For more on the Civic GX's natural-gas powertrain and the innovative home-fueling station that keeps it going at a fraction of the cost of gasoline, launch the slideshow.

Behold the car that could displace the Toyota Prius as the eco-ride of choice. The new natural-gas-powered Honda Civic GX uses domestically produced fuel–the same stuff your gas stove burns–that costs as little as one third the price of gasoline. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy calls it the cleanest-burning internal-combustion vehicle on Earth.

The future of secure travel hinges on seamless, instant communication—and 24/7 autonomous surveillance. For a look at the technologies that will soon safeguard your travel plans, launch the photo gallery.

Click "View Photos" at left to come along on PopSci's test drive of the impossibly fast Bugatti Veyron 16.4.

Click here to launch the gallery.

Blinding rain. Careening traffic. Distracted drivers. There are lots of reasons why car crashes are America's leading cause of accidental death. And one way that most accidents could be prevented: with cars that predict a coming collision-and take action to stop it.

It's heresy to 911 worshippers to say so, but the new Cayman S is suddenly the most beautiful car in Porsche's lineup. It's a Boxster coupe, basically a midengine two-seater with a fair amount of new body metal and interior appointments. But in reverse engineering a coupe from a roadster, Porsche managed to avoid both the slightly lumpy engine butt of the 911 and the too-symmetrical stance of the Boxster. The Cayman's high roofline swoops back and down between the gorgeous haunches of the rear fenders, and a walkabout reveals that the whole car is a fugue of aggressive curving lines.

It sounds like something out of a Bond flick: a car with a hood that’s launched open by a pair of explosive charges. But Jaguar’s Pedestrian Deployable Bonnet System (PDBS) isn’t intended to thwart bad guys. Its purpose is to soften the impact on the unfortunate soul who gets hit by the European version of the 2007 Jaguar XK. PDBS is Jaguar’s response to new European Union legislation that requires automobiles to be gentler on pedestrians in the event of a collision (exploding hoods have not been greenlighted in the U.S.).

Certain parts of a car’s engine can reach temperatures in excess of 1,500°F. With this in mind, the engineers at BMW developed a way to boost efficiency: Transform that otherwise wasted heat into energy the engine can use. The resulting Turbo- steamer reclaims more than 80 percent of the heat lost from the engine’s exhaust and cooling systems. It uses this surplus heat to generate steam that helps drive the engine. It boosts power and torque by 10 percent and cuts fuel consumption by 15 percent without using a single additional drop of gasoline.

When Mercedes-Benz began to contemplate its next generation of high-efficiency small cars, it sought aquatic inspiration. But instead of considering obvious undersea hot rods like sharks, the Mercedes team turned to a fish that resembled a car: the tropical boxfish. A native of the Indo-Pacific region, the Ostracion cubicus is surprisingly slick. Wind-tunnel testing of a clay model revealed a drag coefficient (Cd) of just 0.06, startlingly close to the ideal 0.04 of a water droplet.