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General Motors has responded to a recent Carnegie Mellon University study claiming that upcoming plug-in hybrids such as the Volt are not actually as efficient as they seem. While cars such as the Volt use large batteries to achieve electric-only ranges of around 40 miles, the study claims that the best compromise between expense and efficiency would be to use smaller batteries giving the cars a range of just 7-12mi (11-20km). Now, GM's vice-president of global program management, Jon Lauckner, has come out to defend the carmaker’s position. Lauckner claims that the study fails to take...
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Bentley gets idle staff to build furnitureLuxury carmakers have a knack for stamping their logos on almost anything, from pens, to laptops and watches. But the latest direction Bentley is turning for additional revenue has left us scratching our heads a little - the 90-year old company has started producing furniture, including tables and...
Kenneth Hall -
Official: Honda sells F1 Team to former team principal Ross BrawnHonda has announced today a new owner for its Brackley-based F1 outfit in the form of former team principal Ross Brawn. The entire shares of the team, previously owned by UK holding company Honda GP Holdings Ltd., were sold to Brawn for an undisclosed sum earlier this week. As a result of this...
Jeremy Weber -
Audi R15 TDI to contend three ALMS events this yearDiesel is fast - scary fast - as Audi's R10 TDI proved when it swept through the world of Le Mans and endurance racing by storm in previous years. Since then rule changes have dampened the flame somewhat, but it's still a competitive and formidable platform. This season, it's getting a full-scale...
Jeremy Weber -
400hp for $35,000: Pontiac G8 GXP and Dodge Charger SRT8 after incentivesWhoever said the muscle car era was dead and gone? Right now you can drive away with more than 400hp (298kW) under the hood for around $35,000. The poor state of the economy is taking its toll on vehicle sales (GM just posted its worst sales figures since 1967 in February) but this is also having a...
James Martinez -
China's carbon emissions jump 80% in just three yearsBeijing's efforts to cut its local pollution for the Olympics aside, China has shown little interest in cutting back its output of carbon into the atmosphere. Even with Beijing's drastic measures, athletes and press complained of the oppressive atmosphere. Now it looks like China's atmosphere may...
Alex Kaufmann -
The Fiat-Chrysler partnership has been brewing since well before the economic meltdown and federal loan bonanza of late 2008, but it's still taking shape as the carmakers find ways to work to their mutual benefit. Today Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne reaffirmed his confidence that Fiat will be able to help Chrysler out of its hole. In fact, Marchionne thinks Fiat will not just help Chrysler out of the red, but add significant value to its operations. Technology, products and design are some of the ways Fiat will bolster Chrysler's business situation, he says. Far from the picture of the...
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Pininfarina updates B0 Concept as Bluecar EV, more production detailsPininfarina gave up contract manufacturing last year to focus solely on building electric vehicles (EVs). At the Geneva Motor Show this week, the company has reworked their B0 Concept into a more palatably-named BLUECAR EV, with more details on its expected production plans. The B0/Bluecar EV was...
Kenneth Hall -
GM auditors have 'substantial doubt' about the company's survivalOnce again General Motors is issuing a warning that it may run out of cash. How, you might wonder, considering the billions in taxpayer dollars that have already been pumped into the company? It's unfortunately very simple: GM is still playing catchup with its debt, and all the money spent so far...
Ralph Hanson -
Washington kickstarts credit market with $200 billion in consumer loansIn a plan to stimulate the flailing American economy and instill confidence in the credit market once more, the U.S. federal government will be launching a new $200 billion program to help Americans finance large purchases. Previously, it was thought that the government could increase the program...
Alex Kaufmann -
Lamborghini sales drop 40%, Winkelmann fighting to stay in the blackLuxury sports car manufacturers are having a tough year in 2009, despite their successes last year. Earlier this month we heard from Porsche, who had experienced a massive drop in sales for the first six months of fiscal 2008/2009 following their record profits last year and now a similar story is...
Ralph Hanson -
Mulally: electric vehicles are our futureThe times, they are a changin'. Carmakers that had seemed bulletproof, or at least too big to fail, are teetering on the brink of insolvency. Government regulations and stipulations on loan money are cinching down emissions and efficiency requirements. And tax incentives are spurring development of...
Ralph Hanson -
A consortium of industry agencies and the United Nations wants the world to cut its vehicular emissions by 50% by 2050. The cutely-named '50 by 50' plan calls on governments around the world to cut back voluntarily, since there is no real enforcement mechanism. "We're not saying that nobody can have a car," said Jack Short, secretary general of the International Transport Forum, a constituent of the consortium. "This is a building-block towards making the transport sector part of the solution towards a low-carbon economy." In addition to helping the planet by cutting back emissions, the group...
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Bob Lutz: Saab and Volvo should mergeSwedish carmakers Saab and Volvo are in a similar predicament. One is owned by struggling Detroit carmaker General Motors and the other by Ford, and both are being spun-off from their respective parent companies in light of significant losses over the past couple of years. For Saab, GM simply cut...
Ralph Hanson -
Fed loans could see low-cost Fisker hybrid in roughly two yearsFisker Automotive is less than a year away from launching its new Karma plug-in hybrid luxury saloon, arguably one of the most stylish looking cars on the auto show circuit, not to mention one of the cleanest too. While big name carmakers like General Motors and Toyota struggle to launch...
James Martinez -
Skoda previews sporty Fabia vRS with new Sport Design ConceptVolkswagen-owned Skoda doesn't get much press in the U.S. but over in Central and Eastern Europe it is one of the most popular automotive brands. Having launched new versions of its mainstream Octavia and Superb sedans in the past year, the company has now also revealed its all-new Yeti compact SUV...
Alex Kaufmann -
Pontiac axes Torrent SUV, shifts focus to carsGeneral Motors has confirmed that Pontiac's struggling Torrent SUV will be canned this week due to poor sales and a need to remarket the brand as a lineup that specializes in cars. The news comes from the company’s North American vice-president of Buick, Pontiac and GMC, Susan Docherty, who...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
In Depth: Ford's RevoKnuckle Suspension And Quaife LSD For The Focus RSAsk any racing fan what's the best drivetrain layout for speed and you're sure to get one of two answers: rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. Front-engine, mid-engine or rear-engine, all will agree that front-wheel drive is wrong-wheel drive. But Ford set out to design the all-new Focus RS as a...
Nelson Ireson -
Car-themed notebooks are no rare occurrence these days, and a multitude of notebooks with luxury car themes have hit the markets as of late from Ferrari, Bentley, and Lamborghini. Continuing on in this tradition Asus has just unveiled a new Lamborghini themed laptop at the CeBIT show in Germany, although pricing and a release date are still uncertain. Like Lamborghini automobiles themselves, the focus on the Asus Lamborghini VX5 laptop is strictly on performance and the computer boasts an astonishing array of performance features. The Asus Lamborghini VX5 houses what Asus claims is the...
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Germans scrap clunkers as Americans hang on to theirs longer than everThe U.S. Senate killed the 'Cash for Clunkers' bill in February on the argument that it wouldn't have enough of an impact. While they may have been right - the bill only allowed for limited incentives - the premise has proven successful in Germany. Running against a very strong current of downward...
Nelson Ireson -
Obama's stimulus package expands plug-in hybrid incentives, but diesel fans unhappyA new-generation of plug-in hybrid vehicles may still be a couple of years away from reaching showrooms but the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill passed by Congress and signed into law last October by President Bush and expanded by President Obama's recent stimulus package secures a tax break...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Ferrari confirms 599 hybrid prototype in testingGovernments around the world are bowing to public pressure to reduce greenhouse gases, and more often than not the first sector they look at is the auto industry. The European Council has proposed a ruling that could see carmaker’s forced to limit their fleet average CO2 levels to 130g/km by...
James Martinez -
KTM brings five-pack of track-day specials to Geneva Motor ShowIf you want to go fast around a track, chances are you already know about the KTM X-Bow - but you may not know about the four new variants introduced today in Geneva. Even as the model range expands, however, KTM is drawing back production to meet the receding market. The familiar KTM X-Bow is now...
Nelson Ireson -
2009 Prima Concept: a Tata that actually looks goodTata has gone from strength to strength since the unveiling of its groundbreaking Nano minicar early last year. Many doubted Tata’s ability to turn out a 1-lakh ($2,500) car, but the company proved the skeptics wrong and even followed it up with a special edition model planned for a European...
James Martinez