(above) Yannick Sire (right) shows-off his custom built V-16 hot rod made from two V-8 Chevy engines during the inaugural 'Venice Beach Rides for the Community' on Rose Avenue on Saturday, July 18. 2009. The car show featured hundreds of hot rods, muscle cars, motorcycles and bicycle. All proceeds from the event benefits the Venice Community Housing Corp., a community development organization that provides affordable housing, job training and support services for the low-income communities of Venice and Mar Vista.

Artist Damon Boyd, award winning bike designer and founder of Nomad Custom Crafted Cruisers, rides his Classic Woody Quadricycle during the Venice Eco Fest on Saturday, June 27, 2009.

People look at the "Peapod" at the Santa Monica Pier on Friday, May 22, 2009, during a photo shoot. The Peapod is a neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) which is a United States Department of Transportation classification for a street-legal, battery-powered electric vehicle that is limited to roads with a posted speed limit of 35 mph or less - perfect for local trips to the store, to school, or for errands. A neighborhood electric vehicle runs solely on batteries which wholly eliminates its emissions of harmful carbon dioxide and thus diminishes the greenhouse effect.The Peapod charges at any standard 110-volt outlet and goes up to 30 miles on a single 6 to 8 hour charge and at 2 cents a mile. It comes with an iPod or iPhone^TM docking station to keeps you connected.

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(top) Mariachi Estrella de Jalisco, performs at Virginia Avenue Park during Cinco de Mayo Fiesta and Classic Car Show on Sunday, May 03, 2009. (above) Carlos Barajas, 52,grooms his 1946 Chevy Fleetmaster during Cinco de Mayo Fiesta and Classic Car Show at Virginia Avenue Parkon Sunday, May 03, 2009.

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(top) Competitors begin the 11th Annual Gumball 3000 Rally from Santa Monica Beach on Saturday, May 2, 2009. (above) Cat Bailey looks inside of a Buick Rivera at Santa Monica Beach.

The Gumball 3000 is an annual 3000 mile international rally which takes place on public roads, with a different 3000 mile route around the world each year. This year 120 cars will drive 3000 miles traveling from Santa Monica through Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, Dallas, New Orleans and ending in Miami on Friday 8th May.

Gumball 3000 Rally are officially working with the Wounded Warrior Project, a non-profit organisation benefiting and raising awareness for the needs of severely injured United States Service men and women. Wounded Warrior representatives will be present throughout the event as well as partnering with Gumball 3000 at forthcoming events and fundraisers.

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Aziz karim, 34, drives through a pattern course during Santa Monica Police Traffic Service Officer Scooter Training at Santa Monica beach on Monday, March 23, 2009.

A woman looks at the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, the most famous of all product-shaped promotional vehicles, at the Santa Monica Pier parking lot on Wednesday, February 4, 2009. Drivers of the Wienermobiles are known as Hotdoggers and often hand out toy whistles shaped as replicas of the Wienermobile, known as Wienerwhistles. There are seven wienermobiles in existence currently, with each assigned a part of the country. The hotdogger position of driving the wienermobile is an open position to U.S. citzens and the duration of the job lasts for one full year: from the first of June until the following first of June. Every March at Kraft and Oscar Mayer headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin there are final round interviews held for the hotdogger position. Each vehicle holds two hotdoggers, and twelve people are chosen from a final pool of 30 candidates brought to Oscar Mayer headquarters. The 30 candidates are screened across the country. Both current hotdoggers and Oscar Mayer recruiters visit college campuses across the country in search of the next round of hotdoggers. Only college seniors who are about to graduate are eligible for applying to this hotdogger position. Currently there are about 500 hotdogger alumni who have served as hotdoggers and driven the wienermobile.

The world’s greenest procession of its kind, 74-All-Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles paraded south on Main Street in Santa Monica during the “Inaugural Parade West: Plug In, America!” on Saturday, January 17, 2009. The inaugural parade's mission is to jump start the nation’s presidential inaugural festivities with a message for Congress, Detroit and Barack Obama: America wants plug-in vehicles, the most fuel-efficient cars ever made.The clean-car parade, coming as gas prices begin their inevitable rise again, represents the largest assembly of its kind in history. It demonstrates the number and breadth of new plug-ins coming onto the market and the continued viability of those that have been on the road since 2002. The event’s all-electric vehicles, all of them freeway-capable, include more than two dozen Toyota RAV4 EVs—with tens of thousands of oil-free miles on each—three Tesla Roadsters, two Vectrix motor scooters, one Zero Motorcycle, two Phoenix SUTs and a prototype Mitsubishi iMiEV. The latter is undergoing testing at Southern California Edison, which also will provide a prototype Ford Escape plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. A 1971 Porsche 914 is among other EV conversions. Parade-vehicle owners and drivers range from Ed Miller, an engineer with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Science Lander Rover project, to Alexandra Paul, an actress and Plug In America board member, to green leader Ed Begley, Jr. Plug In America recently launched a campaign to encourage Detroit to build fuel-efficient vehicles with the billions in federal bailout dollars it has now begun to receive. The production of 10 million plug-in vehicles by 2016 by a retooled, electrified auto industry will create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs. Even when charged on today's electrical grid, plug-in cars are cleaner than the average gasoline car. They also run on domestic electricity, notes former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, a Plug In America supporter and clean-tech venture partner with the Silicon Valley’s VantagePoint. “Electric vehicles can deliver a deadly blow to our dependence on imported oil from hostile countries while addressing our environmental crisis,” Woolsey says. “A plug-in future is key to a sustainable America and a stable world.”

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