Matt Hardigree, the author of this post, at jalopnik.com -- James Sikes, the San Diego runaway Toyota Prius driver, filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and now has over $700,000 in debt. According to one anonymous tipster, we're also told he hasn't been making payments on his Prius. UPDATE!

We received an email earlier today from an anonymous tipster who claims James (Jim) Sikes, the driver of the runaway Toyota Prius, was in financial trouble and even behind by five months on his payments for the Prius. If that's true, it's potential motivation for wanting to find an out — any out — on paying for the vehicle.

We did some public records searches (thanks to the help of Gawker's John Cook) and found Sikes and his wife Patty found themselves, like many in the California real estate business, on the bursting side of the real estate bubble last year. The  (read more)

Detroit News -- I've gotten tired of writing about the next good Hyundai.

And according to the late night profanity-laced messages left on my voice mail, so have Detroit readers.

So let's just stop acting surprised every time Hyundai rolls out an impressive car or crossover. This is a quality operation and its lineup is going to continue to improve. (For those keeping score, I also say the same thing about Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.)

The next piece of evidence: the 2011 Hyundai Sonata.

In the past, Hyundai was seen as the lower-priced alternative. Many consumers never considered it because they would drone methodically, "must buy another Camry" with the same appreciation for their car as their washing machine.
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forbes.com -- RICHMOND, Va. -- Gov. Bob McDonnell signed into law Wednesday offshore drilling legislation intended to realize his goal of making Virginia the East Coast's energy superpower.

The bills supporting offshore oil and gas exploration and directing royalties from drilling back to Virginia each hinge on actions by the federal government and Congress.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to announce his decision soon whether the government will move forward with the sale of oil and gas leases in a triangular tract 50 miles off of the Virginia coast. The 2.9 million acres has an estimated 130 million barrels of oil and 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

McDonnell said the bill backing offshore exploration is intended to signal to Salazar the state's official endorsement of

 (read more)

New York Times - Green Inc. -- HOUSTON -- Renewable energy is being praised in Washington, but it is generating snickers here in the nation's traditional energy capital, where oil, gas and utility leaders are gathered for a major industry conference.

Leaders of two of the world's largest oil and gas companies used their addresses at CERAWeek, a sprawling conference sponsored by energy analysis firm IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, to warn against unbridled optimism about wind and solar energy. Khalid Al-Falih, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, deemed overreliance on renewable power dangerous, while ConocoPhillips Chairman James Mulva employed sarcasm to compare renewable boosters to those who won't acknowledge climate change.

"We must overcome the opposition of the 'hydrocarbon deniers,'"  (read more)

The Christian Science Monitor -- Q: Since nitrogen oxide compounds are components of smog and are common water pollutants, does nitrogen-enriched gasoline create additional pollution?

– Rick Oestrike, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

A: It might seem as if adding nitrogen to gasoline is all the rage among oil companies today, but the idea has been around for years. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that automotive fuels sold in the United States contain detergents to help scrub away pollution before it goes out the vehicle’s tailpipe. Some manufacturers have found that adding nitrogen to the detergent helps keep an engine cleaner by reducing the carbon buildup in the gas tank that can in turn “gunk up” the engine and lower performance.  (read more)

The Houston Chronicle -- With no technology offering the perfect solution, automakers are pursuing a multipronged strategy to reduce greenhouse gases by improving fuel efficiency and developing cars that run longer and better from an array of energy options.

But most motorists still can expect regular trips to the gas pump for quite a while, industry representatives said Wednesday at the IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates CERAWeek energy conference.

“The future has to be a very diverse portfolio of answers,” said Britta Gross, who works on energy systems and infrastructure with General Motors Co., part of a panel that discussed the future of transportation.  (read more)

The Globe And Mail -- Some of the boldest speculative oil traders at banks and hedge funds are betting on a return of gasoline's strength ahead of peak summer demand, bringing an early shift to summer from winter to the oil market.

Many traders use a popular spread play between gasoline and heating oil to try to make money from seasonal shifts in demand in the Northern Hemisphere.

But the spread is one of the most volatile and unpredictable in the oil market and is often called “the widowmaker” after the plight of those who have made the wrong bet.  (read more)

money.cnn.com -- NEW YORK -- The car company that is off to the worst start of 2010 isn't Toyota. It's Chrysler Group.

Industry experts say that even though Chrysler's overall sales are down only 3% during the first two months of the year, estimates show more than half of Chrysler's sales have been to fleet customers, such as rental car companies.

American consumers have essentially turned their backs on the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands. By some estimates, the once proud member of America's Big Three automakers fell to No. 7 in February in terms of sales to U.S. consumers.  (read more)

The Detroit News -- Toyota Motor Corp. turned over to Congress today a 3 1/2 -year-old memo written by employees in Japan raising questions about the company's safety record.

The Oct. 3, 2006, memo was requested by Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after it was first published by the Los Angeles Times.

"If senior Toyota officials ignored important safety concerns raised by their own employees, it calls into question Toyota's corporate priorities and its commitment to safety," Towns wrote Monday to Toyota's North American chief Yoshimi Inaba, giving them a noon deadline today to turn over the memo.

The Detroit News today obtained an English translation of the two-page memo.
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GasBuddy Blog -- Surprise, surprise. The DOE report today was quite bullish on many fronts, pushing oil prices and gasoline futures up almost immediately. Prices have since fallen back to hold on to small gains. In its Weekly Petroleum Status Report, the DOE outlines higher demand for oil products, lower gasoline and distillate inventories, and crude inventories gaining a respectable amount.

Crude inventories rose 1.4 million barrels while gasoline and distillate fuels fell a combined 5.1 million barrels, an amount that was larger than I had expected. The number may reflect refiners eager to move winter-spec material as temperatures begin to warm.

Also included in the report was demand data that showed motorists increasing appetite for...  (read more)

Treehugger -- Greenopia has updated their guide to the greenest oil companies--though it may seem like it, it's not entirely an oxymoron--and BP is still on top. The other positions have shifted a bit, with Sunoco and Hess taking second and third place:

Companies were judged on six criteria: Environmental reporting, greenhouse gas emissions, production efficiency, production efficiency, oil spill efficiency, pursuit of alternative fuels, and stance on climate change. Each category is judged on a scale of 1 to 10.  (read more)

The Korea Times -- The government will finalize a roadmap plan by September to outline the strategies for the Korean auto industry to achieve a ``top-four'' global status in the emerging field of environment-friendly cars.

Despite the strengthening of ``green'' car initiatives, vehicles with hybrid drives are slowly rolling out of the gate here, with drivers being put off by the high prices and lagging fuel economy.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy launched a forum on the green car strategies Tuesday, which was attended by more than 500 government officials, auto industry representatives and independent experts as they shared their ideas on expanding the market for hybrid and electric cars, and easing the transition on the manufacturing side.  (read more)

Canadian Driver -- Back when the automobile was young, many cars ran solely on electricity. At a time when you had to manually crank a gasoline engine to start it, battery-powered models offered the ease of simply pushing a button.

Cadillac’s introduction of an effective gasoline engine self-starter in 1912 changed all that. But today, concerns about fuel prices, oil reserves and the environment have automakers looking at a variety of vehicles that use electricity either alongside or instead of gasoline.  (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- With warmer weather infiltrating the U.S. and Canada, you can expect that refiners will begin to undergo maintenance to prepare for summer blended gasoline, and to ensure their equipment is ready for additional production. Facilities typically undergo maintenance during the Spring and Fall, coinciding with switches in gasoline production.

According to reports, Shell has recently restarted a Bay area gasoline producing unit after completing a two month overhaul. The restart had previously been delayed at least twice, according to the report. The latest restart is nearly two weeks after it was expected.

Delek recently reported shutting down a unit at its relatively small 60,000bpd facility in Tyler, Texas, according to a...  (read more)

The Financial Times -- The Wall Street Journal has an interview with J. Craig Venter, the biologist who mapped the human genome and whose company Synthetic Genomics last year received a sizeable commitmentfrom ExxonMobil to develop biofuels from algae.

Venter strikes an interesting balance between optimism and the reality of the many unknowns in getting algal biofuel towards being both cost-effective and scalable.

[We were interested to read the Synthetic Genomics is also working on a project with BP, although the financial details of that arrangement have not been disclosed.]  (read more)

The Detroit News -- Last year's "cash for clunkers" incentives program stoked demand for cars and trucks without pulling sales forward, according to a study by the Maritz Automotive Research Group.

"Our findings not only provide strong evidence that many more vehicles were sold as a direct result of the incentive program than were previously estimated, but they also largely debunk the myth that 'cash for clunkers' mortgaged future car and truck sales," said Dave Fish, vice president, Maritz Automotive Research Group.

"In fact, the program resulted in sales of vehicles to people who don't normally buy them."

Toledo, Ohio-based Maritz surveyed nearly 36,000 consumers who bought a new car or truck between July and August 2009, when the Car Allowance Rebate System was in effect.

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Mother Nature Network -- While there are a wide variety of alternative fuel vehicles on the market today, experts still attempt to predict how these types of vehicles will fare in future markets. Recently, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a report called The Cars of the Future, which examines how well alternative fuel vehicles will sell over the next 25 years. According to their projections, alternative fuel light-duty vehicles could hold a nearly 50 percent market share by 2035.br>
In order to understand this prediction, it is important to know what types of vehicles are considered alternative fuel. The EIA has used the following alternative fuel vehicles to make this future sales forecast: flex-fuel, mild hybrid, hybrid gasoline/diesel electric, plug-in hybrid electric, gaseous, electric, and fuel cell.  (read more)

GasBuddy Blog -- Financial gurus have long said to avoid paying for daily purchases on a credit card to avoid going in to debt and having to deal with high interest rates, but there may be one more reason on top of that one to pay with the greenback- fraud. As technology has improved over the last five years, so has the ease of stealing credit and debit card numbers from gas station transactions.

In 2006, a chain of 51 Wesco stations in the Midwest informed customers that had used credit and debit cards at gas pumps that they likely had their credit card numbers stolen. The acknowledgment came after customers reported inaccurate credit card charges, all having used the pay-at-the-pump of one of the 51 locations owned by the chain.

In an...  (read more)

The Wall Street Journal -- These days, giant oil companies find themselves trying to balance two big pressures on their business. Governments are trying to slash carbon emissions—but the world's thirst for oil is growing by leaps and bounds. Peter Voser, chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, is navigating the situation by joining a business-backed effort to push for global-warming laws, and making sure Shell has a strong exposure to natural gas and alternative fuels.

Mr. Voser sat down with The Wall Street Journal's Alan Murray and Kimberley Strassel to talk about the future of climate-change legislation, the company's push beyond oil, the prospects for electric vehicles and more.

Here are edited excerpts of their discussion.  (read more)

The LaCrosse Tribune -- ROSEMOUNT, Minn. - The thick plumes of steam rising from the Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend Refinery can be seen for miles on Hwy. 52 south of the Twin Cities on a cold winter day.

Pine Bend was built in the 1950s to handle crude oil from western Canada, then tapped through conventional drilling in central Alberta.

But beginning in the 1960s and expanding greatly in the 1990s, Canadian oil companies have mined crude in the northeastern Alberta oil sands - thick, tar-like deposits mixed with sand.

This "feedstock," or unrefined oil, is separated from the sand and sent by pipeline to refineries in the northern United States.  (read more)

South Florida Sun-Sentinel -- In former swamplands teeming with otters and wild hogs, one of the nation’s biggest utilities is running an experiment in the future of renewable power.

Across 500 acres north of West Palm Beach, the FPL Group utility is assembling a life-size Erector Set of 190,000 shimmering mirrors and thousands of steel pylons that stretch as far as the eye can see. When it is completed by the end of the year, this vast project will be the world’s second-largest solar plant.

But that is not its real novelty. The solar array is being grafted onto the back of the nation’s largest fossil-fuel power plant, fired by natural gas. It is an experiment in whether conventional power generation can be married with renewable power in a way that lowers costs and spares the environment.  (read more)