When asked by thenational.ae if he preferred to drive his McLaren F1 or Mclaren-Mercedes SLR to work everyday, the man who designed both legendary hypercars, Gordon Murray demurs:

I wouldn’t say the SLR is quite an everyday car but I certainly like to drive it to work. But for me, despite all those cars and my single-seater Rocket [a car he privately designed], it’s the [eight year-old Smart Roadster] I’m most taken with. For one, it’s a great-looking car. It has a power roof, heated seats and air con, and it all weighs just 830kg. In fact, it’s got all you’d want from a car. It nips around corners and it’s fun to drive.

So, other than proving that Murray has exquisite taste (I’d kill you all for a Brabus Smart Roadster Coupe), what’s the point? That, having been there and done that in the world of high performance, Murray’s taking on a less obviously sexy but ultimately significant project that first occurred to him in a traffic jam back in 1993: the T.25 and T.27 city cars. We’ve written about Murray’s T.25 before, but the real news today is the release of specs for the T.27, an all-electric version of the tiny three-seater. And yes, it weighs 1,500 lbs on the nose (including batteries), and ekes 100 miles of range out of just 12 kWh. That beats the efficiency of competitors like the Smart EV (by 29%), the Mitsubishi iMiEV (by 36%) and MINI E (by 86%). So, how does it do it?

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Careful when transiting Nevada by car: Soon, there can be driverless cars on the roads of the desert state, legally. Nevada passed Bill 511 (full text here) that lays the framework for autonomous vehicles.

For instance, the bill authorizes the Nevada DMV to come up with rules for driverless cars. Just think of it: Will you need a driver’s license to operate a car that needs no driver? Read More >

The TEDx conferences are always good for surprises, and the TEDxBoston conference yesterday was no exception. Two presentations caught the most attention: Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon Bohdan Pomahac talked about the first full face transplant in the United States. Carl Dietrich, CEO of Terrafugia showed a (soon) commercially available flying car. Read More >

Smell that? It’s the gathering scent of a new industry trend towards natural gas. Honda’s expanded its pioneering Civic GX to 50 states, Sergio Marchionne wants to replicate his Italian CNG success at Chrysler (eventually), and now GM is jumping on the bandwagon while it’s still relatively uncrowded. The Winnepeg Free Press reports that GM has signed a development deal with Vancouver, B.C.-based Westport Innovations which could see a prototype light-duty natural gas-powered engine completed “within 18 months” if preliminary study proves promising. A Westport spokesman boasts

If both parties agree to move ahead with commercialization this would be one of the first pure OEM [natural gas-powered] products

You know, except the Civic GX which has been prowling American streets since 1998. Still, with Chrysler targeting CNG commercialization no earlier than 2017, GM could have a strong head-start on a fuel technology that promises to be a viable and promising gasoline alternative, especially if the NatGas Bill [PDF] passes, expanding $7,500 plug-in tax credits to natural gas vehicles. And GM’s got a strong partner in Westport, which has heavy-duty commercial deals with Cummins and Caterpillar. With Nissan all-in on EVs and years ahead of the competition in terms of global EV production capacity, look for other competitors to hedge their alt-energy bets… and natural gas is rapidly becoming the most popular alternative.

TTAC’s man-about-the-junkyard Murilee Martin has made the bold claim that we live in the golden age of cheap superchargers, but when it comes to new cars, we may be entering another “golden age” for superchargers as well. Eaton’s Ken Davis tells Automotive News [sub] that his firm is looking at doubling its supercharger sales as the technology comes into its own as a fuel-saving measure. Though turbochargers have received the lions share of attention as the industry moves towards downsized, forced-induction engines, Davis argues that supercharger have their own role to play in the effort, specifically when it comes to “downspeeding” engines to produce better power at lower RPM. He adds

Audi is our largest supercharger customer, and we are on a couple of platforms with Nissan… Nissan will bring their supercharged vehicles here. We’ll be on Audi and Volkswagen platforms, too. We are starting to get some attention.

GMInsidenews.com has put together its take on GM’s forthcoming 2013 lineup, which will see the launch of only a few new cars including the Cadillac “ATS” small sports sedan and “XTS” DTS replacement, as well as Buick’s Gamma II-platform “Baby Buick” and a similar Chevy model. Other tweaks are said to include 250+ HP for the Regal and Verano Turbo engines (i.e. wait on that Regal GS unless you’re going to tune it yourself), a new interior for the Lamdas and SRX, a diesel engine for the Cruze and more. Hit the jump for all the details…
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Having seen its RX-8 banned from Europe for flunking emissions tests, Mazda may be going to extreme lengths to improve the efficiency of its next-gen rotary engine (codenamed 16x) which has been in development since 2007. Autocar reports

The 16X’s capacity has been raised from 1304cc to 1600cc, and it is also physically smaller and partly built from aluminium. The changes are designed to improve two of the biggest issues with rotary engine performance: fuel economy and torque delivery.

The Mazda source said the new engine “needed a smaller hole on the wall [of the combustion chamber]” as a result of eliminating the space-hungry normal spark plug. He also admitted to Autocar that the use of laser ignition “was absolutely possible”.

Recent advances in Japan have created high-power lasers made from ceramics that measure just 9mm in diameter and 11mm in length, easily small enough to fit into a car engine.

Not only would laser ignition allow the 16x to burn leaner, it would also allow more precise control of ignition points and timing. More importantly, it would cement the Wankel rotary’s status as the least-necessary, most overly-complex and thoroughly awesome engine ever created. And they say emissions standards always make cars less interesting…

In 2009, the world’s top 20 platforms accounted for 29 percent of global production, underpinning 18 million vehicles. This number is about to double to 35 million units in 2015, when the top 20 platforms will cover 38 percent of global output

Herbert Demel maps out the future of platform-sharing for Automotive News Europe [sub]. This Quote Of The Weekend has been brought to you by the word “differentiation”…

The idea of a “spiritual successor to the E-Type,” has been around since the XJ-S turned out to be anything but, and since 1997 we’ve been tormented with lust-worthy visions of small-roadster loveliness like the XK180 and F-Type concepts. Beyond the realm of ideas, however, the neo-XKE has had a tougher time of things. Jaguar has threatened several times to produce a version of its stunning concepts, but each time the rumors have ended in disappointment. But now Autocar has caught the first physical evidence that a new “E-Type” is actually crossing over into the realm of reality, with these first shots of a test mule.

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We (well, some of us) await the autonomous auto that leaves the driving to a robot, such as not to distract us from twittering and uploading pictures of our cats to our facebookies. That technology is not quite there yet. Volkswagen however thinks  “an important milestone on the path towards fully automatic and accident-free driving” has been set. So said Volkswagen’s Prof. Dr. Jürgen Leohold at the final presentation of the EU research project HAVEit (Highly Automated Vehicles for Intelligent Transport – who comes up with that stuff?) Read More >

Alfa’s four-year product plan has leaked to autoblog.it, and though it takes a little deciphering it confirms what we’d been hearing: that key Alfa products will be “Imported from Detroit” (to borrow a phrase). Here’s what we’ve been able to piece together: the 2012 models are the 4C “supercar” (note Alfa’s use of scare quotes around the term) and the Compact-Wide “C-SUV,” which will be built alongside the next-gen Jeep Compass and Patriot in Italy. Then, in 2013 the midsized Giulia sedan and sportwagon will debut, underpinned by the developed-in-Detroit next-gen 200/Avenger platform. That same year, the MiTo will gain five-door and convertible versions as well, with a more-mysterious D-SUV that will likely be closely related to the next-gen Jeep Liberty. Finally, in 2014 Alfa will update its C-segment Guilietta, at which point it should be ready for global (i.e. US-market) duty.

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The sad story of Maybach’s mini boom-and-bust, reborn in the go-go 90s only to die in the “Great Recession,” may not have the tidy ending we’ve been expecting for years now. Yes, Automotive News Europe [sub] reports that death is one of the three official options for the Maybach brand… and it’s certainly the option I’d pick. But if Daimler didn’t want to hold onto the plutocratic appeal of its zombie brand, Maybach would have died with a little dignity some time ago. And remember, the decline of Maybach is not the result of a decline in the über-luxury market… Rolls-Royce is selling cars hand-over-fist.

Accordingly, Daimler is exploring two “death alternatives” for Maybach: One, is rebuilding the brand in partnership with Aston-Martin, the other is relegating Maybach to a range-topping trim level. Aston has reportedly built four concepts on the next-gen S-Class chassis, so a new lineup is a real possibility, but then turning Maybach into “the AMG of Luxury,” and offering high-end trim for the S, GL and CL models would be cheaper and possibly even more profitable. And of course there’s always the eternal option: death. Which strategy would you suggest to Daimler before spending your giant consultants fee on a Rolls-Royce Ghost?

It’s one thing for a sportscar brand like Lotus to shrug off the self-destructive iconoclasm of its most hard-core “fans,” but it’s quite another thing for its chief executive to take a piss on the entire supercar market while describing the downpour as “authentic, cloud-filtered Alpen raindrops.” To wit, the following bit of nonsense found at Autocar:

The new Lotus Esprit will offer a more “authentic” driving experience than the Ferrari 458 Italia and McLaren MP4-12C, according to CEO Dany Bahar… Bahar claims the Lotus Esprit will “have the character and emotion” that he says the McLaren lacks. He also revealed that the rolling chassis was now complete and fully running prototypes would be ready by November… Formula 1 KERS-style technology is also expected to feature on the Esprit, but Bahar said such electronic systems would be used only where they add to the driving experience and not as driver aids.

If you can make any sense of this blithering nonsense, or how Bahar came to it based on his impressions of a rolling chassis, you must work in marketing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

Well, we’ve accidentally developed something a of a Chevy theme this morning, what with the Cobalt and 2013 Malibu… and now this, the Colorado Rally Concept, a first look at the next generation of GM compact pickups. Though the concept’s 2.8 liter turbodiesel engine is unlikely to make it to the US, Pickuptrucks.com reports

According to manufacturing documents we’ve obtained, the Colorado’s start of regular production is slated for Oct. 3, 2011, in Thailand and Jan. 16, 2012, in Brazil, where it will likely be sold as the S-10.

According to our sources, the code names for the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon versions for North America are 31XC and 31XG. Start of U.S. manufacturing is scheduled for around July 2014, though production of the current Colorado and Canyon are expected to end by 2012 at the plant in Shreveport, La.

Aimed directly at the global pickup segment defined by Toyota’s HiLux and Ford’s Global Ranger, the Colorado looks to be larger than the typical compact pickup and represents a fundamentally different strategy than Chrysler’s planned minivan-based “lifestyle pickup.” And don’t look now, but tough midsized trucks like this could be as much a replacement for current full-size buyers as gas prices and CAFE standards rise, as they could be true entry-level compacts. But then, we’ll need to see how much this global vehicle is modified for the US market before we really know what we’re getting here.

The front end of the forthcoming 2013 Malibu is cleanly handsome in a somewhat bland, international style… but that booty could only come from America! We haven’t seen much of the Malibu outside of still shots, and this video (hunted down by our man in Korea, Walter Foreman) is almost as jarring as seeing a car in person for the first time. In fact, it’s beginning to seem like the Malibu, with its very different front and rear-end treatments and what appears to be a featureless wasteland in between, is going to be difficult to properly appreciate until we see it in person.