We had a ringside seat to the mayhem. As we’ve reported, electric and hybrid-electric vehicles have various safety designs, including absorbent-matt technology in their batteries to inertia cutoffs and leakage sensors, to minimize the risk of electrocution. However, rescue workers face other issues across all newer cars such as higher-strength steel that’s harder to cut through and various safety features within that require delicate handling.
 
How exactly do you take a wrecked Volt apart to extricate those inside? Very carefully.

On a balcony at Chicago’s McCormick Center, where the Chicago Auto Show is held, the firefighters went to work. The Volt, a preproduction car from GM’s crash-readiness labs, was pretty banged up: Its doors were bent in, the windshield smashed and the airbags deployed to replicate a car that’s been in a serious accident. 

The procedure would begin with firefighters turning off the engine, fire chief Ron Moore said. In this case, reaching through a front window and holding down the start button. Firefighters then opened the Volt’s hatch and cut the cabling to the 12-volt battery. (Virtually every car has a 12-volt; this is a standard procedure that isn’t hybrid or EV specific.) Starting at the rear doors, firefighters wedged open the frames with hydraulic spreaders – better known as the Jaws of Life – and cut the door latches and hinges to remove it entirely. The same was done on the front doors.
 
If occupants are pinned down, firefighters must remove the roof. This is where high-strength steel makes it tricky.
 
In the Volt, the window pillars have high-strength steel. “This is not mild steel of the cars in the 1980s and 1990s,” Moore said. Newer-generation hydraulic cutters are necessary. At $3,000 to $5,000 a set, EMS trainer Pete Bellows said they’re not something every firefighter has access to.

 With later-generation sets, firefighters on the scene cut the Volt’s A- and B-pillars at their base, followed by cutting them at their tops. If it’s done the other way around, the pillars can warp inward onto crash victims, Bellows said. The final step was removing the roof, sliced here down the center of the car to preserve a cutaway view. The whole process of disassembly,if there hadn't been thorough explanation between each step, would have been mere minutes.

Chevy planned to display the Volt later at the convention center.
 
Newer cars mean new technologies, which rescue workers have to watch out for.
 
“We have seat belt pretensioners,” firefighter Rich Stack said. “You can’t cut into those. We have airbag prechargers and just certain things like that. You have to peel certain [interior] trim off and know where those are.”

“Potentially, it can explode like a grenade,” Bellows said of the prechargers, which deploy side curtain airbags. “You have to strip the trim and figure out where it is.”
 
That’s all part of the territory with any modern car. Hybrid and electric vehicles carry additional risks, marked by high-voltage cables. Any cable with more than 60 volts – the domain of EVs and hybrids – has to be orange, Bellows said. As long as firefighters exercise caution around them such vehicles pose little more risk than conventional gasoline cars.
 
“There’s the perception and the fear” of electrocution, Bellows said. If rescue workers know what they’re dealing with, the risk of electrocution is pretty low: “The car manufacturers, as far as I know, have done a great job” minimizing it, he said.

While the automaker won’t comment, sources tell us that Honda won't replace the current Ridgeline unibody pickup after its current lifecycle ends around 2012.

Honda had hopes of selling approximately 50,000 trucks per year when the truck came to market in 2005 for the 2006 model year, but in 2009 only 16,464 units were sold.

The midsize, unibody Ridgeline broke new ground in pickups with controversial slab-sided lunar-lander looks and all-wheel drive. It did away with conventional leaf springs in favor of an independent rear suspension that gave it great ride comfort and enough room for an in-bed lockable trunk – the first in a pickup. The Ridgeline also featured a dual-action tailgate that folded down or off to the side, like a door, to allow unimpeded access to the cargo box.

Asked to confirm or deny the end of the Ridgeline, Honda public relations manager Christina Ra told PickupTrucks.com on Friday that the company had no comment beyond what we were told after the 2010 Chicago Auto Show: “There would be no significant change to the Ridgeline through the 2011 model year.”

Of course, Ra didn't deny the Ridgeline would be killed after the 2011 model year either.

While the automaker won’t comment, sources tell us that Honda won't replace the current Ridgeline unibody pickup after its current lifecycle ends around 2012.

Honda had hopes of selling approximately 50,000 trucks per year when the truck came to market in 2005 for the 2006 model year, but in 2009 only 16,464 units were sold.

The midsize, unibody Ridgeline broke new ground in pickups with controversial slab-sided lunar-lander looks and all-wheel drive. It did away with conventional leaf springs in favor of an independent rear suspension that gave it great ride comfort and enough room for an in-bed lockable trunk – the first in a pickup. The Ridgeline also featured a dual-action tailgate that folded down or off to the side, like a door, to allow unimpeded access to the cargo box.

Asked to confirm or deny the end of the Ridgeline, Honda public relations manager Christina Ra told PickupTrucks.com on Friday that the company had no comment beyond what we were told after the 2010 Chicago Auto Show: “There would be no significant change to the Ridgeline through the 2011 model year.”

Of course, Ra didn't deny the Ridgeline would be killed after the 2011 model year either.

If you thought our 2010 Chicago Auto Show coverage highlighted big trucks, you haven’t seen anything yet.

We’re in St. Louis to cover the 2010 National Truck Equipment Association Work Truck Show, March 10-12. It’s North America’s largest commercial truck convention. Thousands of vocational, government and private fleet managers and truck buyers will meet with hundreds of manufacturers, distributors and dealers in the Class 1-8 market segments to learn about the newest truck products.

But we’re most looking forward to the world debut of the 2011 GMC Sierra Heavy Duty, 2011 Nissan NV Commercial Van, a keynote speech from William Shatner (aka Star Trek’s Captain Kirk) and much, much more. We’re not stopping at pickup trucks this time!

Check back Monday night/Tuesday morning at 12 a.m. Eastern for the start of our coverage.

We’ll be here most of the week to bring it to you direct under our “NTEA” tagged posts.

Reducing the number of trim levels from three to two, the next step up would be the Limited trim, which starts at $35,485 and represents a $200 increase from the previous model year. This also does not include the destination fee.

Head to the auto show page to check out our coverage of the 2011 Avalon at the Chicago Auto Show.

Ford had already announced a 30 mpg highway figure for its updated Mustang and its new 3.7-liter V-6 engine. It was even printed on the side of one car at the Chicago Auto Show last month.
 
That number bested the new Chevy Camaro’s 29 mpg highway figure. Now Ford is announcing that the Mustang’s six-speed automatic has been rated at 19/31 mpg city/highway by the Environmental Protection Agency. The six-speed manual will get 19/30 mpg. A four-cylinder Honda Accord (sedan or coupe) gets 21/31 mpg.

The new Mustangs will go on sale later this spring. To learn more, check out our Mustang coverage here.

• Looks like: Mercedes is stealing designs from Volvo
• Defining characteristics: Plug-in hybrid powetrain, minivan rear door
• Ridiculous features: A touchpad control system that uses a video camera to sense where your hand is reaching
• Chance of being mass-produced: The design is actually very close to what the next CLS sedan will look like

If you thought the season of new concept and production cars was over after the L.A., Detroit and Chicago auto shows, you’re wrong. Not only do we have the New York show looming in April, but Europe’s big outing, the Geneva International Motor Show, kicks off in early March.

That’s where Mercedes will show the F800 Style research vehicle shown here. It’s truly a research vehicle because it’s unlikely the tech underneath the hood will make it as-is to any car any time soon. The design, however, is close to what the next-generation CLS sports sedan will look like, but we’re unsure of a release date for that model.

What won’t be found on the CLS are rear doors that open like a minivan’s or a plug-in hybrid powertrain mating a 300-horsepower V-6 engine to a 109-hp electric motor for total power of “around 409 hp,” Mercedes claims. However, Mercedes says this type of powertrain will be found in the next-generation S-Class in an S500 plug-in hybrid. No release date was given for that, either.

If the design is heading to production and the powertrain is likely headed to production, what besides that minivan door is a pie-in-the-sky concept? Try a center console with a touchpad. What’s so wild about that? The touchpad isn’t capacitive touch, like the upcoming MyFord Touch system. Instead, it uses a camera to track where you hand is moving to coordinate what controls to adjust. Sounds intriguing, but it might be hard to use while in motion.

More photos of the F800 are below.