Automotive
Spied: 2011 Dodge Charger
Jun 5th
Earlier today, spy photographers caught an in-testing 2011 Dodge Charger R/T whose cover blew off. While we had seen photos of the car’s interior earlier, these are the first clear shots of the Charger’s exterior.
The 2011 model is an evolutionary step over the current sedan, with a larger, forward-canted grille and more aggressively chiseled hood coming together for an even angrier look than the first-generation Charger. The new bumper has revised fog lights and a larger air intake to match the grille.
The 2011 Charger is based on Chrysler’s LY platform (shared with the Chrysler 300C and Dodge Challenger) and is essentially a major refresh of the current model, rather than an all-new car. Interestingly, while Chrysler spun Dodge’s truck lineup into a separate Ram brand, the new sedan still sports the horned ram logo, suggesting Dodge might stick with the old badge for the moment (or might switch the badge later).
Photos: Autoblog/KGP
Full gallery after the break. More >
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John DeLorean’s Would-Be Last Interview: Planned New DMC Hybrid Coupe
Mar 20th
DeLorean with a DMC-12 Prototype
John Z. DeLorean is an automotive legend. At GM, he created the Pontiac GTO, setting off the muscle car era, turned around the Pontiac and Chevrolet brands, and was set for an upper-level executive seat at the company when he decided to jump ship, escape the GM bureaucracy, and create his own company. Driven by passion and sheer determination, he collected $200 million in funding for the DeLorean Motor Company in order to create his dream car– a safe, ethical sports car. The resulting DMC-12 — a stainless steel gullwing coupe that still draws universal attention on the road — was popularized by the Back to the Future movie series.
Unfortunately, John DeLorean passed away in March 2005. AOL Autos editor Tom Torbjornsen was scheduled to interview him the following week, but Torbjornsen had a phone chat with DeLorean the week before, on the basis of which he put together his “best guess at what [he] thought John might have said based on [their] conversation”– it’s an interesting read.
DeLorean revealed plans to relaunch DMC with a new sports cars inspired by the DMC-12. It’d be a lightweight coupe with carbon fiber body panels, a high-performance Renault engine, gullwing doors (of course), and an optional hydraulic hybrid drivetrain based on technology from Hydristor. Sadly, DeLorean never got a chance to realize these plans.
Source: AOL Autos
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McLaren Unveils MP4-12C: 600 HP V8, 1.6 GHz Intel Atom, Runs Windows
Mar 19th
Earlier today, McLaren Automotive unveiled its new supercar, the MP4-12C, and as expected, it’s a performance monster, powered by McLaren’s own (not BMW- or Mercedes-designed, as in the company’s earlier cars) 3.8L V8 mid-engine developing 600 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque with an 8,000-rpm redline. Most impressively, at least 369 lb-ft of torque is available at all times between 2,000 and 8,000 rpm. The car is constructed of a center carbon-fiber tub and outer aluminum structures, weighing in at just 1,300 kg (2,870 lb)– not quite as light as the 1,000 kg McLaren F1, but impressive nonetheless considering how much more safety equipment the MP4-12C carries.
So far, so good. The MP4-12C ‘s going to be light, fast, very well-built (build tolerances are less than 0.5 mm), safe (McLaren’s conducting dozens of crash tests to maximize safety), maybe even reliable (with over a million miles of test driving), but comfortable and livable? Not words one might typically use to describe a supercar, but that’s what McLaren’s aiming for.
The MP4-12C features a 7" in-dash touch screen powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom CPU running Microsoft software
Here’s where it gets really interesting. The MP4-12C’s spec sheet looks like someone accidentally mixed it in with something describing a netbook or tablet. Intel Atom 1.6 GHz, 7″ portrait-mode touch screen, Bluetooth, 802.11 Wifi, USB, and Microsoft software. Now that’s something you won’t find in any factory-shipped car in America, let alone a supercar. It’s all part of McLaren’s IRIS infotainment system, which is based on Microsoft software, presumably running on Windows Embedded. McLaren’s choice of Atom is interesting because in-car entertainment systems generally don’t require as much performance as an x86 Atom chip can deliver (Ford’s Microsoft-powered SYNC has a 400 MHz ARM11 processor, for example– see here for info on embedded processors), so IRIS must be something pretty fancy.
Full photo gallery after the break. More >
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Spied: 2011 Dodge Charger Interior
Mar 10th
Spy photographers caught the next-generation Dodge Charger during a testing run earlier today. The car’s interior was photographed for the first time, showing a moderately improved design. The 2011 model sedan, based on Chrysler’s LY platform (shared with the Chrysler 300C and Dodge Challenger), is essentially a major refresh of the current model, rather than an all-new car. As a result, designers couldn’t completely revamp the interior, but it does have smoother lines and new, even if questionable, accents (such as a large, silver slab of plastic across the driver’s side).
The car photographed seems to be a top-spec model, with a large in-dash navigation screen and two-tone color scheme (cream-colored leather seats and matching door panels). Whether Chrysler is finally using soft-touch materials instead of hard plastic remains to be seen.
More photos of the new Charger after the break:
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Daimler Selling Long-Held Stake in India’s Tata Motors
Mar 9th
Daimler is selling its fifty-year-old stake in India’s Tata Motors, Bloomberg reports. The two companies are increasingly in competition around the world. Daimler is looking to expand in the Indian commercial vehicles market, having taken over a former joint venture with the Hero Group. The firm plans to invest nearly $1 billion in India and has started work on a new factory in Chennai that will begin producing trucks in 2012. At the same time, Tata Motors is expanding into larger trucks, hoping to challenge Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz commercial truck division. Tata also now owns Jaguar and Land Rover, which compete with the Mercedes-Benz passenger car unit.
Tata's new World Truck series is aimed squarely at the Mercedes-Benz commercial truck line
Daimler’s 5.3% stake in Tata Motors will sell for up to $428 million, according to Citigroup, which is handling the sale. The transaction should give Daimler some financial liquidity, which European automakers have been seeking after government auto sector incentives in Europe ended some months ago.
The partnership between the Germany luxury car maker and India’s largest truck and bus maker began in 1954, when Tata began to assemble medium-duty Mercedes-Benz trucks in India, and 15 years later, Tata began to sell Mercedes trucks under its own brand. From 1994 to 2001, the two firms also had a partnership to build Mercedes passenger cars in India.
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Video: Ferdinand Porsche and the 918 Spyder Hybrid Concept
Mar 3rd
Porsche just released a video about its new 918 Spyder concept at the Geneva Motor Show, tying it back to the very first car Ferdinand Porsche designed over a century ago, in 1900. The 918 is a parallel hybrid pairing a 500 HP V8 engine with an electric motor on each axle, adding another 218 HP on top, for 718 peak HP. 0-62 MPH time is reportedly 3.2 seconds, with a top speed of 198 MPH. That’s just about right for a modern supercar, but what’s new is that the 918 apparently gets up to 78 MPG and emits just 70 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. Porsche’s first car, depicted in the video, was an all-electric model with motors in each wheel hub and a whopping top speed of 30 MPH.
Video after the break. More >
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China’s BYD: $25 Billion Reverse Engineering Specialist?
Feb 26th
Caing has an interesting article exploring BYD, which is one of China’s fastest-growing manufacturers and has attracted major investments from Warren Buffett (who in 2008 bought a 10% stake in the firm and upped it in August 2009). The firm, whose name stands for “Build Your Dreams,” was founded as a battery and electronics manufacturer in 1995 and in 2002 decided to expand into the automotive sector. While many small Chinese manufacturers are known for designs “inspired” by existing products, BYD has made a science out of copying, cost-reduction, and mass production of batteries, electronics, and cars. In the process, its founder, Wang Chuanfu, has become the richest man in China, with a net worth of $5.1 billion.
In an age of almost fully-mechanized manufacturing, BYD instead uses large, 18th-century style workshops of low-wage employees (of which it has over 130,000), minimizing the use of expensive equipment. The firm’s cars are mostly virtually-identical copies of Toyota models, but sold at half the price. BYD has become quite a success story, becoming the world’s largest supplier of Ni-Cd batteries and the second-largest supplier of Li-Ion batteries, and the firm is applying its reverse engineering experience to an ever-widening array of products. Whether the company’s blatant disregard for intellectual property will allow it to grow outside the Chinese domestic market is questionable. For now, though, even competitors are highly impressed– as one former employee of Chery Auto (another Chinese automaker) shared:
“BYD’s excellent quality imitation cars are tied to the fact that the company has accumulated experience in strict product control from its earlier practices in batteries and the IT sector,” the Chery source said. ”Maybe it’s right. They very well may become China’s flagship auto manufacturer.”
Source: Caing
Some examples of BYD’s automotive reverse-engineering, starting with the company’s logo:
TVR eying return, new 500hp coupe may come to US?
Feb 23rd
British sports car maker TVR may be on the verge of coming back to life, according to a report at PistonHeads. The firm, owned by Russian Nikolay Smolenski, updated its website to indicate a new site is “coming soon” and is reportedly planning to launch an all-new model within a few months, possibly at the Goodwind Festival of Speed in July. TVR’s cars have usually been powered by the company’s own engines, but this time, the carmaker may turn to “crate motors” from Ford or Chevy, which would greatly facilitate US sales (by reducing the homologation expenses required). In any case, expect a wildly-styled two-seater, >500 HP, front-engined, rear-wheel-drive coupe, likely produced in Germany.
Toyota document brags of $255 million savings by avoiding investigations, recalls
Feb 22nd
Toyota executives are off to Washington this week to face Congressional hearings on the company’s recent bout of safety issues. Every major media outlet is covering Toyota’s unintended acceleration woes, but the carmaker’s PR mess is about to get even worse, as a new internal document has leaked, bragging that the company saved over $200 million by avoiding safety investigations, limiting recalls, and delaying implementation of federal safety requirements.
The Detroit Free Press first came across the leaked document and reported, “Toyota’s leading U.S. executive boasted to the automaker’s Washington staff last summer that they had saved the company more than $100 million by limited any regulatory action on sudden acceleration to a recall of equipment such as floor mats, according to documents turned over to a key U.S. House committee holding hearings on the issue Wednesday. Earlier this month before the hybrid recall, Toyota executives estimated that the unintended acceleration recalls would cost $2 billion in lost sales and cost of extra parts for repairs.”
The slide, obtained as part of a set of documents Toyota was forced to hand over to Congress following a federal grand jury subpoena, comes from a presentation entitled “Wins for Toyota Safety Group.” The claims in it include that Toyota was able to get the government to close its investigation of the Tacoma truck (which suffers from premature frame rust and structural failure) without any recalls, prevent any action on the Sienna minivan’s weak door handles and lock mechanisms, limiting the defective floormat recall on the Camry / Lexus ES, and saving over $100 million by delaying implementation of the federal side-impact airbag requirement, for a total of $255 million in safety-related savings.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda is set to testify before Congress on Wednesday, and this will surely make for some tough questions. While every automaker has such documents floating around internally, and Toyota’s document is not quite the Ford Pinto Memo, the implication that safety was compromised in order to boost corporate profits will further tarnish the company’s once-great but now severely damaged reputation for quality.
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