<![CDATA[Hybrid options begin to fill in; automaker Web site usability]]>Checking up on the hybrid front, I found that the Acura ILX hybrid for 2014 is finally on sale, as of Tuesday, and an Accord hybrid, which I didn’t even know about, goes on sale at the end of this month. Unfortunately, Honda’s main vehicle Web sites didn’t tell me that — I had to dig through press releases. (This underscores the incompetence of automaker management; can you think of a technology company that would put a product on sale before their Web site had any information about it?) Hyundai is still running behind on nearly their whole lineup, including the Sonata hybrid.

Meanwhile, I’m still thinking about that 370Z that I’m probably not going to buy. I wasted a couple of hours searching on Nissan’s (awful) Web site to see which dealers actually had the model I was interested in; there are four dealers that have them, all in red and black, none with autobox, so there’s no chance I’ll end up test-driving one (unless there’s someone in New Hampshire or Rhode Island that has one). I might go find the nearest 6MT, which is in Stoneham, just to see if I can even fit in the thing, and maybe talk to a salesperson about why they’re so limited around here. Note to automakers: don’t make me select each one of thirty different dealers to find out that they don’t have what I’m interested in, just tell me which f’ing dealer does, and how far away they are.

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