Twenty years ago, hot rodders were buying "chips" for the engines to boost power. These E-PROM chips carried the fuel and spark programming codes in the engine-control units (ECU). Instead of manually adjusting the spark advance and rejetting a carburetor, tuners on EFI engines would have to pull the chip and reprogram the fuel and spark maps with a computer. Modern cars have flash memory in the ECUs. Today's tuners going for more power either replace the entire ECU or reflash the program.

A leading online seller of new cars in England says automakers aren't getting the most green out of their engine-management computers. Ling Valentine says the same engine is spread over a variety of vehicles and programmed for reliability and reduced service intervals.

Simon Hall, who runs a reprogramming shop for a variety of vehicles, makes the same argument that today's vehicles can be greener with a few changes in the computer code.

Basically, the two feel that consumers should be allowed to "chip" their cars without fear of losing a warranty.

Related:

• Ling Valentine: I AM BEST! I human being, not robot! Full green data here, a web first!

[Source: Auto Industry]

In your online travels, do you ever pause and think, "man, this website is just to easy to navigate. I wish there were some website that looked like everything a used car salesman would say, and all those words were on the screen at once. Yeah, that'd be a great site. And what if it had section dedicated to green car stuff. Perfect. Now, if only it could be run by a self-described hotheaded Chinese woman with a penchant for animated GIFs, handwritten notes, and hyperbole, I'd visit that site every day." Well, hotshot, if this unlikely scenario is true, welcome to heaven.

LingsCars is busy. I don't know about traffic numbers, but visually, it's the busiest site I've seen in a while. The proprietor is Ling Valentine, and she says she lives inside the website every weekday from 9-6 (UK time). Ostensibly a site where you can rent a car or van for a few years, LingsCars also offers opinions courtesy of Ling's Blog and a seemingly endless series of links. The key for AutoblogGreen readers is that each car is listed with a colored environmental scale, so CO2 emissions and fuel economy are easy to know at a glance. Well, as easy as can be, buried in a screen with a zillion other attractions. It's like visiting a used car lot and being taken in by all the sparkling banners. Kind of cool, kind of unsettling.

[Source: LingsCars via Green Car Guide]