In order to encourage carpooling and decrease traffic congestion, the State of California came up with the idea of creating the so-called High Occupancy Vehicle lanes or HOV for short, which could only be used by cars with two or more occupants.

Last July, however, the Golden State altered the regulations allowing single-passenger vehicles to use them as well, provided they were all-electric or powered by hydrogen fuel cells or natural gas.

Despite being a hybrid, the Volt was excluded from the list specifying the vehicles allowed to use the HOV lanes, which span more than 1,400 miles and reduce driving time by an average of 36 minutes each day, because of its emissions.

If you have been following the news in the U.S. these past few weeks, you will have no doubt noticed that all Republican presidential candidates have attacked the Obama administration for the way it handled the auto industry bailout.

Now it's time for President Obama's campaign to fight back through a new ad that will air on television this Friday but only in Michigan, ahead of the State's Republican presidential primary next week.

The ad is named "Made in America" and touts Obama's stance on the auto bailout bill while at the same time taking a jab at the GOP and especially Mitt Romney, showing the title of his November 2008 New York Times op-ed piece, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt".

In a press statement issued on January 31, General Motors announced that its OnStar call centers receive more than 150,000 calls a day. That equates to almost two calls per second.

Yet for the past few days, some of the more than 6 million users of the telematics service have been unable to use it.

Some OnStar users reported very long waiting times while others that they received automated messages to call back later. The problem, as told by OnStar spokeswoman Cheryl McCaren on FoxNews, was caused by an upgrade to the operating system on Sunday, February 12, which affected non-emergency “Blue Button” services.

In an interview with radio station Europe1 on Tuesday, French Labor Minister Xavier Bertrand revealed that PSA Peugeot-Citroen CEO Philippe Varin informed the government that the automaker is talking to General Motors about forming an alliance.

Reuters reported that GM, which is the world’s number one automaker, and the PSA Group, which is the second largest carmaker in Europe, are not discussing a merger, but sharing vehicles and parts. Furthermore, any capital exchange between them would be minimal and purely symbolic.

When it comes to diesel technology, Europe is king and all for good reason as diesel-powered models account for roughly half of all sales across the continent.

Therefore, it's no wonder that General Motors tapped its European operations for the development of the diesel engine to be offered on the North American market Chevrolet Cruze sedan.

The Detroit automaker tells us that the new diesel unit is being developed by the powertrain engineers at GM's diesel center of excellence in Torino, Italy, with the help of their counterparts in Pontiac, Michigan, while Opel's engineers in Russelsheim, Germany, are also supporting the program by developing the accessory drive, acoustic cover and other specialized components.

Republican presidential candidates seem to have locked in the 2009 U.S. automotive industry bailout by the federal government as a means to raise votes in the primaries.

Yet the Democrats aren’t the only ones who dismiss the Republicans’ arguments; United Auto Workers president Bob King recently accused Mitt Romney of “misleading voters” on the issue of the bailout.

"Romney is trying to rewrite history and attack President Obama and the UAW for successfully saving the auto industry," King said in a statement.

Last Thursday, GM reported that its European division had posted a US$747 million loss before interest and taxes. While that’s an improvement over the US$1.95 billion losses the company reported in 2010, in the past 13 years Opel and sister company Vauxhall have cost GM US$15.6 billion.

The European economic turmoil that is far from done makes for a bleak outlook; the estimate for 2012, based on four analysts’ predictions, is a US$1.2 billion loss for GM's European division.

While we can understand General Motor's fixation with the Nürburgring, we're getting the slight impression that the Detroit automaker may be overdoing it when it comes to promoting its cars.

After a ton of Nürburgring-related films on the Cadillac ATS and following the official video of the 2012 Chevy Camaro ZL1 lapping the Nordschleife in 7 minutes and 41.27 seconds, GM has published the fifth installment of its ZL1 video series that gives us yet another insight on how its engineers developed the pony car on the German race track.

Another day, another presidential candidate of the Republican Party remembers the 2009 U.S. automotive industry bailout and declares his disdain by saying that both the country and the carmakers would be better off without it. So what else is new?

Well, Rick Santorum managed to attack not only President Barack Obama, but also his predecessor in the White House, George W. Bush and “fellow” Republican candidate Mitt Romney – all during the same speech he made at the Detroit Economic Club today.

Predictably, Santorum, like Romney, said that both General Motors and Chrysler would be “alive and equally as well, or better off, than they are now," adding "the markets would have reacted to restructure it to be more competitive.”

General Motors' Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck (which will be made and sold in the States) has made its appearance in Australia in production guise under the Holden nameplate. The automaker had previewed the Holden version with a lightly camouflaged concept at last year's Melbourne Auto Show.

The 2012 Holden Colorado that will arrive in dealerships throughout the country in the middle of this year has dropped some of the more exciting, but not at all practical, elements of the show car such as the large alloy wheels and sporty mirrors but nothing much else has changed.

The automotive industry is once again involved in politics and more specifically, this year’s presidential elections. This time it’s Republican candidate former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, who attacked President Barack Obama’s handling of the 2009 bailout.

In an op-ed published today at the Detroit News, Romney criticizes Obama of “instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses, he rewarded them”.

Romney stated that the companies should have entered and then exited bankruptcy, but that “by the spring of 2009, instead of the free market doing what it does best, we got a major taste of crony capitalism, Obama-style.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find any similarities between the current and the former presidents of the United States. Yet, Barack Obama and George W. Bush actually do have one thing in common: they both agree that bailing out the bankrupt U.S. car industry was the right thing to do.

Bush, whose extension of bridge loans to U.S. automakers was one of the last decisions before he left office, gave the closing address to the annual National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) convention.

The former President said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned him that, unless the administration took drastic measures, a new depression was imminent.

GM regained the title of the world’s number one automotive group in 2011, but its European division losses must have surely dampened the celebrations.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that General Motors is losing its patience with Opel and Vauxhall after their fourth quarter losses and wants to make deeper cuts – and fast. The newspaper cited an unnamed GM source as saying that “if Opel is going to get fixed, it is going to get fixed now and cuts are going to get deep.”

Opel may have been responsible for the development of the Astra being the first to launch the five-door hatchback, Sports Tourer station wagon and three-door GTC variants amongst GM's global brands, but there's one body style it will be the last to get and that's the four-door sedan model.

The Astra sedan essentially made its debut as the new Buick Excelle GT in China back in the summer of 2010 followed by the North American 2012 Buick Verano at last year's Detroit Motor Show.

Now, our spies bring us pictures of the Opel Astra model while testing in Germany. There's no camouflage up front so we can see that the Opel-flavored version sports the same fascia as the European Astra.

The automaker's engineers covered the rear end, but from what we can tell, the only differences with the Buick models concern the tail lamp graphics and possibly the removal of the chrome eyebrows to create a more three-dimensional look, along with a differen license plate holder and the incorporation of a spoiler lip to the boot.

More and more automakers are looking to promote their vehicles to a younger and typically affluent crowd through popular racing games.

Today we learn that GM's Team Cadillac Racing has collaborated with iRacing.com, which is one of the most popular online motorsports games, offering players the chance to drive a virtual version of the CTS-V Coupe racer.

It surely came as no surprise to General Motors executives that their European division is once again, bleeding cash. After all, they knew that Opel and Vauxhall had already lost US$580 million in the first nine months of 2011.

However, as the Wall Street Journal reports, they weren’t prepared for the “horrendous” fourth quarter losses. Therefore, despite declaring last week that it is determined to turn around Opel, GM is now seriously reconsidering its options.

According to the report, an unnamed GM official said on Tuesday that the U.S. group is almost fed up with its European brands’ inability to make progress: “There is an increasing frustration with Opel and a feeling that the cuts two years ago did not go deep enough. If Opel is going to get fixed, it is going to get fixed now and the cuts are going to be deep.”

The 2013 model year brings some updates for the Buick Regal sedan, namely a new automatic transmission option and the discontinuation of the 2.4-liter base model.

The new Aisin AF40 six-speed automatic with Driver Shift Control will be available as a no-cost option instead of the existing six-speed manual gearbox on the 270HP Regal GS. Buick says that acceleration matches the manual with an estimated 0-60 mph sprint time of 6.7 seconds.

The 57th United States presidential elections will take place on November 6, and naturally, Barack Obama is aiming for a second term. Politics being what it is, the automotive industry is pushing hard to get some things done.

One such issue is the inclusion of Japan on the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, which Obama hopes will create a free-trade zone between the U.S. and the Asia Pacific region.

Currently, apart from the United States, there are eight other countries negotiating the plan including Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. But three others want to join the talks that will be held this March in Melbourne.

And the claws are out! Chevrolet makes no apologies for its new commercial on the Silverado pickup truck that will air during the first quarter of Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world that draws on the Mayan predictions, the ad shows a group of friends that made it out alive and who all happen to be Silverado owners.

Once they assemble, they notice that one of their buddies didn’t make it to the meeting point – the missing friend happens to own a Ford…

You can take a look at Chevy's "2012" Super Bowl ad in the video after the break.

Last September, during the Frankfurt Motor Show, General Motors executives were confident that their European operations were following the company’s restructuring plan to the letter and would break even.

Less than two months later, real-world results proved them wrong. In the first nine months of 2011, GM's European operations lost US$580 million before interest and taxes. Breaking even went down the drain.

In addition, restructuring, closing the Antwerp plant and cutting 5,800 jobs through September 2011, cost the company US$900 million. And that’s not all: its European division has cost GM more than US$2.34 billion since 2009, when it called off its plans for selling the company, and a staggering US$13 billion since 1999.