfurt auto show. The company says it has spent 40 billion won (about $34.2 million) during the past year developing the vehicle.

It’s a compact, just 12 feet long, with a 16.4-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion polymer battery. Hyundai says BlueOn will have a range of 140 kilometers (about 87 miles) and a recharge time of 6 hours at 220 volts. It’ll charge in as little as 25 minutes if you can find a high-voltage quick-charger.

The car is propelled by a 61-kilowatt (82-horsepower) motor with 154 pound feet of torque. Top speed is 130 km/hr (about 80 mph), and the little car will do zero to 100 km/hr (62 mph) in 13.1 seconds, the company says. BlueOn’s specs put it somewhere between the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the Nissan Leaf in terms of claimed range and performance.

Hyundai will roll out a test fleet in October to develop and test a public charging infrastructure. It also will show the car off at events like the upcoming G20 summit. The company says it will build 2,500 BlueOn electric cars in 2012 but has not decided where to sell the car.

“We are taking a baby step. There is no infrastructure such as charging stations in Korea and many other countries,” a company spokesperson told Reuters.

The government of South Korea wants 20 percent of the nation’s vehicles to be electric by 2020.

If you’re wondering about the name, it comes from Hyundai’s “Blue Drive” strategy, the name its given to its eco-friendlier vehicles, and “switch on.” At least it’s better than “i-MiEV.”

Top photo: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak test drives Hyundai’s electric vehicle, BlueOn, in the compound of the presidential house in Seoul, South Korea./AP

Photos below: Hyundai

See Also:

• First Look: Hyundai’s Equus Land Yacht Should Have Luxury Automakers Quaking
• Mitsubishi’s Little EV Gets Bigger and Fancier
• Nissan Leaf Electric Vehicle Is Surprisingly Affordable
• Toyota, Tesla Resurrect the Electric RAV4
• Honda Discovers Cars With Cords
• And the North American Car of the Year Is … Korean
• For Hyundai, Blue Is the New Green

General Motors is preparing to go public, but Uncle Sam probably won’t make any money in the initial offering and it could be years before taxpayers are made whole on the $50 billion bailout that kept the automaker afloat.

Subsequent sales of the Treasury Department’s holdings in the automaker could be profitable depending upon how investors trade the stock, Reuters reports, citing six sources familiar with GM’s impending IPO. But it could take the government as long as three years to fully divest.

GM filed the initial paperwork for the IPO last month. Preparations for the offering are confidential, and neither the automaker or the treasury are commenting. There’s been no word on when the initial public offering, which could be worth as much as $20 billion, might come, but Reuters says GM plans to launch the roadshow following the Nov. 2 midterm elections.

The IPO could follow on on Nov. 18, Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources.

Reuters says analysts and potential investors have projected GM’s market value at $50 billion to $90 billion, based on projections for its cash flow, comparisons with Ford Motor Co and trading in bonds in the old GM, which are convertible into shares in the new company.

A figure at the high end of that range would be above the $70 billion or so in market cap GM must achieve for the feds to break even on the  $43 billion remaining investment. But IPOs typically price at a discount of 10 percent to 15 percent to theoretical fair value to reward investors for taking a risk on a new issue and pave the way for future stock floats. In a tough market like this, the discount could be even deeper, Reuters reports.

“You have to sell people on the notion that there is an upside to what they are buying,” one source told Reuters. Another source said the discount could be as much as 20 percent compared with Treasury’s break-even point. But preparations remain in the earliest stages, and several sources told Reuters the size and value of the deal will not be known for weeks.

The U.S. government pumped $49.5 billion into General Motors and took nearly 61 percent of its common stock. GM has paid back $6.7 billion and returned another $700 million in interest and dividends. The feds also hold $2.1 billion in perpetual preferred shares. That leaves the government with an investment of roughly $40 billion in GM common stock that will debut in an IPO along with a new class of preferred shares that will convert into common shares under a mandatory provision.

In the days before GM’s S-1 filing in August, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) asked a special Treasury Department watchdog for an analysis of the GM IPO and how much money would be returned to taxpayers.

Photo: General Motors. Cadillacs on the line at the General Assembly-Lansing Grand River Plant.

Architect Daniel Andersson has created a houseboat inspired by icebergs, one that sits predominantly below the waves with only its rooftop deck exposed to the sun.

From the terrace, a staircase spirals down to a 60-square-meter living space that contains a living room, head, galley, dining room and bedroom. A central atrium provides natural light, and windows below the waterline provide a view of the scenery. There’s even a sauna next to the bathroom, which opens out onto the staircase so that you can run straight out and into the water.

Externally, the whole structure is shaped like a hull. Secondary pontoons stabilize the structure, but it’s not really cut out for stormy waters and would be best moored in calm waters and anchored to the seabed.

The design was commissioned by the Ålands Hotell & Restaurangskola resort in the Åland Islands in the Baltic Sea. The client wanted concept accommodation to attract more tourists to the islands in the summer months. In winter, however, the sea around the islands tends to freeze, so the structures will need to be removed and refloated when the ice thaws in the spring.

This story was written by Duncan Geere of Wired UK.

Image: Daniel Andersson

See Also:

• Dornier Builds Composite Version of Timeless Flying Boat
• Sailing Around the World On Solar Power
• A Solar Sail From Sweden to Spain
• Spectacular Dream Yachts to Set Sail
• Soviet-era Passenger Ferry is One Boat-Ugly Luxury Yacht

We’ve driven Mitsubishi’s cute i-MiEV a few times, and although the little EV is a perfectly fine urban runabout, it’s a bit small and slow for American tastes. Never fear — Mitsubishi will give us a bigger, more powerful model when the car goes on sale in the United States next year.

The North American model will be wider to meet U.S. crash regulations and suit American tastes. We’d heard this before from the folks at Mitsubishi, but Gregory Adams, head of product planning and marketing, tells Automotive News the i-MiEV also will have a spiffier interior and “upgraded content,” meaning more stuff. The Japanese domestic market cars we’ve driven have been comfortable but bare-bones, with only A/C, power windows and locks and a basic AM/FM/CD system. No navi, no Bluetooth, no satellite radio. Plan on that changing.

Not that you’d really need all that. Mark Vaughn of AutoWeek has been living with a Japanese market i-MiEV since July and pretty much loves it — and Vaughn is a guy who can drive almost anything he wants.

We keep hearing the Mitsubishi i-MiEV headed to the United States will have an improved drivetrain as well. The Japanese cars have a 47 kilowatt (64 horsepower) electric motor. Although it’s fine around town, you’re pushing it hard at freeway speeds. Power comes from a 16 kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery with a range of about 70 miles. It recharges in seven hours at 220 volts and as little as 30 minutes if you find a Level 3 “quick charger.” Look for a range closer to 100 miles when the i-MiEV arrives in the United States at the end of 2011.

Latest word on the price is it’ll come in under $30,000 before the $7,500 federal EV tax credit.

In related news, Peugeot has started selling the iOn, which is an i-MiEV wearing a Peugeot badge. Automotive News, citing the Japanese business daily Nikkei, says Peugeot and Mitsubishi will build the cars in Spain, but Mitsu denied the report.

Now if Mitsubishi would just do something about the name, which is pronounced “eye-meev.” That means “stinky egg” in German and it is unfortunate considering the car is shaped like an egg.

Photo: Jim Merithew / Wired.com

The newest electric aircraft to take flight is a tiny airplane from a big airplane company. The Cri-Cri, developed by Airbus’ parent company, EADS, made its first flight Thursday at Le Bourget airport near Paris.

The Cri-Cri is based on an existing design that uses two small gasoline engines. EADS swapped the gasoline engines with four small electric motors and a lithium-ion battery pack. The plane, which was unveiled in June, was airborne only seven minutes, but pilot Didier Esteyne is looking forward to more adventurous flights.

“We are still at the beginning and have a lot to learn,” he said in a statement after the flight. “We are allowed to start aerobatic manoeuvres only after five hours of flight and 15 landings.”

The Cri-Cri is being used as a systems test bed to support future electric and hybrid power systems. The company expects the plane will be capable of flying for 30 minutes at nearly 70 mph or for 15 minutes during aggressive aerobatic flying at speeds topping 150 mph.

Photos: EADS

Joe Sylvester wants to set the record for longest jump made by a monster truck. Doing so will require beating the 202-foot jump Dan Runte made at the wheel of Bigfoot in 1999.

Clearly he has more work to do, as a practice attempt on Tuesday in his truck Bad Habit did not go well. Sylvester was not hurt, and he plans to make a run for the record at Sunday at the Cornfield 500.

Video: arorick1977 / YouTube