At a press conference this morning here at the LA Auto Show the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid was named as the Green Car Journal’s 2008 Green Car of the Year. The 2008 Tahoe is the first vehicle from General Motors that uses the new (and expensive) two-mode transmission hybrid system.

The Tahoe receiving this award may come as a surprise to many since most would not picture a full-size SUV when someone talks about hybrid vehicles or fuel-savings. But in reality, many people still buy large sport utility vehicles in order to pull boats and campers, haul around a large family or take trips and a vehicle like this gives them the opportunity to make a smaller environmental impact with their SUV.

Last night we heard rumors that there were going to be more than the announced 100 Chevy Equinox Fuel Cells available for drivers as part of Project Driveway. We didn’t get an exact number but were told there would be more than 110 vehicles for sure, and yesterday Bob Lutz announced that Disney would be getting 10 of those vehicles in a partnership with Chevy to test out the new fuel cell vehicles.

Disney will be getting 10 of the zero-emission hydrogen-powered vehicles and will use them internally to shuttle employees and talent around the Disneyland campus in California. Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like the will be transporting visitors so visiting Disneyland won’t get you a ride in one.

Yesterday at the LA Auto Show Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman, announced November of 2010 as the target date for the production release of the Chevy Volt Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV). This is the most specific time frame heard from GM yet on the concept vehicle originally announced at the Detroit Auto Show in January, and Lutz himself admits that the time frame is aggressive.

To us this seems very aggressive since just the day before we actually drove a Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell which is already going in the hands of real drivers in Project Driveway starting in January, and according to Fuel Cell Commercialization Manager Britta Gross the Equinox Fuel Cell won’t be ready for production before 2010, either. This announcement will however keep Toyota on their toes, as they are also trying to get a battery-powered vehicle off the ground in the near future.

Alpine Electronics has always had a knack for developing interesting electronics for the automobile. Its newest in-car iPod controller, the eX-10, is certainly no exception. It’s priced at around $200.

The Alpine eX-10 is designed to work with a car’s factory installed audio system to deliver iPod music and Bluetooth interaction. It consists of a dash-top unit and remote control. Alpine says the eX-10 is its first iPod plug and play product, connecting to any dock-enabled iPod via a cable. With this one can listen to iPod music via FM transmission or line out. The dash-top unit’s display and remote let one view and control a variety of iPod functions.

Want to get a chance to drive the hydrogen-powered Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell for free, all expenses paid for three months? Well, if you’re really passionate about alternative automotive fuel sources, creating less of an environmental impact with your car and you live or work in metropolitan New York City, Washington, D.C. or southern California you could be chosen for Project Driveway. This project is the first of its kind to put real drivers in real-world situations in a large-scale market test of fuel cell electric vehicles.

Within minutes of arriving at our hotel in LA we were whisked over to the convection center where we were able to get a hands-on look at the Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell and even got to drive it on actual LA streets, not some weak obstacle course in a parking lot. Driving the car felt an awful lot like driving any other car, and I think that was GM’s goal. It didn’t smell funny, there was no crazy steering wheel or driver controls and it didn’t fly. However it did make a unique air-blowing noise from the back when it first started, but no sounds reminiscent of the Jetsons.

Later this week SlipperyBrick will be blogging live from the 2007 LA Auto Show Press Days bringing you up to the minute coverage and photos of the latest model debuts, hybrids, some cool concepts, electric vehicle technology and more. At this year’s show we’ve been invited as a guest of GM’s and are expecting to see as many as 10 models making their world-wide debut and in total over 20 new models making their first appearance North America. Some of the more notable debuts include the 2009 Pontiac Vibe, 2008 Mustang Bullitt, and the Honda FCX to name a few. The coverage starts Wednesday morning and continues through Thursday.

We will also have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with a couple folks from GM, namely Bob Boniface, Director of Design for EFlex and Denise Gray, Director of Hybrid Energy Storage Systems (batteries). Feel free to drop us a comment with any questions you have for these two and I’ll do my best to fit them in as both of these individuals are key players in bringing on the electric car revolution.

The Dodge Tomahawk I bike literally looks like some sort of Sci-Fi rocket on wheels. It’s powered by a Dodge Viper V10 engine which produces 500bhp and 525 lb-ft torque. It also claims to be the world’s fasted motorcycle and can accelerate from 0-60mph in just 2.5-seconds, achieving 300mph top speed.

At that speed, colliding with bugs will likely put a hole in your face. The tires apparently had to be custom made by Dunlop. There are two Dunlop P120/60R-20 tires in the front and two P150/50R-20 in back. You can see a video of it after the jump.

The computers in cars that most people talk about have to do with the drivetrain or GPS etc. Those can’t browse the web or allow you to edit documents the way a desktop PC can. Jensen thinks it has the answer with it’s NVX3000PC, which is on show at SEMA 2007.

The device is portable of course and features a 7″ touch screen and Windows Vista operating system. Inside, it has a 30GB Hard Drive, integrated Wi-Fi modem, and a 1GHz Via processor. You can even connect it to Desktop or Notebooks with a sync port cable, which is nice. As you might expect, it comes with a built-in GPS system of it’s own. You can even play audio for navigation and music files either through it’s own speaker or streamed to the car’s speakers, because it has an integrated FM transmitter.

Cheetah Advanced Technologies, a UK developer of speed trap detection equipment, is introducing to American markets a rather interesting speed camera & red-light camera detector which looks like a rear view mirror. The Cheetah GPSmirror is priced at around $300.

The GPSmirror has a preloaded database of red-light and speed cameras in its memory. It warns drivers through voice, tone and visual warnings when they are approaching such a camera. The database can be updated via downloads. This mirror is also designed to give you advisory speed limit announcements and overspeed alerts.

The Nissan NV200 concept vehicle gets you from your home to the office in under 10 seconds flat. That’s because your entire office IS the van. Instead of driving to work, you will instead, drive your work everywhere. It’s obviously designed for those people that work literally, all over the map. The entire back end of the van slides out, which gives you a nice roomy office inside, while exposing the exterior storage areas that are fully customizable.

For the 2007 Tokyo Motor show, they decked it out as if it belonged to an ocean photographer, complete with the storage area full of various tools of that trade. They even put in an editing station and a remote control panel for a spider camera. I think I’ve found my new office. Next time you read me, I’ll be on the road…

Some things are meant to be. Peanut Butter and Jelly, Ben and Jerry, Brad and Angelina. And now apparently, biking while surfing the web. I’m talking about the Bobby prototype electric bike from Yamaha motors. Pedestrians will never know what hit them, while you read your favorite blog. Aside from distracting you with the wonders of the web, the bike can be easily turned on and off using specific cell phones.

Some other features you can use when you are no longer impressed with having the web on 2 wheels are: a collapsible seat, fold-in rear wheel, handlebars and footrests making the bike a breeze to store.

How’s this for one sweet looking navigation and DVD in-car entertainment system? The Clarion MAX973HD certainly is a radical design step from your typical in-car systems, though we at this point have no scheduled release or pricing info.

The Clarion MAX973HD sports a seven-inch touch panel control. All data is stored on a 30GB hard drive. This device lets you enjoy entertainment via a variety of methods, be it compatibility with DVD±R/DVD±RW/CD-R/CD-RW discs, a TV tuner, a SD card slot or your iPod. There’s also Bluetooth support and a microphone so you can talk handsfree while driving or issue voice commands to the system.

Blaupunkt is introducing some new high end car radios with USB-based storage. The one catching our eye the most is the Blaupunkt Hamburg MP57, priced at around $320.

The Blaupunkt Hamburg MP57 has a rear-panel USB input with included cable which is designed to interface with external hard drives or other devices carrying music. Music can be gotten at via the radio’s flip-up panel and digital images can be displayed on the MP57’s screen. There’s also 3.5mm front panel inputs to use with portable audio devices.

You have an iPod. You drive a vehicle which uses Ford’s new Sync media system. You want to connect the two. You probably in that case want the new Keyspan Sync Cable for iPod, priced at around $50.

The Keyspan Sync Cable for iPod works in conjunction with the Sync system found currently in 12 models of 2008 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models. The cable acts as a bridge between your iPod and Sync so that your player’s content can be displayed on the in-car entertainment screen. You can control the iPod through the Sync system while it charges at the same time.

JVC today unveiled what it is calling the industry’s first plug-and-play HD Radio receiver. The JVC KT-HDP1, priced at around $130, should be available now.

The JVC KT-HDP1 makes use of three kits for installation in home and car locations. HD Radio data is displayed on the device’s full dot matrix LCD display. Other features, according to JVC, include white backlight and blue key illumination, 5-way navigation keys, 18 FM and 6 AM preset channels, HD Radio station scan and seek and 3.5 mini plug audio out.