Automobile | featured news

The Obama administration is set to announce new regulations that would force the average gas mileage of new cars and trucks to nearly double in the next 13 years.

As a safety demonstration, it was a heart-stopper: A Ford Taurus was seconds away from cruising through an intersection when suddenly a row of red lights pulsed on the lower windshield and a warning blared that another car was approaching fast on the cross street.

It can talk, see, drive and no longer needs a human being to control it by remote. The car of the future — completely computer-controlled — is on the streets of Berlin. All summer, researchers from the city's Free University have been testing the automobile around the German capital.