A few days ago, we reported that a limited edition of 500 hopped-up Ford Focus RS was sold out within 12 hours of its announcement. Ford just had to utter “Ford Focus with 345BHP, a torque of 339lb/ft, 0-62mph in 5.6 seconds” and they were all spoken for. Judging from the stats coming off the TTAC server (the story was the most accessed that day,) interest in the hot hatch far outstrips the measly supply of 500. Help is on the way. You don’t even have to buy a new car. (Read More…)
As many as 800 workers at Denmark’s Carlsberg brewery walked off the job yesterday, after management restricted beer drinking to lunch hours and the company cafeteria. Previously, workers had access to beer around their work sites, and could drink at their own discretion. By now you’re probably either Googling “Carlsberg job openings” or wondering what the car angle to this story is. Actually, it’s more of a truck angle. Take it away, Associated Press [via Google]: (Read More…)
Don’t you just hate it when a band or stand up comedian you like is doing a show in your area but the second tickets go on sale, they’ve sold out? Then, if you’re really desperate, you enter the world of the ticket tout, where you could pay exorbitant prices for tickets which might not be genuine. Then, if that fails, you fall back on the “Oh, I’ll wait till it comes out on CD/DVD.” train of thought. Then, when you do get it, you’ll always listen/watch it with a sense of emptiness, knowing you missed out on that live performance. Are you feeling depressed now? Well, think how the people of Europe are feeling. At least those who yearn for a certain Ford Focus. (Read More…)
Inspired by the Volvo-Geely deal, Automotive News Europe [sub]’s Luca Ciferri contemplates the unthinkable:
Back in 1986 Ford offered to buy nearly 20 percent of Alfa with its stake rising to 100 percent if a turnaround plan for the struggling government-owned brand succeeded…. But the venerable sports car maker is still European. Its destiny is decided in Turin. If Ford had bought Alfa, the brand probably would be now owned by a Chinese automaker…. I wonder how the Alfisti would react to the prospect of decisions on future Alfa cars being taken near Beijing. I wonder what the unions would say if they had to learn Chinese?
Well Luca, infamous Italian xenophobia aside, perhaps the better question would be could Alfa really be any worse off than it currently is? If the brand manages to survive the year under its blessedly Italian leadership, it will be lumped into a GM-style “brand channel” and its new products will be based on Chrysler’s leftovers. Oh, and there’s no guarantee that it will survive its “strategic review” at all, as Fiat has said there’s a chance that Alfa won’t survive past another year. So who knows, maybe the Chinese will end up with Alfa sooner than Ciferri might imagine.
Here’s some encouragement for the folks freaking out about BMW’s front wheel drive heresy. Ford has found a way to make 345 horsepower work in an FWD chassis, shattering the conventional wisdom that 250 hp marks the reasonable limit for front-drive performance. Well, at least until the 500 lucky owners of this limited-edition mega-hatch start adding up their tire bills in a few years. According to Ford, the RS500 should be looking at a 5.6 second 0-60 time and a top speed of 163 mph. And no, you can’t order one at your Ford dealer in the US.
In America, certain European cars ostensibly set their drivers apart as willfully unique characters. Cars like the Volvo C30, or just about any Saab indicate that the driver’s desire to be seen as quirky iconoclasts outweighs any of the more rational metrics that might guide the car-buying process. And while in the US, compact size and European pedigree are the keys to stepping out of the automotive mainstream, making an automotive statement in Europe requires the opposite approach. Pickup trucks, muscle cars and American SUVs are the signifiers of choice for the Europeans who find themselves marching out of step with their efficient hatchback-driving fellow citizens. As a result, European advertisements for motorized guilty pleasures, like the one above, play on the perception that big V8s are downright antisocial. By refined European standards, no one should drive a brutish Camaro… but what’s more fun than blowing a supercharged raspberry at social niceties? And though the marketing for American muscle cars in Europe practically writes itself, global brands like Chevrolet don’t necessarily want the Ameri-barbarian associations… which might explain why Chevrolet has canceled plans to build a right hand drive Camaro.
Ah, the tangled web of automotive high finance. Victor Muller, CEO and largest shareholder of Dutch automaker Spyker Cars said “oops” (or Dutch words to that effect) and reduced his voting interest is Spyker from 34.3 percent to 26.8 percent.
Why? It just dawned on Muller (or his CPAs) that with more than 30 percent he would have had to make a buyout offer for the rest of the shares. After having gobbled up Saab through complex dealings involving Russian money of dubious provenance, being forced to buy out the whole company because of some silly law wasn’t a high priority for Muller.
Rules are rules, so what’s a newly minted tycoon to do? (Read More…)
While the autoblogosphere frets bout whether BMW drivers can tell which wheels drive their cars, the real news in the BMW-goes-FWD storyline is the impact that the sea change in brand strategy is expected to have on volume. Automotive News [sub] reports that BMW is developing a new family of modular gas and diesel engines, which are intended “primarily for BMW’s new front-wheel-drive architecture, but the powerplants also will be used in the automaker’s rear-wheel-drive cars,” according to CEO Norbert Reithofer. And the volume at which this new family of three, four and six-cylinder engines will be produced is one of the early indications of where BMW is going with its FWD expansion. Today, BMW sells just under 1.3m vehicles worldwide. That’s fewer cars than will be powered by this new family of engines alone, which Reithofer says will motivate 1.5m vehicles worldwide. Considering BMW’s goal is to sell 2m vehicles of all its brands by 2020, it’s clear that much of that growth will be made possible by new FWD-inclusive drivetrain technology.
(Read More…)
Saab is in full re-start mode. A few days ago, we reported that Saab is re-starting incentives. Now, they are re-starting production. Germany’s Automobilwoche [sub] reports that “after a one and a half month pause, Saab is building cars again.” Now under the ownership of the Dutch boutique maker Spyker. They even hired a new sales chief, Adrian Hallmark, formerly Executive Director Asia at Volkswagen AG and Executive Vice President at Volkswagen of America. According to Automobilwoche, Hallmark faces “a formidable task.” (Read More…)
It’s been said many a time that the problem with hydrogen as an energy storage system for cars is that it is always the future and never the present of transportation. Indeed, hydrogen has nearly fallen of the alt-fuel radar in recent years, as present-techs like hybrid and even electric drive have matured. But the dream is not dead. The great hydrogen hope now lives with General Motors, in the form of a new, lighter-weight fuel cell which GM says will be production-ready by 2015. The new cell is 225 lbs lighter and uses one-third less platinum than the systems being tested in GM’s 30-month “Project Driveway” Equinox fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs). That leaves more platinum for trimming Escalades, and has GM thinking that real-life series production of FCVs could be possible. GM’s Charles Freese tells Automotive News [sub]:
Our learning from Project Driveway has been tremendous. The 30 months we committed to the demonstration are winding down. But we will keep upgrades of these vehicles running and will continue learning from them while we focus efforts on the production-intent program for 2015. We will continue to use the Project Driveway fleet strategically to advance fuel cell technology, hydrogen infrastructure and GM’s vehicle electrification goals
European new car sales have fallen back to crisis levels. With many of the incentive programs withdrawn or phasing out, it’s back to reality. Reality is quite rough. Basically, Europe is back where it was in the carmageddon days of early 2009. The few bright spots are caused by on-going life support measures. Without government generosity, the European market place would be a wasteland.
New passenger car registrations in the EU increased by a mere 3 percent in February. Compared to the pre-crisis levels of February 2008, new car registrations decreased by 16 percent, reports the European Automobile Manufacturers Association ACEA. (Read More…)
Over the daily Toyota runaway stories, it’s easy to forget the plight of GM and its children abroad. If you think that’s the idea, then you are a miserable conspiracy theorist, and you should stand in the corner. With that in mind, let’s check in with GM and its worldwide siblings to see how they are doing. (Read More…)
In a study for the Danish Petroleum Industry Association, consulting firm Ea Energy Analyses concludes that electric vehicles (EVs) will not significantly improve the EU’s carbon footprint over the next 15 years. According to Globe-net.com‘s write-up of the report:
The study demonstrates that while electric cars have the lowest ‘tail-pipe’ emissions, they cannot attain the same travel ranges or top speeds as conventional cars. An electric car that could cover a similar distance with one charge would in fact produce more CO2 emissions than diesel vehicles, as it is heavier and requires more energy
The EU is currently considering tax policy for electric vehicles, and this report is sure to throw some flammable fossil fuel on the debate. Though the report is somewhat suspect in the sense that it was commissioned by an influence group that seeks to perpetuate fossil fuel use, there’s no denying that Europe’s reliance on coal and gas-power for electricity generation negatively impacts the carbon footprint of EVs.
Who doesn’t like a proper wacky duel? Like the one where James May raced a Ferrari against a camel, or when the guys from TopGear did a “train vs Aston Martin” from London to Cannes?
As in the case of the proverbial hare and tortoise, when you set two unlikely opponents against each other, you get some entertaining results — and you might even prove a point. That’s what Germany’s AutoBild (print edition, March 5) tried to do when it tested the assumption that power = speed.
Toyota has long insisted that the Lexus HS250h would be America’s luxury “dedicated hybrid” model, while the smaller CT200h would be a Europe-only model. That decision was an presumably based Lexus’s desire to match its US sales success in Europe by offering a unique model that was more attuned to European tastes, hence the CT’s trim, five-door-hatch packaging. But with Toyota and Lexus sales suddenly in trouble in the US, attracting “a whole new buyer to the Lexus brand,” as Lexus flacks put it to Automotive News [sub] suddenly took on a much higher priority. And so, the 1.8-liter Euro-hybrid will bring its “2.0-liter performance with class-leading CO2 emissions” to the US market beginning early next year. As a Euro-market model brought stateside to add youth-upscale appeal that its similarly-positioned US-market brand-mate is struggling to establish, the CT200h’s parallels with the forthcoming Buick Regal are intriguing. That Toyota is taking a page from GM’s product plan-thrashing playbook is just plain troubling.
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