Honda's Heifer Hybrid

We knew Honda was capable of a lot, but we'd have never guessed that they'd start producing livestock. The bodacious bovine pictured above (no, the one on the left...sheesh) is a UK-market Civic Hybrid named Clover. It'll be on display at this weekend's Fruitstock festival in London, an event staged by beverage maker innocent to raise money for WellChild, a British charity.

Clover and another Civic Hybrid will be on hand to teach attendees about hybrid cars. According to Honda research, 75% of people don't know how they work, and 50% aren't familiar with them at all, hence the need to set up a hybrid educational display. After Fruitstock, innocent will take custody of Clover for one year, during which the company will use her to promote cleaner cars.

In addition to this weekend's hybrid awareness campaign, Honda UK also announced that it's introducing a program to offset carbon emissions produced by Civic Hybrid buyers who are waiting for their new cars to be delivered. To accomplish this, Honda is working through The CarbonNeutral Company and investing in wind power and forestry projects.

Exclusive First Ride: 2011 Ford Edge Sport

Yee-Ha! in a 2011 Ford Edge Sport – Click above for high-res image gallery

Manufacturers used to roll out all-new cars every five-to-eight years. Somewhere around the halfway point – usually year three – much hoopla would be made about new front and rear fascias, the addition of some standard features and some new option packages. (*Yawn*). These changes were designed to give shoppers a reason to look at a car that was getting long-in-the-tooth.

Ford Motor Company sung by this songbook for decades, but it's not any longer. As we've seen with the Escape, Fusion and Mustang, the Ford brand is rolling out significant product changes any time they darn well please. For example, the 2010 Fusion could have been a standard refresh, but instead included three all-new powertrains, a significantly upgraded interior, and the expected front and rear fascias.

Introduced as a 2007 model at the close of 2006, the Edge was Ford's second attempt at a more car-like crossover. (Anybody remember the Freestyle/Taurus X ... uhh, not so much.) Heading into its fifth year of production, the Edge needed some serious attention. It just got it: We reported so on the eve of February's Chicago Auto Show.

Following the new model's public debut, Ford offered Autoblog an exclusive opportunity to ride in a 2011 Edge Sport with some development engineers so we could have an early, behind-the-scenes look at their handiwork. The new Edge doesn't go on sale until later this Summer, but you can read all about our experience at the Dearborn Development Center right now

CHP report seemingly sides with Sikes on case of the Runaway Prius

In reality, the California Highway Patrol isn't taking sides with anyone regarding the recent speeding Prius of Jim Sikes. But the CHP doesn't see any reason to doubt Sikes' version of events that led to his hybrid reaching speeds of around 90 miles per hour, apparently unable to bring the barreling vehicle to a stop. Also of note is the fact that a Border Patrol agent had also responded and was leading the Prius with its emergency lights on when the CHP officer arrived.

The officer that responded to the scene states that he "could see the driver sat up off his seat indicating that he was possibly applying the brake pedal with his body weight... His back was arched and both hands were pulling at the steering wheel." A short time later, the officer positioned his patrol car in front of Sikes' Prius when he "noticed that the Prius' speed had dropped dramatically" before coming to a complete stop on the highway. According to Sikes, this happened after he applied both the standard and parking brakes.

Paramedics arrived on the scene and found that "Sikes' blood pressure and pulse rate were very high." Another interesting tidbit is the the officer encouraged Sikes to speak with the media, despite the fact that the driver indicated he preferred not to. Later at the station, the officer took a statement from Sikes, who described his Prius as 'feeling funny' under braking, saying that the "whole car was shaking and vibrating" when the brakes were applied.

Sikes also claims to have manually pulled up on the gas pedal three separate times with no effect, and he was afraid that shutting the car off would cause the steering to lock up. The officer reports seeing the car's brake lights on and off intermittently, smelling the scent of worn brakes and seeing that the pads were worn completely down after the event.

CHP spokesman Brian Pennings has said that it is the CHP's position that no evidence has emerged to doubt Sikes' version of events. See the CHP officer's complete report in our image gallery below. For a slightly different view, click here and here to see what Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found after inspecting Sikes' Prius.

Live Shots: McLaren MP4-12C takes the stage at company unveiling

McLaren MP4-12C at company unveiling – Click above for high-res image gallery

Early this morning, at least in the U.S., McLaren Automotive had a coming out party in its home town of Woking, England. We were there in person and witnessed the unveiling of not only a new sports car company, McLaren Automotive, but also its flagship product: The MP4-12C. This will be the first of an entire range of new McLaren sports cars, and the company best know for its exploits on the F1 race circuit appears to have built a doozy of a supercar to kick things off.

McLaren F1 drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton were on hand at McLaren's technology center to pull back the sheet on the MP4-12C. The rear-wheel-drive supercar features a mid-mounted 3.8-liter V8 producing 600 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque with an 8,000-rpm redline. Comparisons with the legendary McLaren F1 will no doubt be made, but no performance numbers are available for the MP4-12C yet and, we suspect, their missions in life are not exactly the same. The MP4-12C appears to be a supercar you could live with on a daily basis, more like a Gallardo than a Murciélago (though we suspect it might leave both in the dust).

Since we were there, we also meandered about McLaren's facilities and captured stills of a bare MP4-12C chassis, rolling bodies on the assembly line, the XP11 prototype that was used for testing and various historical McLaren automobiles that were hanging out in the lobby. Check out the virtual tour of today's big event in the high-res image gallery below.