On paper, the BMW M2 should deliver the full-boat of M-division goodies above the M235 — a car that has plenty of promise and fun, albeit at a price.

The M2, which BMW unveiled Tuesday, sports a fully fledged, electronically controlled rear differential, a modified oil sump, more power, wider stance and six-speed manual as standard. It tickles all the right notes for the well-heeled Munich enthusiast.

But the official announcement left plenty of questions about the car, which will go on sale next spring.  Read More >

German magazine Der Spiegel reported Wednesday that at least 30 Volkswagen insiders and managers had knowledge of the illegal “defeat device” and there may be more.

The claim would somewhat refute to what Volkswagen of America chief Michael Horn testified in front of a congressional subcommittee last week when he told representatives that “a couple of software engineers” at Volkswagen in Germany were responsible for the the scandal that has cost the company billions of dollars.

Volkswagen hired U.S. firm Jones Day to conduct an external investigation while the company inquires internally how engineers installed software on 11 million diesel cars that would cheat emissions tests.

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As I continue my occasional look at cheap, mid-engine sports cars of the Eighties, one enormously popular car is clearly missing. The Fiero was GM’s attempt at producing an efficient, yet potentially fun car on the cheap.

Unfortunately, GM mostly succeeded at producing a platform for awful Lamborghini replicas.

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Chairman of Škoda Prof. Dr. Winfried Vahland, who was tapped to lead a new North American Volkswagen region, will be leaving the Volkswagen Group, it was announced Wednesday.

Vahland will not be taking the N.A. role which would have given him the responsibility of overseeing the U.S., Canadian and Mexican markets.

“Differing views on the organisation of the new Group region have led to this decision,” Škoda said in a release on Wednesday, though the automaker was careful to point out that “this decision is expressly not related to current events on the issue of diesel engines.”

A replacement for Vahland in North America has not yet been announced.

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According to one Chattanooga factory worker on the TDI Club forum, Volkswagen is ramping up production of the new Passat TDI despite not being certified by the Environmental Protection Agency regarding its emissions.

The new 2016 Passat, which will launch later this year, is equipped with three different engines — a 1.8-liter turbocharged and a 3.6-liter V-6 gasoline engines, and a 2-liter diesel engine. The poster said those cars already built and equipped with the TDI engine are missing significant portions of their front fascia as they come off the assembly line.

The Passats in question are missing headlights, grilles and front bumpers, said the poster.

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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles may double the amount of temporary workers it uses under a new deal negotiated with the United Auto Workers, Bloomberg reported (via Automotive News).

The negotiated terms include a provision for the automaker to use the workers any day of the week, instead of the previously allowed Monday, Friday and weekend shifts.

According to the report, the terms may have been negotiated as a way to keep labor costs lower and offer more workers raises. Temp workers are hired at rates lower than any of the tiered-pay scales. Temp workers can be terminated at any time by the automaker.

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Police say a photographer with the Reno Gazette-Journal on Oct. 9 trespassed at Tesla’s battery factory in Nevada and struck security guards there with a car.

According to Storey County Chief Deputy Melanie Keener, the photographer, Jose Andrews Barron, was charged with misdemeanor trespassing and two counts of felony battery. He was taken to Storey County Jail and held in lieu of $30,000 bail. It’s unclear if Barron is still at the jail.

In a post on its corporate blog, Tesla said Barron and another newspaper employee climbed over a fence and took pictures of the battery factory. When approached, Barron and the other employee jumped into a car with Reno Gazette-Journal stickers. Barron struck a security guard on his way out and hit another security manager on an ATV. According to the newspaper, the driver’s side window was smashed and a seatbelt was cut in half.  Read More >

Automotive News Europe reported that Volvo will offer a new compact crossover, based on a new architecture, in 2018 that will likely be called the XC40.

The crossover will be built in Ghent, Belgium and possibly in China, using the same platform being developed for compact cars in Europe.

The crossover will get Volvo power plants that include a hybrid variant. It would also likely get some sort of semi-autonomous driving feature as the Swedish automaker further develops its technology.

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The Texas Auto Writers Association said Tuesday that the new, diesel-powered Nissan Titan XD was the 2015 Texas Truck of the Year and the Ford F-Series won Truck Line of Texas, alongside 22 other awards in a bi-annual affair held on non-consecutive Sundays until an eventual winner is crowned after a round-robin, double-elimination playoff.

The award for the Titan XD is the first for the truck, which will go on sale in December. Texas auto writers awarded the Ram 2500 with best heavy-duty pickup, Ram 1500 Rebel as the best full-size pickup and the new Toyota Tacoma as the best mid-size pickup. Read More >

September 2015 was a massive month for the U.S. auto industry, as the SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rate) shot past 18 million sales and year-over-year volume jumped 16 percent. The auto industry marked the end of the third quarter having produced five-percent growth compared with the same period one year ago, making possible the idea that American consumers, businesses, and governments will purchase and lease more than 17 million new vehicles in 2015 for the first time in 14 years.

That’s the overall theme. These are some of the more interesting numbers which help make it so.

2,630 Non-Golf Golfs: Even before Volkswagen’s dirty diesel scandal, the majority of Golf hatchbacks (ignoring the SportWagen for the moment) sold in the United States aren’t even available with a diesel engine. The gas-only GTI, gas-only Golf R, and electric-only e-Golf generated 69 percent of total Golf hatchback sales in September. Read More >

Tesla will begin rolling out its firmware update Thursday to enable some Model S and Model X cars to partially drive themselves, the company’s CEO announced on Twitter.

Tesla’s AutoPilot feature will reportedly steer the car during some highway driving and help parallel park the car. A valet feature that would park and retrieve the car without a driver will reportedly come later. It’s unclear how autonomous the cars will be after Thursday, so we’ll save up the $75,000 and let you know as soon as we can.

Model S cars built after September 2014 will reportedly be eligible for the driver-less updates. Cars without the needed sensors and cameras receive a UI update, according to CEO Elon Musk.

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Like Al Pacino in “The Godfather 2,” Sergio Marchionne’s move to insulate himself further and tap future successors has claimed another victim. On Monday, former Fiat North American chief Jason Stoicevich resigned from the automaker, days after he was replaced as head of Fiat by Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis.

Stoicevich was a longtime FCA employee, heading up the automaker’s California sales office and former head of Jeep operations before that.

His departure is the latest in a company-wide shakeup to consolidate most North American brands between fewer brand chiefs.

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Volkswagen in Germany announced Tuesday that its diesel cars on sale in Europe and the U.S. would be fitted with an emissions-scrubbing urea tank instead of a lean nitrogen-oxide trap and the automaker would develop further its all-electric vehicles, starting with the Phaeton.

“The Volkswagen brand is repositioning itself for the future. We are becoming more efficient, we are giving our product range and our core technologies a new focus, and we are creating room for forward-looking technologies by speeding up the efficiency program,” Volkswagen passenger cars board chairman Herbert Diess said in a statement.

The automaker announced it would trim €1 billion ($1.1 billion) from current projects, but didn’t specify what three-row SUVs those projects would be.  Read More >

John Martin, Nissan North America’s senior vice president of manufacturing and supply chain management, had some harsh words for Tesla on Friday. According to him, Uber — not Tesla — is the real disruptor, and what Tesla is doing now is relatively easy, Automotive News reported.

“Lot’s of people are calling Tesla a disrupter. They are not,” he said while arguing that building a performance vehicle that’s priced over $100,000 is much easier than manufacturing an electric car for under $30,000.

And what about Apple and Google? Martin doesn’t foresee either of them getting into the auto manufacturing business anytime soon.

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Mercedes-Benz will open performance centers at specific dealerships across the U.S. to expand the AMG brand from enthusiast sub-brand to mainstream performance line, Automotive News is reporting.

Dealers may have to pay up to $200,000 for extra showroom space and training, the report said. The automaker expanded its AMG brand this year with the Mercedes-Benz C450 AMG and GLE450 AMG, which are performance variants of those cars but stop short of the full-performance models.

The move is similar to how other luxury automakers watering down expanding their performance lines, such as Audi’s S-line and BMW’s M-division.

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