Beautiful Loaded 2011 Dodge Ram 2500 Mega Cab Diesel Laramie! Navigation, Loaded on 2040-cars

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Recharge Wrap-up: Child Tesla driver hits baby in Chinese mall, Ram adds new CNG offering

A five-year-old child in a China shopping mall started a Tesla Model S at a display and hit a baby in a stroller. The baby fell out of the stroller and was unhurt, according to the report. A reporter from a local newspaper arrived at the scene to find the other Model S on display still powered on, this one with another child in the driver's seat. The cars had wooden blocks under the brake pedals and stickers warning the public not to touch the touchscreen. Police have opened an investigation into the incident. Read more and see all the photos at Car News China. Ram will add a new compressed natural gas pickup truck to its lineup. The new offering, which is smaller and less expensive than the current CNG pickup (pictured), will be available as a regular cab two-door with two-wheel drive and a long bed. Ram has sold 1,000 of the current 2500 CNG four-door 4x4 offering since going on sale in 2012. Ram believes the new offering will expand sales to fleet operators looking for a less-expensive truck. Read more at Automotive News. New methods of harvesting energy are being explored for automobiles. By now we're all familiar with regenerative braking, but thermoelectric harvesting from the motor, range extender or possibly even the exhaust could come to cars soon. Energy harvesting shock absorbers and exhaust turbines are also viable. Wind turbines could generate electricity while the car is parked, and piezoelectric energy harvesting could run minor electrical systems while the car is in motion. Enough energy harvesting could allow cars to use much smaller engines, and could extend the range of electric vehicles. Read more at Energy Harvesting Journal.

Ram Laramie Longhorn's interior is a crass cacophony of cowboy cues

When we think of quality luxurious interiors, some of the first brands that come to mind are Audi and Volvo. They have elegant, simple interiors constructed from high-quality materials that are beautiful to see and to touch, and that's what makes them feel special and genuinely premium. The 2017 Ram 2500 Laramie Longhorn in our short-term fleet didn't get that message. What the Laramie Longhorn does is yell at you. It yells at you at that it's LUXURIOUS, and it's WESTERN. Open the door, and you're confronted with loads of saddle tan leather with contrasting black leather on the doors, armrest, and seat piping. This is reasonably modest, but if you pick a different color scheme than our Ram, that leather will have tooled filigree patterns, raising the volume of the interior's message. Right on the center console and on the seat backs there are huge brown embossed logos stitched into them proclaiming the trim level of the truck. It's all meant to evoke high-quality leather goods like saddles. But it's the same thin leather you've found in almost every other automobile on the market. The cushy cowboy theme continues on the dash. The satin-finish wood trim would normally be a nice touch, but it's overshadowed by the glitzy and chintzy rose-gold colored fake metal accents all over the dashboard, and even the instrument cluster. Perhaps it's meant to be more warm and down-to-earth than the cold aluminum-look panels usually in cars, but it's an odd color, and it looks more fake than faux-aluminum. It gets even worse when you discover that Ram stuck leather tooling design stickers all over that rose-gold plastic trim. And then you see them on the chrome plastic rings surrounding the gauges. Not only that, but those rings have some sort of stud shape molded into them. Is this Western enough yet? No! Of course not! Hop in the back seat, and you'll discover that the map pockets aren't just simple slots. They have a full flap with metal belt buckles like saddlebags (though the flap actually closes with magnets). And naturally, those buckles have fancy filigree designs in them. Then take a look at the floor, and the rubber floor mats have barbed-wire fence designs molded into them. Get it? Because there are barbed-wire fences on ranches out West where cowboys work! Yet, for all our complaining about cheap materials and a complete lack of subtlety, we're sure this sort of thing appeals to many truck buyers.

Chrysler recalling hundreds of thousands of Jeep Grand Cherokee and Commander SUVs

The public might associated ignition switch recalls with General Motors - and with good cause - but that's not the only automaker calling its vehicles back in to fix that sort of issue.
Last month we reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was investigating an array of Chrysler Group vehicles for electrical-related safety issues. The administration and Chrysler subsequently issued a recall for 700,000 Dodge Journey crossovers, Dodge Grand Caravan minivans and Chrysler Town & Country minivans. But while the Jeeps that were also under investigation were not covered in that recall, they are being addressed in a separate one now.
Although Chrysler reports that it is only aware of a single accident stemming from this issue, it is "committing now to conduct a recall out of an abundance of caution." The recall affects the 2006-2007 Jeep Commander and 2005-2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee, of which it reports there are 792,300 on the road: 649,900 in the United States, 28,800 in Canada, 12,800 in Mexico and a further 100,800 outside of North America.