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Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

2014 Chevy Corvette Stingray order guide hits the web

The official debut of the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray is only part of the excitement for fans of Chevy's virtuoso sportscar. Although we got to see the car and some of its preliminary specs in Detroit and Geneva, there is still no word on pricing and some of the juicier data points we've been waiting for - such as confirmed power output, EPA estimated mileage figures and performance numbers. Until then, CorvetteBlogger has gotten its hands on the order guide for the coupe version of the car - in both base and Z51 iterations - revealing tidbits like standard and optional features and available color combinations.
Some other new details made it onto the order guide, such as our first interior specs for the coupe including slightly less hip room and headroom, more shoulder room and the same amount of legroom. To see the full order guide, head on over to CorvetteBlogger. From what we can gather, it sounds like more information will be revealed on April 25 during a party at the Corvette Museum, and for those sun worshipers patiently waiting for a convertible, it would appear you've got another model year to wait through.

Recharge Wrap-up: Indianapolis to switch 425 fleet vehicles to EVs, Chevy Corvette provides bat habitats

Indianapolis will deploy 425 battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles as part of its municipal fleet by 2016. The fleet will include such cars as the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and Ford Fusion Energi. The city will also reduce its overall fleet by 100 vehicles. In all, the revised group - called the "Freedom Fleet" - will save $8.7 million and 2.2 million gallons of gasoline over 10 years. Read more at Hybrid Cars. EVs with longer range would make vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid energy management systems more practical for the US. The idea of using EVs as energy storage for emergencies or times of high grid demand is currently being tested in Japan with Nissan's Leaf-to-Home system. The US is also interested in such capabilities, but the higher average energy use of American households would make larger batteries in EVs ideal for grid storage applications. Read more at Green Car Reports. LG Chem has broken ground on its EV battery plant in Nanjing, China. The factory, when constructed, will have a capacity of producing batteries for 100,000 cars per year according to the Korean company. The plant will supply batteries for Chinese automakers such as SAIC and Qoros. Construction is expected to be finished by the end of 2015 and LG Chem expects revenue of more than $933 million by 2020. Read more in the press release below. General Motors is using adhesive used in the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray to create habitat for threatened bat species. Artificial bat caves could help alleviate white-nose fungus that leads to diminished bat populations. Leftover adhesive is used to create stalactites in the artificial caves, allowing them more structure to hang from. GM has also provided Volt battery covers to create nesting habitats for bats, which eat harmful insects and help pollinate plants. See the videos and read more in the press release below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. LG Chem officially breaks ground for China EV battery plant Seoul, Korea - Oct 30, 2014 – LG Chem, Korea's leading manufacturer of advanced batteries, held a ground breaking ceremony for the construction of electric-car battery plant in Nanjing, China, to meet growing demand in the world's biggest car market.