Those of you who like the Google Street View program should celebrate; those who have privacy concerns should stock up on window blinds and baseball caps.  A report indicates that Google’s got at least 30 new Chevy Cobalts, and they appear ready to serve as Street View camera cars.

Want to improve your car’s efficiency?  Maybe you should hand the keys over to Google; in conjunction with Hymotion/A123Systems, the search engine giant has developed “a small fleet of plug-in hybrids,” and the vehicles have demonstrated a striking ability to slurp less gas.

If you don’t have a fast Internet connection, stop reading.  This doesn’t apply to you.  Everyone else, rejoice – driverTV.com, “the only automotive destination designed from the ground up for broadband subscribers” is here; as you might imagine, it’s rather good-looking.

One trend my firm follows is what we call consumer dissonance.

Social networking is a bandwagon; the number of companies that haven’t taken a shot at it is decreasing on what seems like a daily basis. But in its newest incarnation, social networking may have become a reliable and fuel-saving bandwagon: Toyota has gotten on board with a redesigned site for the owners of hybrid vehicles.

The popularity of hybrid vehicle models like the Prius has soared along with gasoline prices in North America.

Japanese automaker announced plans to double their hybrid automobile production in 2006 according a new Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. This plan will take their production levels to 500,000 cars a year.

General Motors also places well in the most recent J.D. Power and Associates survey of 2002 model year car owners.