Auto News 5

Germany's automotive industry association, (VDA), is calling for any revamped European Union-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to concentrate on establishing common standards in a bid to slash billions of dollars from development costs.

News 15 Jan, 2013

The launch of the new Chevrolet Corvette Stingray is huge news in the States, but should we take notice?

America's colossal debt is the largest challenge facing Michelin in the US but also it biggest opportunity, said the tyre producer.

News 15 Jan, 2013

Skoda has revealed plans to build a bigger SUV to rival the seven-seat Hyundai Santa Fe from 2015

A more profitable lineup and lower costs protect Ford from persistent weakness in Europe and increased competition in the U.S. auto market, Ford executives said.

First Look: 2014 Cadillac ELR

The Chevrolet Volt we've always wanted.

The Chevrolet Volt was developed under intensely difficult conditions. Beyond the never-done-before complexities of its powertrain, the Volt had to come to market by a certain date, had to hit a certain price, and had to be as efficient as possible. Much as we like the car that resulted -- it was our 2011 Automobile of the Year -- we wondered how good it might have been had gestated a bit longer, cost a bit more, and enjoyed a bit more design freedom. With the Cadillac ELR, which debuts at the Detroit auto show and goes on sale later this year, we no longer have to wonder.

Photo Gallery: First Look: 2014 Cadillac ELR - Automobile Magazine

Photo Gallery: First Look: 2014 Cadillac ELR - Automobile Magazine

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Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said the Mercedes brand must turn around its struggling Chinese operations to catch up with BMW and Audi.

Chrysler's Jeep brand is working to find the right solution to produce vehicles in China and Russia, but has nothing specific to announce at the moment,Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said.

GM failed to outsell Toyota's forecasted 9.7 million deliveries for 2012 while narrowly beating Volkswagen.

Maserati CEO Harald Wester gets mad when he hears that the new Quattroporte is based on Chrysler underpinnings.

Hakan Samuelsson, the new Volvo CEO, was not at all what I expected when he turned up for his first Detroit auto show.

Cadillac today unveiled the ELR sports coupe, a plug-in hybrid wrapped in a bold, flashy package that belies its green-car bona fides.

The 2013 FIA World Rally Championship will begin this week with the prestigious Rallye Monte Carlo held in Southern France.

Citroen
Nine-time World Rally Champion, Sebastian Loeb will contest the Rallye Mont Carlo. This is be one of the four events he will compte in this season. Loeb will be one of the favorites to win. His teammate, Mikko Hirvonen will also be to watch, but third driver Dani Sordo may also cause a real surprise as he returns to Citroen after driving for MINI.

Photo: WRi2

Volkswagen
After a full year of testing, the new VW Polo R WRC will contest its first real rally. The team's number 1 driver, former Citroen driver, Sebastian Ogier is hungry for victory. The Frenchman spent the last season driving a Skoda Fabia S2000 in the WRC while developping the Polo R. His teammate will be Ford's transfuge Jari-Matti Latvala. The Finn is undoutedly fast, but he really needs to avoid crashing like he did so many times during his years with Ford.

Photo: WRi2

Ford
Malcolm Wilson's M-Sport has lost the support of Ford but has managed to attact Nasser Al-Attiyah and the sponsorship of Qatar. Two young drivers, Norvegian Mads Ostberg and Russian Evgeny Novikov will be contesting the entire season in the team's Ford Fiestas RS.

Photo: WRi2

Weather conditions
There's been a lot of snow falls in the region recently and the roads will be very slippery. Sebastien Loeb is virtually unbeatable on dry tarmac but the Nordic drivers, such as Hirvonen, Latvala and Ostberg could well cause a surprise if the roads remain covered with snow.

Action starts tomorrow, Wednesday.

The snow covered paddock. (Photo: WRI2)

From GMM

Giorgio Ascanelli, the well-known F1 engineer who last year left his post as Toro Rosso's technical director, is set to return to the sport.

But Autosprint, the Italian magazine, played down reports the 53-year-old Italian has decided to go back to Ferrari.

Ascanelli began his career at Ferrari in the mid 80s, and was Gerhard Berger's engineer. He moved to Benetton and McLaren, at the latter team working alongside the great Ayrton Senna.

Giorgio Ascanelli returned to Ferrari in 1995, staying until 2001. It is known he is very good friends with the team's new technical boss, Pat Fry, and Autosprint said he recently met with the Briton.

"But he will not go (back) to Ferrari," said correspondent Alberto Antonini. "(But) Ascanelli is about to return to F1; the team's name is not yet known."

Autosprint said Ascanelli left Toro Rosso, who replaced him with James Key, "after an argument" with team boss Franz Tost.

Which F1 team will join Giorgio Ascanelli? (Photo: WRi2)

The fifth decade of world class rallying kicked off today with a snowy shakedown ahead of the 2013 Rallye Monte-Carlo, round one of the 2013 World Rally Championship.

Forecasters had predicted that snow would sweep across France during the night and they were right.

The WRC cars were off to run the 3.58km shakedown stage. The clerk of the course authorised the use of studded tires for this morning's test.

Jari-Matti Latvala, Volkswagen Polo R. (Photo: Michelin)

Not all the top crews were on studded tires for the first pair of runs, however. All the Citroën runners had chosen the tiny metal tips, for example, as did VW's Latvala and Ford's Hanninen, but Ogier, Ostberg, Novikov and Neuville went out on snow tires.

For the second visit later in the morning, the Citroëns remained on studs, Latvala switched to snow tyres, Ogier tried studs, and all the Ford drivers opted for Michelin snow tires.

So Neuville emerged quickest, in front of Sebastien Loeb and Evgeny Novikov.

Shakedown times:

1. Neuville (Ford), 2m26.1s.
2. Loeb (Citroen), +2.6s.
3. Novikov (Ford), +2.7s.
4. Hirvonen (Citroen), +3.3s.
5. Latvala (Volkswagen), +4.3s.
6. Ogier (Volkswagen), +4.4s.
7. Sordo (Citroen), +5.7s.
8. Ostberg (Ford), +6.8s.
Etc.

From GMM

Considerations about "money" played a role in McLaren choosing Sergio Perez.

That is the claim of Paul di Resta, the Sahara Force India driver who admits to having talks with McLaren when the British team was deciding Lewis Hamilton's 2013 replacement.

"I'm not going to give away too much, but yes, there were discussions," 26-year-old Scot di Resta, who is staying at Force India for a third consecutive season this year, said.

"Unfortunately in this sport now there's a little bit more to it. There's a commercial side and money's tight. Perez has some good backing," he is quoted by the Daily Mail.

Sergio Perez and Martin Whitmarsh at Woking. (Photo: McLaren)

Paul Di Resta is undoubtedly referring to Perez's former backing by Carlos Slim's Mexican telco Telmex, the company that while staying at Sauber this year has been linked with a future tie-up with McLaren.

"I've got a great relationship with McLaren," di Resta said.

"Martin Whitmarsh was actually the key person who put my name forward for Force India, and also I've been part of Mercedes-Benz for a lot of years. Our paths may cross," he said at the Autosport International show in Birmingham.

From Ferrari

Ferrari Formula 1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa enjoy some free time in Italy, and they are taking part in “Wrooom”, the Press Ski Meeting organised by Philip Morris International.

“Wrooom” Ferrari 2013 (Photo: Ferrari)

Taking place on the slopes of Madonna di Campiglio, this is the 23rd time that it marks the symbolic start of the Formula 1 and MotoGP seasons.

Brazilian Felipe Massa had a busy day skiing, while his teammate, Spaniard Fernando Alonso worked on his training in the gym. Both drivers have a fleet of brightly painted Fiat Freemont cars to shuttle between the glamorous and elegant Chalet Fiat, at an altitude of 2000m and the main area of the event.

“Wrooom” Ferrari 2013 (Photo: Ferrari)

Following meetings, press conferences and diners, the F1 drivers will be joined by their two-wheeled colleagues for the kart race on the frozen lake, which provides the setting for the spectacular closing ceremony of this week of activities.

“Wrooom” Ferrari 2013 (Photo: Ferrari)

“Wrooom” Ferrari 2013 (Photo: Ferrari)

“Wrooom” Ferrari 2013 (Photo: Ferrari)

“Wrooom” Ferrari 2013 (Photo: Ferrari)

Nasser Al-Attiyah was forced to retire from the Dakar rally after he suffered a broken engine during the 9th stage, his team announced on Tuesday.

Al-Attiyah and his navigator Lucas Cruze were running in second place, only three minutes behind race leader Stephane Peterhansel (MINI) before the 9th stage between San Miguel de Tucuman and Cordoba, Argentina.

The man from Qatar, who hit a tree earlier on, was forced into retirement after he suffered a broken hydraulic pump on his buggy. A few days earlier, his teammate Carlos Sainz was also forced to pull out of the Dakar with mechanical issues.

Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz (Team Qatar Red Bull) were both forced to retired with engine troubles. (Photo: Dakar)

This leaves Stephane Peterhansel alone out in front. The Frenchman, who won last year's race, is now first, some 50 minutes ahead of Giniel de Villiers (Toyota), who moved up to second position ahead of MINI drivers Leonid Novitskiy and Juan Roma after being fastest on Monday's stage.

We at Auto123.com rarely go forth and book long term test cars. The principal reason is not that these extended evaluations have no worth -- in fact, it's quite the opposite -- it has to do with logistics.

Be that as it may, we were and are so enamoured by the 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe that we wanted more time with it. These First World problems obviously did not deter us from getting our hands on our favourite 2013 compact utility vehicle of the year.

Truthfully, the 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe has been the talk of the segment from the moment we laid eyes on the first renderings that circulated the web in late 2011. The real deal has, so far, not let us down.

The real deal has, so far, not let us down. (Photo: Sébastien D'Amour)

Santa Fe in da house
So here it is: The unit that Hyundai Canada has graciously loaned us for 10,000 km (or 6 months, whichever comes first) is the same vehicle I reviewed a few months ago and, clearly, loved.

My neighbour also loved the 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe for a 20-minute test drive while it was in my custody, as it was enough to convince him to take delivery of one only a few weeks later.

Our 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe is a 2.0T Sport SE AWD version which is one step up from the best selling version that is the 2.0T Premium AWD.

The SE lined Santa Fe retails for $35,299 and features a large number of goodies that are especially appreciated at this time of the year. Namely, it includes heated front and rear seats as well as a heated steering wheel. Other niceties are satellite radio, rear-view camera and a massive panoramic sunroof.

A base 2.4L FWD 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe starts at $26,499 and tops out at $38,499 for the loaded 2.0T Limited version.

In the future
We plan on putting together a number of updates over the next few months including photo galleries and perhaps even a few videos if you guys are good...

We'll report on the turbocharged 2.0L 4-cylinder's fuel consumption as well as assess the 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe's family friendliness by throwing in a number of baby seats and strollers for fit and good measure. Miranda, of Auto-Venus.com, will be in charge of these tests.

Our 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe is a 2.0T Sport SE AWD version for $35,299. (Photo: Sébastien D'Amour)

On the road
So far, our 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport SE has weathered a massive one-day 45cm dumping of snow, frigid temperatures and everything else winter could possibly throw at us with impressive ease.

Those who have spent time with the Santa Fe have so far praised the heated everything and the overall performance afforded by the 2.0T.

More on the way
Yes, there will be much more. Our Multimedia team will use the 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe as their occasional service vehicle, and so it will be put to work.

We intend on accumulating comments from Auto123.com staff members and will neatly compile the lot in a number of published updates over the coming months.

As always, we welcome your comments, especially if you currently own a Hyundai Santa Fe.

From GMM

Kimi Raikkonen didn't make his formula one comeback with Williams because Lotus were offering him a more competitive car.

That is the claim of Adam Parr, the former Williams chairman who now admits to trying to secure the services of the 2007 world champion at the end of 2011.

Ultimately, the Williams talks collapsed and former McLaren and Ferrari driver Raikkonen, now 33, return to F1 after a two-year rallying hiatus last year with Lotus.

Famous for his laconic and truly unique personality, he surprised many in 2012 by winning in Abu Dhabi and finishing his return season with third place in the world championship.

Briton Parr, who left his role as Williams chairman early last year and is now promoting a book, confirmed he had talks with the Finn about driving for the famous British team in 2012.

"I wanted to bring Kimi to Williams in 2012," he is quoted as saying by Italy's Autosprint, "but I could not guarantee a competitive car for him. When I spoke with him, I was impressed by his hunger and his determination. Nevertheless, his value at the time remained unclear, and we didn't know just how strong our car would be."

Pastor Maldonado driving the Williams FW34. (Photo: WRi2)

In 2012, Pastor Maldonado won the Spanish grand prix and, alongside Bruno Senna, the pair helped Williams to finish eighth in the constructors' world championship.

With Lotus, Kimi Raikkonen also won just a single race but also an impressive tally of 207 points.