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Volkswagen America to demonstrate Passat-Lingyu fuel-cell vehicles at the California Fuel Cell Partnership

February 23, 2009 at 9:19 am By Harvinder Sidhu Filed Under Cars, Hybrids and Alternative Fuel, Volkswagen

Volkswagen’s American division has announced that it has shipped 16 Passat-Lingyu fuel cell cars over from China for a demonstration run at the California Fuel Cell Partnership event. These fuel cell cars with zero harmful emissions which are based on the VW Passat were jointly developed in China by a partnership between Volkswagen Shanghai, Volkswagen’s Research Group and the Tongji University.

With the hydrogen fuel cells located on the floor of the Passat, it is able to produce 55kW of power by simply converting hydrogen into water and electricity with the help of oxygen. The energy produced is then channeled to a 376 Volt lithium-ion battery pack. The Passat-Lingyu is able to reach a top speed of about 145 km/h, and is able to deliver 235 kilometers in terms of range will a full tank of fuel. These environment-friendly cars were first presented at the Olympic Games in China last year.

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2010 Mercedes Benz E-Class Coupe: videos for your enjoyment

February 23, 2009 at 8:52 am By Harvinder Sidhu Filed Under Cars, Mercedes Benz, Videos

Recently, Stuttgart-based auto maker; Mercedes Benz has revealed the 2010 Mercedes Benz E-Class Coupe, which goes on to replace the CLK Class. We now have two videos of the new E-Class for your viewing pleasure; first of which is a 1 minute 21 second-long high-res promotional film of the coupe while another is a 1 minute 47 second-long driving video of the range topping E500 which receives power from a V8 power plant that is able to churn 388hp and 530Nm of torque. The video also showcases the glorious exhaust note of all 8 cylinders working hard.
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Audi A5 and Audi S5 new photo gallery released!

February 23, 2009 at 4:30 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Audi, Cars

Audi S5 Cabriolet

The Audi A5 Cabriolet and Audi S5 Cabriolet have already been unveiled back in early December last year, but here’s a mega photo update with tons of photos of both standard and warm versions of the car. No word of the RS5 yet though, and it’s not confirmed yet if the RS5 will be available in a Cabriolet body, but since there was an RS4 Cabriolet I don’t see why.

The A5 comes with your usual bunch of Audi/Volkswagen Group engines such as the 2.0 TFSI inline-4, the 3.2 FSI V6 and your usual plethora of TDI diesel engines. The S5 gets something more exciting, the second newest engine to be introduced by Audi, a 3.0 litre supercharged V6 with 333 horsepower and 440Nm of torque mated to a 7-speed S-Tronic twin clutch transmission. The honour of the newest engine is of course the 2.5 litre inline-5 turbo set to debut with the TT-RS.

Check out the photo galleries and a video of the A5 Cab after the jump.
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Red Bull Racing explains new 2009 F1 rules

February 23, 2009 at 3:49 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Formula 1, Motorsports, Videos

Red Bull Racing RB5

Formula One has gone through various changes over the past few years and as a new enthusiast such as myself it may be a little hard to keep up with all the changes such as traction contol, KERS, wing shapes and sizes, and etc. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing dissects the new Formula One rulebook for the 2009 race year and simplifies it for us all! The video is also a teaser of sorts for the new Red Bull Renault RB5 Formula One car. It’s a 2 minute and 11 second video so you can probably sneak it in before the boss comes in or during lunch time or something, enjoy watching it!
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Jaguar XF 3.0 V6 Test Drive Review

February 23, 2009 at 2:18 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Jaguar, Test Drive Reviews, Videos

Jaguar XF

Sometime in April last year we said goodbye to the Jaguar S-Type sold by SISMA Auto and welcomed the Jaguar XF. While the old S-Type was a modern reinterpretation of the old Jaguar Mark 2 design from the 1960s, the XF can be immediately identified as some kind of downsized Aston Martin Rapide of sorts. It was first shown to the world as the Jaguar C-XF, but like all concepts it was much more fiercer and racier especially at the front with those sleek and slim headlamps that somehow got translated into the fat ones you see here on the production version.

In Malaysia, the XF takes on German rivals such as the Mercedes-Benz E 280 and the BMW 530i, as well as the Japanese Lexus GS 300. At RM 488,888, it has a much higher price than its other rivals which retail at approximately RM 453,800, RM 438,888 and RM 419,444.20 respectively for the BMW, the Benz and the Lexus (some are with insurance some without). But is the XF worth the premium? Perhaps SISMA are pricing it against the CLS instead of the E-class segment.

Read our findings after the jump.
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Guangzhou Toyota launches facelifted Toyota Camry

February 22, 2009 at 9:38 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, China, International News, Toyota

Toyota Camry Facelift

Guangzhou Toyota, the Toyota JV company in China has revealed a facelifted Toyota Camry in China. Now considering China is big enough for their own development projects, for example the Hyundai Sonata has its very own Toyota-like look in China compared to the facelifted Sonata Transform that the rest o the world gets, we don’t know yet whether this will be the same Camry facelift that Asia will be getting, but it seems likely as it doesn’t seem to have any overly localised design cues and Toyota would most likely want to push as much shared development costs as possible in light of their recent expected first ever loss in many decades.

The new Toyota Camry facelift features a new front end with a “frowny” central air intake design as opposed to the smiley one on the current Camry. The new air intake is much wider and gives the rather tame front end of our Camry a more aggressive look. On the rear there is not much changes except the rear tail lamps seem to now stick out a little, I believe some of you call this the bug-eyed look, but if it’s at the rear what should it be called, bug-butted?

Look after the jump for more shots of the facelifted Camry.
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Audi TT-RS: inline-5 engine sound clip teaser!

February 22, 2009 at 3:10 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Audi, Cars, International News

Audi TT-RS
Click for enlarged image

Wanna hear how Audi’s new turbocharged 2.5 litre inline-5 engine that’s set to be slotted into the Audi TT-RS sounds like? Audi has released a teaser sound clip of the TT-RS doing its thing, so you can have a listen using the embedded audio player below. Sounds much better than the inline-4 2.0 TFSI, which while is a fantastic engine, is still an inline-4 which by trait sounds a little boring, with the exception of Alfa Romeo’s TwinSpark inline-4s of course, not sure how they pull that off! After enjoying the sound clip, head on after the jump for a gallery of more released photos!
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Proton Exora 7-seater MPV interior details revealed!

February 22, 2009 at 2:30 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Local News, Malaysian Makes, Proton, Proton Exora - Proton MPV 2009

Proton Exora Interior
Click for enlarged image

Proton Edar’s Proton Exora teaser page reveals how the Exora’s seats and seating configuration looks like. The seats are in the typical three-row MPV 2-3-2 order for 7 seats, and Proton claims them to be suitable for full adult seating.

From the looks of it every seat (wrapped with leather) has its own headrest, and Proton says there are also individual air conditioning blowers for each row. From the details revealed at the Proton Technology Week, it is revealed that the dedicated air conditioning vents for the 2nd and 3rd rows will be located at the ceiling of the Proton Exora MPV. The 2nd and 3rd row of the Proton Exora can also be folded in 6 flexible configurations, and it looks like the 2nd row’s middle seat can be folded down as an armrest. There will be a total of 10 cupholders in the MPV, which is more than 1 for each seat, so there should be more than enough space to keep one’s drinks on a road trip.

As previously revealed, the steering wheel will feature audio controls but there is no mention yet on what the phone button is for. The Proton Exora will have an overhead LCD player that can read VCDs and DVDs along with a variety of other storage devices such as devices using USB input, and a memory card slot that supports SD and MMC. This will likely be available only in the high spec model.

Speaking of specification levels, Proton has also revealed tentative prices for the Proton Exora on its booking page. The tentative pricing are RM 72,000 for the M-Line model with an automatic transmission, and RM 76,000 for the H-Line model with an automatic transmission. This is well under the RM 80,000 maximum figure previously quoted. So far only prices for automatic transmission models have been revealed but if the automatic M-Line is 72K, a manual transmission M-Line could go under RM70k if Proton decides to make such a model available. But I feel manual is a must for the Proton buyer segment, and I am pretty sure their product team knows this too.

Bookings for the Proton Exora just opened yesterday and Proton Edar reported over 350 bookings. Proton managing director Datuk Syed Zainal hopes to achieve between 4,000 to 5,000 bookings before the April launch date, which gives them roughly over a month to go.

There have also been other details on the Exora revealed over the past few months, please read our previous coverage on the Proton Exora to find out more exclusive details!

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Audi TT-RS teased before Geneva debut

February 21, 2009 at 4:19 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Audi, Cars

Audi TT-RS
Click for enlarged image

Audi has released a short teaser press release for the latest and most powerful variant of the Audi TT they will be unveiling at the Geneva Auto Show, the Audi TT-RS. Hot on the tail of the TT-S which featured a tuned up 2.0 TFSI engine, the new Audi TT-RS has been revealed to use a force inducted inline-5 engine, something that used to be a regular feature in the Audis of the past.

It’s likely to be a turbocharged 2.5 litre unit, basically you could consider it to be one-half of the 5.0 litre V10 turbo in the RS6. A normally aspirated version of this 2.5 litre engine is also found in the Volkswagen Rabbit (Golf) sold in the US. It will feature direct injection, quattro permanent all-wheel drive and great brakes to boot.

0 to 100km/h is said to be achieved in under 5 seconds, thanks to a good power to weight ratio allowed by its Audi Space Frame chassis. We’ll have to wait until the Geneva show for more details of this mini-R8, so stay tuned! For the moment, let us ponder upon this – Volkswagen is scrapping the V6 from its next generation R-model Golf. Instead of a high-boost version of the 2.0 TFSI, couldn’t we see this motor slotted in?

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RON97 will not be floated in July but will be priced higher to make way for new RON95 petrol

February 20, 2009 at 9:55 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Malaysian Fuel Prices

Fuel Wallet GaugeMore updates on the prices and grades of fuel in Malaysia – Datuk Shahrir Samad said RON97 would not be floated in July 2009 but instead it will have its priced increased by reducing subsidies. He said floating it would not be feasible at the moment as apparently by floating it, the price per litre would shoot up by 50 sen, which at current RM1.80 per litre rates would result in a new RM2.30 per litre price. RON95 will be introduced to replace RON92 but will be priced at a the same price as RON92 via extra subsidies redirected from RON97. He hopes this will make Malaysians use the cheaper RON95 fuel.

He told The Star that Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia have been using RON95 grade fuel without any problems. The thing is, the difference between RON98 and RON95 in Singapore is less than S$0.10 at the moment. Dollar for dollar, that is a small difference, and people who find that they need RON98 can do so without causing much pain to their pockets. It sounds like in Malaysia the difference between RON97 and RON95 will be higher than the current 10 sen gap between RON97 and RON92.

I have actually written to him twice about how RON95 would sometimes be unsuitable for older high compression vehicles designed to run on RON95 as carbon deposits and other wear and tear would actually increase the engine’s RON requirements and cause the engine to knock when RON95 is used. These carbon deposits can heat up in a hot engine and cause pre-spark detonation.

Older cars/engines without a knock sensor to automatically adjust ignition to compensate for knocking are especially prone to damage, but the thing is for a knock sensor to do its job the engine actually has to start knocking first before the knock sensor can “sense” it so there is still some potential for damage!

This is bad for the engine! If you assume a typical reason that a person using an old car with an old engine because he or she is not very well to do and cannot afford something newer, I am sure you don’t want to put that person into a situation where he has to fork out more money in maintenance because of high temperature detonation damage!

If you want to look at it from the rakyat’s point of view, instead of pricing RON97 higher to encourage RON95 consumption, the government should think of ways to educate people about why they should just save their penny and use RON95 instead if their cars can take it. Tax the “premium” RON97 Shell V-Power as much as you want but leave the option open for decently-priced RON97 fuel for those who really need it. But then again you could also say we should all just learn to adjust to what some say are impending permanent high fuel prices and get on with a new “gaya hidup”.

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