The latest company to suffer a security breach is Honda, which recently admitted over a quarter of a million customers in Canada had their personal information stolen by hackers.

In total 283,000 Honda and Acura customers in Canada had their names, addresses and vehicle VIN numbers harvested from the e-commerce MyHonda and MyAcura sites. Honda has notified affected customers but insists no financial information was taken, nor did the data contain information regarding birth dates, telephone numbers and email addresses.

Still Honda Canada is warning against “phishing” tactics, with the data possibly being used to target owners, acknowledging that they are Honda or Acura drivers.

Last year Honda’s U.S. operations suffered a similar security breach with two million of its customers affected.

[Source: Wheels.ca]

GE is introducing a solar powered carport designed for charging electric cars that uses solar panels that produces enough energy every year to power 20 homes with electricity.

Rather than a home unit, the carport is intended for public usage, with six charging stations allowing for a total of 13 EVs to be charged each day. Since the carport is connected to the grid, the unit can both draw and feed power, depending on the amount of electricity required.

The first carport will be installed in Connecticut, but expect to see this kind of technology elsewhere in the future.

[Source: CNet]

An Ogilvy Cape Town South African Volkswagen Golf R advertisement is encouraging the reader to ingest the advertisement(see picture above). The ”Eat the road. Seriously, eat it” ad is made of “glutinous rice flour, water, salt, propylene glycol, FD&C colour and glycerin.”

The idea behind this ad is giving people a test drive in their mouth. This takes perfume testers found in magazines to another level. Hopefully it is obvious that you should simply read this ad instead of eating it for lunch, however it will be interesting to see how many people are hungry while reading this ad and decide to look over their shoulders to make sure the coast is clear.

[Source: Edmunds Inside Line]

Pioneer Electronics has decided to join the app party by bringing them to the dash of your car. The company is about to release a simple in-dash platform that allows you to plug in an iPhone and transfer apps to it.

Available next month for under $500, the apps available for the Pioneer AppRadio include Pandora and Rdio (music), Google Maps and MotionX-GPS (navigation) and INRIX (traffic information). Pioneer is working on a potential list of apps that will work with it, but for the time being, only apps designed for Apple’s iOS 4 and the devices that run it will be able to be loaded onto the Pioneer AppRadio.

Keeping its design simple, the Pioneer AppRadio features a home button and a volume up/down toggle switch, as well as 6.1-inch high-res WVGA capacitance touch screen that controls the rest of the functions. It also comes with a built-in AM/FM tuner, Bluetooth for hands-free calling and a 30-pin connector cable for an iPhone or iPod, a GPS antenna and an external Bluetooth microphone.

If you’re worried about the lack of apps, Pioneer reassures us that by the time it launches in June, it’ll come with more apps. And when new apps become available, owners of the AppRadio will be alerted. It’s even possible that it will be able to support other mobile-device platforms like Android and BlackBerry somewhere down the road.

Would you be interested in getting the Pioneer AppRadio installed in your car? Let us know in the comments section below.

[Source: Edmunds Inside Line]

A trusted Infiniti insider has confirmed the automaker has no plans to introduce the M25 into the U.S market. The M25 was to use the 2.5-liter VQ25VHR engine aimed to compete with the BMW 528i. The M25 has worked well in Japan (where cars are taxed based on displacement) and would have been a cheaper option to the G37 or M37.

The 2.5L V6, which produces 218-hp and 217 lb-ft of torque would have been a cheaper, more fuel efficient entry-level car for the M lineup. The M25 would have cost $4,000 less than a base M37 ($47,050) and $2,000 less than a BMW 528i. Even if this Infiniti wasn’t fast, the lower prices surely would have attracted consumers hoping to get into the Infiniti brand.

[Source: Edmunds Inside Line]

Bad news for Mazda rotary engine enthusiasts – the company has no plans to build the RX-9 hybrid sports car, contrary to recent rumors. Even worse, minimal sales of the RX8 may jeopardize the Mazda rotary engine all together.

Production of the Mazda RX-8 is drawing to a close, with U.S sales of just 291 units from January to April of this year. With production halting on the RX-8, there won’t be a Mazda vehicle to utilize the Wankel 1.3-liter engine. However there is discussion of reviving the RX-7 as a replacement. There is no official go ahead with the RX-7, however it would most likely utilize the next-generation MX-5 platform.

The death of the RX-8 is sad, most notably for its stellar chassis and steering, however issues like horrible fuel consumption, burning oil and a lack of torque were always sore points.

[Source: Car and Driver]

There are a lot of great feelings that come along with buying a new car, but there are a few things that we wish weren’t attached to the experience. Can you guess what they are? We’ll give you a hint about the top two that head the top of the list – they have to do with your wallet and where you’re going to have to buy it.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, the two greatest complaints made by new car customers are the cost of the vehicle (30 percent) and the dealership experience (22 percent). In the survey, 1,764 adults were interviewed about car purchases. Also in the things people dislike about buying a new car is financing (six percent), trading in or selling old car (five percent), not knowing if you got a good price (five percent) and making the final choice (four percent).

The survey also covers used car sales as well. Topping the list were concerns about reliability (24 percent), with dealership experience coming in second (11 percent), even though many of these sales are done privately. Rounding out the top five are the cost of the car (eight percent), not knowing if you got a good price (seven percent) and researching (four percent).

[Source: Consumer Reports]

That’s money that could go towards, well, Junior’s second car, or a year’s worth of college tuition, or  a lot of gummi worms. The math breaks down like so: young drivers between the ages of 17 to 22 are charged as much as £546 per month while they have their bright red Learners tags. This converts to $891.72 per month, and multiplied over the course of a year brings the figure to $10,700.64 per year, enough to make Pops seriously angry if Junior’s out joyriding the Jaguar.

Why so pricey? While it’s no surprise that young drivers are more prone to get into accidents, insurance providers assign exorbitant premiums to beginners, leaving many drivers to go about without coverage or have their vehicle insured by their parents. Around 41% of British families do the latter; unfortunately, it’s illegal and insurance companies can forfeit an entire family’s policy if they do find out.

To bring prices down, some insurance companies are considering a plan to install automotive “black boxes” into the cars of beginning drivers, in order to measure sudden acceleration, braking, cornering, and other ne’er-do-well driving shenanigans. This would allow them to customize an insurance policy to a wide range of drivers. Some companies in America are considering the same plan.

[Source: Autoblog, Six Figure Mentors]

Jaguar Land Rover has announced that it will be spending some £400 million (approximately $640 million) on developing a new engine plant in India.

The facility, which will be located in Pune, close to existing Tata operations, will produce modular four-cylinder engines and is said to be a virtual ‘carbon copy’ of the company’s new engine plant being set up in the West Midlands, UK.

Both facilities have been conceived so that Jaguar Land Rover can replace, as quickly as possible the four-cylinder gasoline and turbo diesel engines it currently sources from Ford Motor Company, which have proven to be relatively expensive.

Jaguar says that work on the new Indian plant won’t begin until the West Midlands operation is fully up and running, but said that once operations are in full swing; both plants together will have capacity to produce as many as 500,000 engines per year, which will help satisfy growing demand; particularly in China where Jaguar Land Rover already has a local assembly operation.

As for Jaguar’s other engines, namely it’s V-6 and V-8 gas and diesel units, these will continue to be sourced from Ford at Dagenham, Essex, UK, at least for the time being.

[Source: Autocar]