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American consumers appear to have become inured to the fuel price spikes and sales of the Toyota Prius and other hybrids may be flattening.

BMW has begun rolling out the i8 plug-in hybrid supercar as Tesla shakes up the market for luxury cars with alternative powertrains.

New UAW President Dennis Williams said he planned to attack the wide compensation disparity between veteran auto workers and new hires during next year's contract negotiations with the Detroit 3.

Elon Musk says he wanted to name Tesla's planned third model, a compact, battery-powered sedan, the Model E.

Lenders are boosting auto sales and commanding higher transaction prices by extending loan terms. Is the industry flirting with another 2008, or is the risk limited?

General Motors' investigation into its mishandling of a fatal defect spreads blame among dozens of employees at various levels, but it bluntly says the problem began -- and remained unfixed for years -- largely because of "a single engineer."

So what's the story behind last month's unexpectedly strong sales results? Forget the fifth weekend in May, crossovers are what did the trick.

General Motors employees who showed up at a town hall meeting last week expecting to hear CEO Mary Barra talk about moving on from the company's embarrassing safety crisis were thrown a curveball.

Blake Helfman could tell that May was going to be a killer month for Jeep at his Houston dealership when customers started putting their names on SUVs that were still on the delivery truck on his lot.

The Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec today launched a new awareness campaign to remind people of the many serious legal and financial consequences of drinking and driving.

Called “It's All Tied to One Decision,” and inspired by the butterfly effect theory, the campaign includes a French TV commercial, an English radio message, a Web banner, and a print ad in daily and weekly newspapers across Quebec.

Source : SAAQ

Red Bull racing driver Daniel Ricciardo became Sunday Formula 1 racing's 105th winner.

The ever smiling Australian snatched a last-gasp victory in Montreal on Sunday and in doing so became the 105th man to win a round of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship and the first new winner since 2012 when Pastor Maldonado won in Spain.

Ricciardo is the fourth Australian to reach the top step of the podium in F1, following in the wheel tracks of Jack Brabham, Alan Jones and Mark Webber.

He also joins Gilles Villeneuve, Thierry Boutsen, Jean Alesi, Lewis Hamilton and Robert Kubica in an exclusive club of drivers who claimed their first career win in Montreal.

Ricciardo's victory gave Red Bull their first victory of the season and power unit supplier Renault their first turbocharged victory since the 1986 Detroit Grand Prix when Ayrton Senna won for Lotus, and it also ended Mercedes' six-race win streak and any hope the Silver Arrows had of completing a ‘perfect' season.

Here are our photos of a great weekend of action.

Photos: Philippe Champoux

Hot on the heels of the aluminum-bodied 2015 Ford F-150, the Blue Oval is introducing the Lightweight Concept -- essentially a 2013 Ford Fusion that lost about 25% of its kilos and now weighs the same as a Fiesta!

The Lightweight Concept features lighter seat frames, a carbon fibre dashboard, an aluminum chassis and brake discs, along with polycarbonate windows. Magnesium, high-strength steel, and advanced composites were used, as well.

Under the hood is a Focus-sourced, 3-cylinder EcoBoost engine. The impact of all the lightweight components on fuel economy has yet to be revealed, however.

Photo: Ford

From GMM

Sahara Force India Formula 1 team smells something's strange, after Sergio Perez was penalised for a terrifying crash at the end of Sunday's Canadian grand prix.

As they tussled for fourth on the last lap, Williams' Felipe Massa hit the back of Mexican Perez's Sahara Force India, sending them both into the tires at high speed.

They were both transported to Montreal's Sacre Coeur hospital for checks and later released with no injuries.

Sergio Perez's Sahara Force India, Montreal (Photo: WRI2)

Both Williams and Force India pointed the finger of blame. Williams' post-race press statement said Perez "crashed into" Massa, but Force India claimed Perez was "the innocent victim".

Ultimately, the stewards sided with Massa, penalising Perez five places on the forthcoming Austrian grand prix grid.

According to Germany's Auto Motor und Sport, however, Sahara Force India suspects a conspiracy.

That's because, in addition to the four stewards in Montreal including former driver Derek Daly, also in the stewards room on Sunday was Adrian Fernandez.

Former IndyCar driver and Mexican Fernandez was Perez's manager until two years ago, when they acrimoniously split.

"The driver steward was Derek Daly," said Sahara Force India team manager Andy Stevenson. "I don't know why Fernandez was asked for his opinion."

FIA race director Charlie Whiting insisted: "From time to time, there are observers to the stewards.

"Fernandez will be the driver representative in Russia, so we invited him here to have a look."

Whiting said any talk of an anti-Perez conspiracy is "nonsense".

After initially forbidding Tesla from selling cars directly to consumers, the state of New Jersey has just passed a new bill in favour of the electric car maker.

The Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee unanimously allowed Tesla to start selling cars through its two existing outlets in New Jersey, and even gave them permission to open two more.

The bill isn't limited to Tesla, mind you; it also applies to all zero-emission vehicle makers, giving them the right to open up to four showrooms in New Jersey.

Will other U.S. states opposed to Tesla's business model follow the lead?

Source : techcrunch.com

From wrc.com

The devastating fire that destroyed Mikko Hirvonen's Ford Fiesta RS World Rally Car at Rally Italia Sardegna will cost his M-Sport team more than $675,000, team boss Malcolm Wilson revealed.

The Finn's car caught fire on the road section between stages 3 and 4 on Friday afternoon and within minutes it was a blackened shell.

Flames spread to the surrounding forest and the event was delayed for 80 minutes as fire crews fought the blaze.

“The financial implications to replace it are huge. You're looking in excess of £400,000 ($675,000) and we don't insure the rally cars, so that's a big hit,” Wilson told wrc.com.

Mikko Hirvonen's M-Sport Ford Fiesta RS WRC after the fire (Photo: WRC.com)

“If you have a big crash then nearly all the mechanical components are usually OK. But with what happened here, there is absolutely nothing we can reuse. Everything is destroyed and it's a big loss.”

Wilson said that while the most important point was that neither Hirvonen nor co-driver Jarmo Lehtinen were hurt, the cause of the fire could remain a mystery.

“If it had happened on a stage then you could say something has taken an impact. But to clear the stage with a good time and for this to happen while cruising down the road section, it's quite difficult for everyone to understand.

“Mikko thinks it started from within the right rear wheel. We'll take the car back to the UK but it will be difficult to identify anything, unless something like the propshaft has broken and gone through the fuel tank. Then it will be pretty obvious, even though the car is destroyed,” he said.

Original designs often times set the bar. Their innovative lines and style entice consumers to visit showrooms and is often enough to convince them to sign on the dotted line.

Sadly, follow-ups to these standard-setting looks fall way flat of the mark set by the previous generation of the vehicle.

Here are 10 of our favourite redesign disasters:

Hyundai Genesis Coupe (2010-12 / 2013-)
The first coupe was subtle and elegant. Now it's just too gaudy and boy-racer. Too much is too much.

Photo: Hyundai

Photo: Hyundai

Continue reading Top 10 Botched Refreshes/Redesigns from the last 15 years

From nascar.com

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in position to pounce Sunday, all but punching his ticket to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup by winning his second race this season and his first-ever at Pocono Raceway.

It took a little racing luck.

Runner-up Brad Keselowski was terrific in clean air. What he lacked was a clean grille.

When Keselowski's car began to overheat due to a piece of trash on his front end, Earnhardt roared by, becoming the fourth consecutive Hendrick Motorsports driver to put a Chevrolet in Victory Lane at Pocono Raceway.

Dale Earnhardt leads at Pocono. (Photo: Getty Images/NASCAR)

Earnhardt's triumph in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' Pocono 400 gave him two victories this season, his first multiple-win campaign since 2004 when he won six times. He has seen and appreciated the gradual-but-steady strides his team has made.

Keselowski led 95 of Sunday's 160 laps and led Earnhardt by more than one second when his engine temperature forced him to take decisive action with five laps to go. Keselowski tucked in behind the lapped car of Danica Patrick, hoping to draw the debris off his grille. It did not work.

Kurt Busch finished third, polesitter Denny Hamlin fourth and rookie Kyle Larson took fifth. Hendrick driver Jimmie Johnson, winner of the previous two Sprint Cup races, started 20th, overcame a pit road collision with Marcos Ambrose that dropped him as far back as 31st, and wound up sixth.

From Andretti Autosport

Scott Speed and Andretti Autosport are now 2-for-2 in Red Bull Global Rallycross this season after the ex-Formula 1 driver captured the X Games gold medal at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

Speed, driving the No. 77 7Up Volkswagen Polo, ran the table in today's elimination rounds, winning his quarterfinal and semifinal heats before beating skateboarding icon Bucky Lasek and another F1/NASCAR veteran, Nelson Piquet Jr., in the final.

“This thing is so fast - it's always so fast,” Speed told ESPN. “It's just a matter for us to stay clean and if we can get out in front, they can't catch us...Our car is so good, it makes my job easy.”

Speed opened the season with a win last month at Top Gear Festival Barbados.

Scott Speed (Photo: VW)

In today's final, Speed won the holeshot heading into the first turn with Liam Doran and Piquet following in second and third. Those front three plus Austin Dyne took the joker on the opening lap of the 10-lap final, but on Lap 3, Dyne sustained contact with Patrik Sandell in the hairpin when the latter tried to pass him on the inside.

Dyne was left with a broken suspension and could not continue. That brought out a red flag and also led to Race Control barring Sandell from the remainder of the final.

Speed, Doran, Piquet and Lasek lined up again for the restart with eight laps left, but Doran ran his Citroen wide in the rush to Turn 1 and fell all the way to last.

Meanwhile, Speed earned the holeshot again and went on a relatively easy cruise to the win, while Lasek picked up the silver medal in his Subaru after Piquet earned a black flag for running the joker twice (a no-no in GRC racing).

From GMM

Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team insists its chief designer, Adrian Newey is not retiring.

On Sunday, off the back of reported huge-money poaching efforts by Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren, the world champion team announced that Newey has agreed a new "multi-year" deal.

But Red Bull also said 55-year-old Newey will be working on "new Red Bull Technology projects", while merely "advising and mentoring" the F1 team "as it develops its formula one cars over the next few seasons".

And interviews given by Newey in the hours before Sunday's Canadian grand prix made it sound as though the Briton is stepping away from F1.

Renault's Remi Taffin and Red Bull Racing's Adrian Newey (Photo: René Fagnan)

Indeed, Red Bull's Dr Helmut Marko admits Newey is "disappointed" at the state of today's F1, where unbridled technical inspiration is a thing of the past.

"One must understand that whatever he has done has been banned or restricted by the rulemakers shortly thereafter," he lamented.

"The technical rules have clearly restricted his work, which has frustrated him, but instead of losing him, we have found this solution.

"Newey will remain active with Red Bull Racing for another year," Marko told Germany's Sky, but at the same time he will be fronting what Marko referred to as the new 'Advanced Technology Centre'.

How Newey will split has time has "not yet been fully defined", Marko admits, "but Adrian's genius and incredible wealth of experience will still be available to the team."

Sergio Perez and Felipe Massa had a huge accident in the last moments of the Canadian Grand Prix Sunday.

Shortly after the race, stewards blamed Perez for the accident, judging that the Mexican had changed his racing line going into the Senna corner.

Monday, Perez, who drives for Sahara Force India, said he'd left his Williams rival enough room to overtake.

“It was very disappointing to lose such a strong result through no fault of our own,” Perez declared.

“I was following the same line and braking patterns as in the previous laps and I just got hit from behind by Massa. There was plenty of space on the left of my car to attempt a clean overtake and I cannot understand why he had to scrape by.

“I watched several replays of the incident and I can't help but notice how Felipe turns right just before he hits me. I can only think he must have changed his mind and wanted to rejoin the racing line, his misjudgement cost us a big amount of points.”

The team posted this screen capture showing Massa turning his steering wheel slightly to the right moment before the impact.


Near the end of the race, Perez' Sahara Force India developed braking problems. However, the Mexican refuted the suggestion made by Williams that he shouldn't have been on track in the first place.

"Also, I'm not happy about comments saying we should have retired the car,” he continued.

“It was perfectly driveable with just some adjustments and we showed it up until the moment in which we were taken out. Other cars out there had been in similar conditions for way longer than us and they finished the race without problems”.

Sergio Perez's Sahara Force India, Montreal (Photo: WRI2)