As we reported back in August, a bus company in Ontario, Canada was taking PickupPal to court in order to have them shut down. The offense? Facilitating carpooling between people headed to the same location. The nerve!

Anyway, the courts have ruled in favor of the bus company and PickupPal was ordered to pay an $11,000 fine. According to this article, the only way you can legally ride with someone is if you meet ALL of these criteria.

• You must travel from home to work only – (Not Home to School, or Home to the Hospital or the Airport)
• You cannot cross municipal boundaries – (Live outside the city and drive in – sorry you cannot share the ride with your neighbour)
• You must ride with the same driver each day – (Want to mix it up go with one person one day and another person another day – no sorry cannot do that – must be same person each day)
• You must pay the driver no more frequently than weekly – (Neighbour drives you to work better not pay her right away just in case she drives you later on in the week)

Read the entire article at Save PickupPal

Looking to whip the buying public into a frenzy, Toyota has unveiled a new, and utterly useless, minisite for the third generation Prius. The site contains no information about the car, but you can sign up for email alerts.

It seems with all of the teaser shots floating around the web, they could at least post those on the site. Let’s hope they add something before the official unveiling in 61 days.

Useless Prius minsite

If you like a little exclusivity in your motoring, sign up now for the Mini E. Only 500 of the limited edition electric cars will find a home in the U.S. and the privilege of driving one can be yours for just $850 per month.

Designed to go 150 miles on a single charge, it’s not the ultimate roadtrip machine, but is perfect for most commuters.

Story from Luxvelocity

Hybrids get all of the love, but a lineup of worthy diesel alternatives is going to be showing up in showrooms soon. Here are ten choices for your high mileage driving pleasure.

1. BMW 335d
2. BMW X5 35d
3. Acura TSX
4. Audi Q7 3.0 TDI
5. Porsche Cayenne
6. VW Touareg
7. Audi A4
8. Hyundai Veracruz
9. Nissan Maxima
10. Kia Borrego

Story from Forbes

Lexus, the luxury brand owned by Toyota, currently has three hybrid models on the market and if statements made by a company executive are true, every model in the lineup may be packing a hybrid engine in the coming years.

The current hybrids include the GS-h, RX-h, & ultra-luxurious LS-h with a $100,000+ price tag. That still leaves the LX, IS, GS, & SC without a hybrid option but that should change as new versions of those models roll out.

Story from Motor Authority

Situated atop Toyota’s parts center in southern California, the largest single roof solar installation in the U.S. covers 242,000 square feet and is going to provide 60% of the power for the facility. The installation will avoid 6.4 million pounds of emissions each year, approximately the same amount produced by 255 homes.

Press release from Toyota and SunPower (via redOrbit)

Honda has a waiting list of several months for the CNG (compressed natural gas) Civic that sells for a stout $25,000 and plans to double production for the next model year. This change in the market has caught Toyota’s attention and has promoted the company to revisit a market that it abandoned a decade ago.

Consumers will get their first look at the CNG Hybrid Camry at the Los Angeles Auto Show this November.