Rumors that Toyota will send its iQ super subcompact to America appear to be true -- with one twist. Our sources indicate the iQ will debut at the Los Angeles International Auto Show in November not as a Toyota, but as the latest addition to the Scion lineup.

Even though the tiny three-plus-one seat iQ (three adults, one child) was designed for Europe and Japan, there is a strong business case for bringing it here as a Scion.

Toyota, busy with the launch of the next-generation Prius, doesn't need another small gas sipper to steal its marketing thunder -- particularly one that could poach sales from the Yaris, the brand's other high miler.

Honda has opened a new "Words of Hybrid" site, featuring the all-new Insight Concept premiered at the Paris Motor Show on October 2, 2008. The site provides details of the Insight Concept and a history of Honda's hybrid development.

Policy planners may be burning mid night oil to tame inflation and overcome surging oil prices, but Hero Honda which seeks to capitalise on this by pushing cost effective and fuel efficient vehicles in the market.

"While it is true that double-digit inflation of 11-12 per cent would certainly upset household budgets and postpone certain purchases, the rise in auto fuel prices might actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the two-wheeler industry," Hero Honda Chairman Brijmohan Lall Munjal said in the company's Annual Report for 2007-08.

Cost effective and fuel efficient modes of transport would become more popular, he added.

"Since fuel prices are not expected to soften in the near term, fuel-efficient industries such as ours could be beneficiaries.

In the United States, sales of hybrid cars greatly outpaces the sales of diesel cars; super-size trucks don't count. The leader of the hybrid race globally and in the States is undoubtedly Toyota, but other manufacturers, including Honda, are doing their best to catch up. Despite the fact that the original Honda Insight helped usher in the hybrid age, the automaker has taken a major back seat to its main rival from Japan in recent years. To help combat this issue, Honda is set to revive the Insight nameplate with a Prius-fighting five door hatchback of its own, and it will undercut its competitor by thousands of dollars.

So, what about Europe? Across the pond, hybrid cars and trucks are not nearly as popular as they are in the U.S. There, diesel fuel is priced more attractively than gasoline, and sales of oil-burners are therefore very strong. A recent survey conducted by Honda in the U.K. indicates that 40-percent of those who would not buy a hybrid are put off by their high price. Since the Insight will be the cheapest hybrid available in Europe, Honda hopes to buck the slow-selling trend. We'll see how it works out sometime next year.

Consumption of gasoline in California declined 7.5% in June from the same month a year ago, according to figures from the State Board of Equalization (BOE).

In the second quarter of 2008, Californians used 191 million gallons of gasoline less than in the second quarter last year, a decline of 4.8%. The second quarter of 2008 marks the ninth consecutive three-month period to show less gas consumption.

The average California gas price at the pump in May was $4.02 per gallon and $4.53 in June 2008, which was a 36.0 percent change from the average price of June 2007 when it was $3.33. The BOE estimates that nearly twice as much sales tax is generated annually by higher gasoline prices than five years ago. Those higher prices generated approximately $3.6 billion in sales tax during 2007 when the average price was $3.12. In contrast, 2003’s gasoline sales generated $2.1 billion when the average pump price was $1.88.

The welcome sign is going out to oil and gas companies off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

A quarter-century ban on offshore exploration expires in this coming week, but don't expect to see a chain of drilling platforms from the beaches anytime soon.

It will take a couple of years, at least, before any oil or natural gas leases are issued, years more before any oil is found and perhaps a decade before any of it begins to flow to refineries.

And what if Congress, after completing a bill Saturday that removes the freeze, changes its mind next year and again puts some of the coastal waters off-limits?

For 26 years, Congress has issued an annual directive barring the Interior Department from issuing any leases for oil and gas drilling in federal waters on both coasts. It omitted the directive this time after public opinion swung in favor of drilling in response to $4-a-gallon gasoline this summer.