Auto News 5

Cadillac has ended production of the ELR plug-in hybrid, the striking coupe that never recovered from an initial $79,995 price tag that many consumers and dealers deemed exorbitant.

A shortage of steering wheels is disrupting production of the Jeep Cherokee and also has slowed output of the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

PSA and Kia forecast higher production at their plants in Slovakia this year. The country is home to three car factories and will see a Jaguar Land Rover plant open in 2018.

General Motors is expanding its car-sharing service Maven to Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., nearly four months after the service was launched.

News 19 May, 2016

Korean carmaker Hyundai is expected to repackage the Ioniq’s hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains in mainstream range of models

Uber is finally giving the world a peek at the car it's using to test self-driving technology.

Following the Queen's speech in the UK parliament on Wednesday (18 May) which announced the UK government would introduce a Modern Transport Bill, designed to "put Britain at the forefront of the modern transport revolution", Toyota said it was already making significant investments worldwide in future mobility technologies that would make personal transport safer, more efficient and easier to access for less able people and summarised its activities.

Mopar plans a $12.2 million, 400,000-square-foot parts distribution center late this year in northern Virginia, Fiat Chrysler's first new U.S. center since 2001.

Toyota has temporarily halted production at its San Antonio pickup plant due to storm damage.

ZF TRW has announced that it will start production of its innovative heated steering wheel technology (conductor insert heating system, or CIHS) with a major European vehicle manufacturer in 2017.

PSA Group will invest $785 million in its Vigo and Madrid plants in Spain. It will also build a new model in Vigo starting in 2020.

Nissan says its refreshed Nissan Qashqai will be the first Nissan car in Europe - and the first UK-manufactured car - equipped with autonomous technology in 2017 with ProPilot. It has also reiterated the timeline for the rollout of more advanced autonomous driving technologies.

U.S. regulators proposed a modest increase in the amount of corn-based ethanol and biofuels that fuel producers must mix into diesel and gasoline in 2017.

Vauxhall has announced that owners of Vauxhall Zafira B models will be invited to bring their vehicles back to Vauxhall dealerships "so that a preventative action can be carried out to protect the vehicles from the risk of fire"

Vauxhall will recall about 235,000 Zafira minivans for repair in the UK to prevent a possible risk of fire caused by a soldered fuse resistor in the vehicles.

Hella has developed an electrically driven vacuum pump for vehicle brake systems that it says "promises impressive performance, durability, power efficiency and packaging"

News 19 May, 2016

New hi-tech 480bhp Audi RS5 spied testing at the Nurburgring ahead of late 2017 release

Automotive News Europe salutes the winners of the 2016 Rising Stars awards. Every day through June 6 one of the 15 winners will be featured. The Rising Star for Engineering is Luka Trapic of Ferrari.