The antipollution device bolted onto your car's exhaust pipes contains platinum, an expensive metal. Some recycling shops will pay $200 for a used converter — whether it comes from a junked vehicle or was freshly sawed from beneath a Toyota Land Cruiser at the Stanford Shopping Center. I typed up the best parts of a not-online report by the San Francisco Daily Post:

Valleywag spies were busy last weekend. "I was at a party in Palo Alto on Saturday night two doors down from Steve Jobs's house, and in the morning i was coming out with my bike and walked right in front of him on the sidewalk," writes one. How'd he look? "Pretty thin. I thought his face looked healthy, but he was very thin." If Jobs's parking habits are any indication, though, perhaps the Apple CEO is ailing after all. Another tipster eyed the Jobsmobile and took the picture above. Her caption: "Mercedes? Check. No license plate? Check. Handicap spot? Yep, this is Steve Jobs's car!!!" (Photo by Rana Sobhany)

Yo check it out, a map with all the NPR stations! "If you know where you are, this map can tell you where to tune," says the description. Yes, NPR affiliates are usually relatively simple to detect by employing the two-pronged strategy of "pressing seek" and "listening for telltale overeducated barbituate user voice" but this is for people who need to make absolutely sure they are listening to the right station. (NPR listeners, yes!) It probably wasn't necessary to give those people an extra map to consult while cruising down the nation's interstates, but what do we care we barely leave the house anyway. [Uncommon Goods]

A Tesla roadster dead at the intersection of Sand Hill Road and Alameda in Menlo Park, at approximately 4 p.m. yesterday. Yes, the sexy electric car that's the darling of Valley cleantech investors, on the road that runs through the heart of venture-capitalist country. With so few Teslas in the wild, there can't be that many possibilities on who the unlucky buyer was. Let us know in the comments which rich guy you think was late getting home last night. The big question is, was it a mechanical breakdown, or did the batteries run out of juice? While others may look at this and think Tesla can't manufacture a reliable car, we see this as an opportunity for the fledgling automotive startup: Electric tow trucks.

Now that Jay Leno has entered the lame duck phase of his relationship with the Peacock network, it appears that he's decided to abuse his position as America's top-rated celebrity interviewer as fuel for his sexual reveries for many moons to come. While interviewing a crestfallen Scarlett Johansson on Friday night about Vicky Christina Barcelona (itself a rather sexually charged subject), noted auto enthusiast Jay figured he'd use the opportunity to engage the voluptuous starlet in some automobile-related foreplay. You see, he had done some research in advance of the chat and discovered that Scarlett told a lad mag that her number one sexual fantasy involved having sex in a car. But while Jay stopped just short of confessing that he has Crash playing on an infinite loop in his 17,000 square foot warehouse / garage, it was clear by reading his clearly flabbergasted guest's face that she's rather looking forward to sitting next to Conan O'Brien the next time she makes her way through Burbank. [The Tonight Show]

There's no question the auto industry-particularly the US auto industry-is currently in the toilet. There's also no question that bad times for the auto industry lead to cuts in car companies' advertising budgets, which hurts the print and broadcast media outlets that reap billions from automakers every year. That's not news to anybody. What is news is the revelation that prospects for the print media have grown so dim that they are now celebrating the fact of declining auto ads, as proof that they're at the mercy of temporary business cycles beyond their control. Wow, that's sad: Newspapers nationwide lost more than $130 million last year in auto ad sales. Car ads have gone from 10% of national newspaper ads, to less that 3% in just three years. That's terrible by any standards. Magazines are experiencing a similar decline. So how to put this disaster in a good light?

Showing off electric carmaker Tesla's first Northern California dealership, general manager Tom O'Leary pointed past the $109,000 Roadsters littered about the showroom and out the front windows to a Coastal Gasoline station across the way. The station's sign read: $4.49 for a gallon of unleaded, $5.15 for diesel. "People ask me about signage," O'Leary told the San JoseMercury News. "I'm thinking of putting a sign here that says, 'How's that working out for you?'" So far, some 1,100 deposit-paying buyers have already answered O'Leary's question with a resounding: "Not well. Now take my money." Alas for those lovers of Earth and speed — it's going to be a while before they get their autos. Tesla plans to build only four Roadsters per week for the next two months. Until production ramps up, buyers will have to sate themselves with images of shiny Roadsters — like the ones from the dealership's opening, below, courtesy of Brian Solis.

Black women these days: they're just not buying enough Toyota Camrys. The car company's ad agency rep explains the problem: "[Black women] think of it as suburban, not urban; as solid but boring. And for this woman, she doesn't see herself as boring." Ha, you go girl! Well, ladies, Toyota likes to think of all of its customers as "sisters." And it knows just how to get you elusive African-American females to buy more of their boring suburban cars—with a crazy online fashion espionage game! Coincidentally, there's a black woman in it. And a Camry!

Far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen once called the Holocaust "just a detail" — worth maybe 10 to 15 lines in a 1,000-page book about World War II. The comments cost him a $284,033 fine. Now Le Pen is out of cash. To make some, he's auctioning his armored 1992 Peugot 605 on eBay. The latest bid: 10 million euros. The Peugot has a full leather interior and a CD player, but it's probably not worth that much. Still, if that sounds like a bargain for your very own piece of revisionist history, you've got until May 10 before eBay's auction closes.

Larry Winget: bald person, financial guru, Hyundai pitchman. He's one of several financial authors who appear incongruously in Hyundai's current ad campaign, which features some "normal" people who, upon seeing an anonymous man in a tie pop up behind them at a car dealership and offer advice, react by saying excitedly, "Hey! Aren't you [financial author] of [personal finance advice book]?!" Whereas a real person would probably kick them in the nuts. The funny thing is that bald financial guru and Hyundai pitchman Larry Winget now says he doesn't necessarily want people to buy Hyundais at all!

Details have emerged about the latest model of the Valley's most self-righteous ride, the 2009 Toyota Prius, which hasn't been significantly updated since 2004. It will reportedly be longer, faster and more fuel-efficient. Also, the range of available models is expected to grow — anything from a smaller coupe to a larger, Lexus-like luxury sedan. What's not mentioned?

John Doerr and Al Gore have been taking their pitch for a new $400 million environment-friendly venture fund to prospective limited partners, and have already hired a veteran investment manager from Goldman Sachs to run it. This fund, which would invest in late-stage — that is, larger — clean energy and carbon reduction projects, comes in addition to the money already reserved for cleantech in KP's $600 million early-stage investment warchest. Helping to scale electric car manufacturing comes to mind — KP just threw some money at Norway's Think Global. And existing ethanol distillers could also benefit. After all, that kind of money would certainly buy a whole lot of Brazilian slave labor. (Photo by AP/Graham Hughes)

Norwegian electronic car manufacturer Think Global will ship 50,000 units to American customers, reports Alarm Clock. How much will this cleantech toy with a top speed of 65 mph set you back? $30,000. But hey, think of all the money you won't be spending on gas when you plug the car into our coal-fired power grid. The news comes as Think also announced funding from Kleiner Perkins, which presumably set the VC firm back more than $30,000. Video of the twee coupe zipping around Paris and London after the jump.

San Francisco cleantech startup Solazyme, which manufactures "Soladiesel" from genetically engineered algae grown in tanks warmed by solar heat, recently completed a successful test running heavy-duty vehicles on its homebrewed fuel, according to a press release. R. James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, arrived at the DESC Energy Conference in Arlington, Virginia in a Ford F-450 with a stock diesel engine powered entirely by Solazyme's B100 all-biodiesel blend. Which means that it can begin powering M1 Abrams tanks that measure fuel use in gallons-per-mile. The tests conducted by the Department of Defense concluded that Solazyme's concoction operates better than existing biofuels in cold temperatures. In other words, look out, Canada.

Perhaps Diddy's plan to create a celebrity chauffeur service wasn't such a bad one after all. After leaving a club last night mumbling and grumbling, beach yogi Jeremy Piven made an attempt to drive himself home in a techno-blaring first generation Ford Bronco (we think), but didn't make it very far. Seems the services of his dealer friend were needed to act as designated driver and deliver the Pivster to his abode unharmed. But what went down at the gas station where he abandoned his machismo-exuding ride? Tell us, nicotine-addicted witnesses, do tell us!

Have you already bored all your remaining friends with how many miles per gallon your Prius gets? San Francisco architect Michelle Kaufmann has the answer for you: prefab homes labeled with "sustainability facts" like CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and thermal conductivity. Be sure to note this at Mill Valley cocktail parties between swigs of your planet-killing plastic bottle of Fiji water.

This is an admittedly very cool new ad for Audi, in which a whole bunch of "powerful Hungarian gymnasts" run through an impeccably choreographed routine of flips and, uh, other gymnastic moves that are meant to symbolize the inner workings of the Audi RS6's engine. The car costs over $150,000, so it better have some damn fine inner workings [Guardian UK]. Our only issue with the ad is that they could have gotten the break dance crew in Washington Square Park to do this entire routine for about $87, so if they paid the Hungarians more than that, they just got ripped off. Click to watch the automotive performance art.

A tipster writes in:

We reported — and CEO Jason Calacanis didn't really deny — that Mahalo grosses about $9,000 a month. But don't worry about Mahalo employees. Here, for example, is Mahalo employee Sean Percival's Audi A6. It costs between $43,725 and $57,075 . Obviously, Percival is not a Mahalo guide. Surprisingly, Percival is a Mahalo guide. They only make $30,000 to $35,000, we hear. By the way, if this handy binary to text conversion tool is correct, Percival writes 011000100110000101100100 code. (Photo by Eric Rice)