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FN Civic Type R to be exported to Japan!

August 7, 2009 at 7:22 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, International News

FN Civic Type R

I was just talking with some fellow motoring hacks about the fact that there are only four-door Civic Type Rs in Japan yesterday and today we have this piece of news – the 3-door Civic Type R sold in Europe will soon be sold in Japan next year. The 3-door Civic hatchback with the FN chassis (instead of Japan’s FD Civic 4-door sedan) is built at Honda’s Swindon plant in England and will be exported to Japan from there. It will be called the Honda Civic Type R EURO in Japan. The European FN Civic features a completely different body built on a different chassis that uses a torsion beam at the rear instead of an independent setup. It also uses a different interior design although the general double-decked space ship interior theme is similiar.

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BMW says hello to an old friend, the Isetta

August 6, 2009 at 1:17 am By Paul Tan Filed Under BMW, Cars, Videos

BMW Isetta

Could BMW’s new sub-brand for its electric cars be called the Isetta? There’s strong indication that it might be, considering that they’ve recently produced a promotional TV commercial that seems to seek to both introduce the old Isetta to the younger generation and to remind oldies of the small little BMW with the door that opened in front. The video’s main purpose is actually to promote the BMW Museum in Munich. Given that the Isetta was the original BMW compact city car, badging its new MegaCity/Project i car with the brand seems quite suitable. Word is that the new Isetta brand will be spelled “i-Setta”, though there’s no official release from BMW confirming this as far as I know, just hearsay from sources said to be close to BMW. Look after the jump to watch the new Isetta video!
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VIDEO: Back to the 60s – the BMW 1500

August 5, 2009 at 8:36 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under BMW, Cars, Videos

BMW 1500

As it is about to take a leap into a new future of electric cars and M-badged SUVs, BMW revisits its past with this video that it produced about the BMW 1500 from the 1960s. The BMW 1500 was one of the BMW New Class line of compact sedans and it featured a 1,499cc single-cam engine producing 80 horsepower at 5,700rpm which was really not bad at that time. The 1500 in 1961 was also the first BMW with a Hofmeister kink. Look after the jump to watch the video.
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Mazda MX-5 Superlight: a showcar for now…

August 5, 2009 at 8:03 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Concept Cars, Mazda

P1J04389s
P1J04388s

Click thumbnails for enlarged image

Mazda will be exhibiting the car above called the Mazda MX-5 Superlight version Show car at the Frankfurt show this September. It’s basically Mazda’s very own club racer speedster – more weight reduction, no windscreen, think Lotus 2-Eleven, Pug 207 Spider or even the expensive SLR Stirling Moss Speedster. Right now Mazda says its only a show car at the moment, and no engine details have been unveiled though its probably the standard Mazda 2.0 engine, but who knows, if the response at the show is good they might go ahead and build it. Can’t be that hard.

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The Chevrolet Volt’s biggest problem: its cost

August 5, 2009 at 6:16 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Chevrolet, Hybrids and Alternative Fuel

Chevrolet Volt

When GM first announced the Chevrolet Volt project, Bob Lutz said the production version could end up being priced somewhere in the high US$20,000s. That’s not so bad. The car is Cobalt-sized and a Cobalt starts at just under US$15k and tops out at US$23k. For about US$29k you can get a fully loaded up Chevy Impala. So I suppose you’ll be trading an upsize in vehicle class for the advanced EREV powertrain. But not any longer. It turns out the price tag was a big underestimation.

Apparently now the realistic price tag for the Volt hovers at somewhere around US$43,000. For that kind of money you can buy a fully loaded top of the range 3-Series, or even a basic BMW 5-Series. A Prius starts at just under US$22k. And how did Lutz end up with high US$20k range in the first place? “I just thought if a conventional car of that size with a four-cylinder engine can go for US$15k-16k, add US$8k for the battery and we’re at US$25k,” admitted Lutz.

Chevrolet Volt

But of course the Volt is more than a regular inline-4 car with a battery. Yes, the battery did end up being US$8,000, supplied by Korean company LG Chem. But you also have to add the electric motor, ECU and various controls for the motor and battery charging systems, as well as equip the car with new auxiliaries that can continue to work via other methods rather than draw power from an internal combustion engine via an aux belt. The Volt also ended up using many one-off parts which does not benefit from economies of scale from use in other GM cars.

Even at the US$43k to the customer price tag, GM will also have to sell the car to the dealers at a loss. They are banking on warranty costs being much less than they provisioned and for technology advancement to reduce the costs of the Volt’s components halfway down the road to make the car profitable.

It was last reported that our neighbours up in Thailand north will be getting it beginning 2011, and who knows, maybe we’ll get it too, albeit if that happens it will probably be only as a halo model of some sort because of the kind of price tag it will have. Even in Thailand it is estimated to be priced at nearly 3 million Thai baht (roughly RM300,000), because of Thai import duty structures.

Related Posts:
Production Chevrolet Volt Hybrid Car Revealed!
New official details on the Chevrolet Volt
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New E-Class Estate: full details and photos unveiled!

August 5, 2009 at 5:32 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, International News, Mercedes Benz, Videos

W212 Wagon

The full details of the new E-Class Estate are here. The new E-Class Estate measures 4895mm long, 1854mm wide and 1471mm tall and can carry up to a maximum of 1950 litres. It looks like a pretty sweet wagon really, with a proper wagon-like roofline. Give me this anytime rather than a fancy elongated hatchback with a sloping roofline!

A total of 10 engines will be available with the new W212 Estate, with an initial 5 engines offered – the E220 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, E250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, E350 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, E 350 CGI BlueEFFICIENCY and the V8-powered E500.

Like most estate vehicles that are anticipated to carry heavier loads than their sedan brethren, the W212 Estate features an automatic self-levellling suspension at the rear as standard equipment, which helps ensure the ride height remains at the same level no matter what the vehicle’s load is. The suspension setup has been modified over the sedan version for the wagon – this means its got stiffer shock absorbers and torsion bar stabilisers.

Look after the jump for a nice full hi-res photo gallery.
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BMW to launch electric cars under M-like sub-brand

August 5, 2009 at 11:20 am By Paul Tan Filed Under BMW, Cars, Hybrids and Alternative Fuel

BMW LogoBMW’s Project i will be launched under the BMW subframe not unlike the BMW M badge, said its CEO Norberg Reithofer earlier this week.

We’ve already seen a modern BMW electric car with the trial-basis MINI E, and speculation was arife on whether BMW would start a new fourth brand for its electric cars, market the cars under the BMW brand, or sell them all as MINIs, since the MINI E is a MINI. The first car under Project i is commonly referred to as the MegaCity and will be released in the first half of the next decade, which is within 5 year’s time.

Lithium-ion batteries for Project i will be sourced from a Korean joint venture between Bosch and Samsung SDI called SB LiMotive. SB LiMotive also owns Cobasys, the company which supplies batteries to GM for its Volt.

BMW is said to be in talks with PSA Peugeot Citroen to expand its technical collaboration to electric cars as well. PSA already had some sort of deal with Mitsubishi though, with Mitsubishi set to supply the Mitsubishi i electric car to the French company to be sold in Europe under the Peugeot and Citroen badges.

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W212 E-Class Wagon features 3rd row seats

August 5, 2009 at 10:42 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, International News, Mercedes Benz

W212 Wagon

These medium-res photos of the new E-Class Wagon found their way on the net earlier this week. How it looks like is really no surprise considering this new W212 E-Class was first shown to the world in wagon form. But there’s one thing that caught my eye…

W212 Wagon

The new E-Class Wagon has third row seats! They’re quite small though, and they face rearwards. But they have proper seatbelts and all. Probably a nice cushiony area for your dog to lie ;) You can look after the jump for more of the leaked photos.

More details will be unveiled when Daimler releases the full press pack.
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Goodyear and NASA develop lunar Spring Tyre

August 5, 2009 at 1:01 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Videos

Goodyear Spring Tyre

A new Spring Tyre developed by NASA and Goodyear was installed on NASA’s Lunar Electric Rover test vehicle and put through its paces at the Johnson Space Center’s “Rock Yard” in Houston. The new Spring Tyre is meant to carry much heavier vehicles over much greater distances than the wire mesh tire previously used on the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).

What exactly is a Spring Tyre? No, it’s not a seasonal tyre like winter tyres. It’s actually a tyre that uses 800 load bearing springs. The spring design contours to the surface on which it’s driven to provide traction. The energy used to deform the tyre is returned when the springs rebound. This design does not generate heat like a normal tyre. Lead innovator Jim Benzing from Goodyear said the tyre design is extremely durable and energy efficient.

Traditional rubber tyres have little utility on the moon, thus the use of wire mesh tires and soon, the Spring Tyre. Rubber properties vary significantly between the extreme cold and hot temperatures experienced in the shaded and directly sunlit areas of the moon. Unfiltered solar radiation (the moon has no atmosphere) also degrades rubber, and rubber tyres also run the risk of deflation as it needs to be filled with air. With the Spring Tyre, there is no single point of failure. A hard impact that may cause the rubber tyre to puncture and deflate will only affect one spring out of the 800 load-bearing springs on a Spring Tyre.

What this extended carrying distance and capacity means is that broader exploration of the moon will be enabled and hopefully it will eventually lead to the development and maintenance of a lunar outpost.

Perhaps one day all of this research will end up improving the way we design our vehicle’s contact patches. Michelin has also toyed with the idea of a new type of wheel called the Tweel and it recently announced a new lunar wheel based on the tweel.

Look after the jump for a NASA video on the new Spring Tyre.
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VIDEO: Massa’s first interview after his crash

August 4, 2009 at 3:52 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Formula 1, Videos

Massa Crash

Felipe Massa is up and on his feet and can’t wait to get back behind the wheel of his Formula 1 car. He did an exclusive interview with the Ferrari.com official website where he talked about the crash, and Michael Schumacher driving his car, amongst other things. According to Massa, the crash was a strange sort of feeling. He knew that something had happened to him but he didn’t feel anything when it happened. He just lost consciousness and the next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital two days later. So no, he didn’t consciously brake the car before it hit the barriers. Watch the video after the jump.
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