Automobile owners in the U.S. see fuel economy as the leading element they will consider in purchasing their next car, according to a survey by Consumer Reports.
Nissan said it aims to triple global sales of its premium Infiniti brand by 2016 and take 10 percent of China's luxury vehicle market, challenging premium market leaders like Audi, Mercedes and BMW.
Nissan is preparing to appoint a global head for its Infiniti luxury brand after setting up the unit's headquarters in Hong Kong to boost sales in China and elsewhere.
It was confirmed today by BMW North America boss, Ludwig Willisch: the V6 engine idea is being dropped by the Bavarian manufacturer, to the profit of an inline 6.
Sources also indicate that BMW has patented an innovative electric turbo. The definitive number and nature of units found on the said straight-six must still be confirmed, both it could be two or even up to three turbines that will be fitted on the new engine.
The Munich firm did say the next M3 should be a lighter and more powerful one, hence faster. Other details should filter through soon, such as whether the manual gearbox will be standard or optional.
This new version will be available either at the end of 2013 or early in 2014.
French manufacturer Renault is about to take its brand new A110-50 to the Monaco track on Friday. Better still, this tribute to the legendary Alpine A110 will go into production!
The A110, which won the 1973 World Rally Championship, brought glory to Renault in the 60's and 70's.
Photo: Top Gear
The newer A110-50 taking to the streets of Monaco too is a tubular car - but built over a Renault Megane platform - which will weigh only 880 kg, and be powered by a 400-horsepower 3.5L V6 located behind the driver, that sends the power to the rear wheels.
The production version will use, on top of the platform, the engine of the Megane - a 2.0L 300-horsepower turbo unit.
More details should be revealed Friday, day of the launch.
The Zimride company is about to launch a smartphone app called Lyft, aimed at facilitating carpooling.
Only available at the moment upon invitation (and in the San Francisco area), Lyft enables people to find potential carpoolers, located in the same area and going in the same direction. Once the lift is "booked", the device allows the user to track his fellow traveller to know whether or not he's on his way.
Payment methods disregard cash. The system works instead on a donation arrangement, available with the app, that Zimride claims cost 30% less than a taxi. The only problem is people are, rightly so, not enthusiastic at the idea of embarking aboard an unknown car driven by a stranger.
To solve the problem, Zimride says it will perform thorough background checks on drivers upon their acceptance in the system.
The Lyft app only works on evenings so far, but a 24/7 solution is in the making.
The F1 car photographed amid the charred remains of Williams' burnt-out garage in Barcelona will be back in action this weekend at Monaco.
We reported last week that an initial inspection of Bruno Senna's Renault-powered FW34, which was sitting in the pits when the fire broke out during the team's celebrations for Pastor Maldonado's victory last Sunday, showed it had emerged with minimal damage.
A spokesman has now confirmed that Senna will race the very same chassis on the streets of Monaco this week.
Otherwise, the garage fire "somewhat hampered" Williams' preparations for the famous race in the Principality, chief engineer Mark Gillan admitted.
"But the impact has been mitigated by what can only be described as a herculean effort by the factory and our suppliers to restock both the damaged equipment and car parts," he said.
Photo: WRi2
Mark Gillan also said rival teams made "generous offers" of help.
Maldonado's chassis was safely in parc ferme at the time of the fire.
Recently, the Brazilian has been giving up his seat to the team's rising young reserve driver Valtteri Bottas on Friday mornings.
But Bruno Senna will be at the wheel of his Williams throughout the Monaco grand prix weekend.
The programme of the Finnish driver for 2012 involves practicing at every grand prix circuit "except for the street races".
Therefore, Valtteri Bottas is expected to also sit out Canada, Valencia and Singapore.
Even ahead of F1's Singapore floatation, the sport has some new owners.
Reuters, the specialist financial market news agency, said US-based asset managers Waddell and Reed, Blackrock and Norway's Norges Bank have bought a $1.6 billion stake from existing owners CVC.
The report cited a source "with direct knowledge of the matter". The companies did not immediately comment.
It drops CVC's stake from 63.4 per cent to about 40pc, the source said.
Other reports said pre-marketing for the listing, likely to go ahead at the end of June, will begin immediately.
"It is not our practice to publicly comment on our dealings with listing aspirants," said a Singapore bourse spokesman.
Some insiders have expressed concern.
"Look at the muted first-day response to Facebook's IPO," an unnamed banker told the Singapore broadsheet Straits Times. "The F1 listing is not nearly as attractive and long-awaited as that."
In an interview given to Autosprint, Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery said that the company is ready to supply Q3-only tires, but adds that the teams are reluctant to change the format of the qualifying session.
The main concern about the current format is that the cars must be shod on the same tires they qualify on in the race, something that has lead to drivers sitting out Q3 in order to limit their running and save sets of tires for the Grand Prix.
In order to change this, Pirelli could supply additional tires for the qualifying effort only.
Photo: Pirelli
"We could do it immediately," Hembery told Autosprint. "We could come up with a specific compound, or maintain the current ones. But the teams say that the format is fine as is, that the public enjoys tire strategies”.
Paul Hembery added: “But if a fan on the grandstands doesn't see much running in Q3, then that fan casts the blame on Pirelli thinking that we don't want to spend any more money in order to supply more tires."
Pirelli has unveiled the P Zero slick compounds that will be used for the races after Monaco.
The forthcoming races, after Monaco, are the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, the European Grand Prix in Valencia, Spain and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The same tires selected for Monaco this weekend will be used in Montreal, on the tight and twisty street circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, the P Zero Yellow soft and the P Zero Red supersofts tires.
Valencia is also a street circuit, but with higher temperature, and Pirelli will bring P Zero White medium and P Zero Yellow soft tires.
Silverstone is one of the quickest circuits of the year and the teams will be able to adopt different strategies with the P Zero Silver hard and P Zero Yellow soft tires.
As usual, each team receives six sets of there harder compound and five sets of the softer compound for the entire race weekend.
In 1985, Danny Sullivan, nicknamed “The Kentucky Kid” won the 500 Miles of Indianapolis with style, spinning his March at high speed and not hitting anything. Here's a video of his stunning spin!
Sullivan, who drove for the Benetton Tyrrell-Ford Formula 1 team in 1983 returned in North America afterwards to compete in the PPG Indycar series, driving for Roger Penske.
At Indy in 1985, he passed race leader Mario Andretti only to spin out of control. Sullivan did not hit the wall, pitted for a set of fresh tires and went on to win the race.
Sullivan made one of the most amazing saves in the history of the Indy 500.
The Japanese brand has revealed it sold as of April 30th, four million hybrid vehicles around the world - 423,000 in Europe and 94,000 in the United Kingdom.
Photo: Toyota
Toyota has become a leader in the hybrid technology industry. Its Prius was, after all, the first ever mass-produced hybrid vehicle - launched in December 1997. There was however another hybrid produced first, the Toyota Coaster hybrid EV, a bus which came out in July 1997.
But nevertheless, the Prius first went around in Europe, then ventured in North America and other markets with the new millennium. In 2003, a new generation was baptized and prompted engineers to use the technology elsewhere: minivans, SUV, sedans and family cars.
The third-generation Prius busted sell records.
In total, Toyota sold no fewer than 19 hybrid models in close to 80 countries, and estimates that this year's hybrid sales will represent 15% of the grand total. The aim now is to further develop the technology to enhance performance while reducing costs.
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