Auto News 5

Welcome to my jet lag, a monstrous, unshakable fog that feels as if I've left my soul behind, somewhere out over the Pacific. It's nighttime here on Planet Japan, day one of a three-day trip to drive the 2009 Nissan Cube , and I can do nothing. I can't think. I can't read. I can't write. The worst is knowing that, despite staying up for the entire thirteen-hour flight, despite the fact that it is now eight at night in Japan and six in the morning on the clock back in Michigan that is still regulating my brain and my sleep patterns, despite being exhausted to the point of death, I know that no matter when I lie down to sleep, I will be wide-awake at one in the morning. I might as well eat.

As a contributor to this august publication, I travel quite a bit. Perhaps you remember my insightful coverage of the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show. If so, you really need to up your dose of ginkgo biloba, because I never made it to the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show. For every story that makes it from concept to reality, there are several that crash and burn, and my confounded attempt to get to Tokyo was just one of many Stories That Don't Make It.

They say timing is everything, but in the automotive world these days, the timing for everything seems bad. Except when it seems terrible.

At 28, he founded the world's largest supplier of cell-phone batteries. His company also supplies low-cost batteries for One Laptop Per Child. In 2003, BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu, then 36, bought a car company, gave it the BYD name, set up an R&D team of 3000 engineers, and on December 15, 2008, put the world's first plug-in electric car on the market.