Obviously following the design cues of the recently shown Volkswagen Iroc Concept, the folks over at Volkswagen Design Center California led by Volkswagen Chief Designer Derek Jenkins created this special Volkswagen R GTI for the SEMA 2006 motor show. Are we looking at what could be Volkswagen’s new corporate grille?

A few body panels have been replaced with carbon fibre, and the suspension system has been updated by H&R Tuning to a H&R RSS Club Sport system, which consists of updated shocks and springs and a pair of adjustable sway bars - this results in crisper handling and a lower stance.

For the engine, aftermarket Volkswagen tuner APR was called in for the job. The stock turbo was thrown out for a larger Garrett unit, and boost upped to 1.45 bar with the help of upgraded injectors and fuel pumps designed by APR, as the stock FSI system cannot handle the higher fueling requirements of the additional power. With the larger turbo, a matching intercooler was fitted, and the exhaust system consists of an Iconel manifold and an APR stainless steel exhaust system. On RON93 gas, the car makes 375hp, but if fed with higher octane RON100 fuel, you get 400 horses. All these numbers translate to a 0-100km/h time of 4.8 seconds.

To rein in all that additional power, the brakes have been upgraded to 4-piston Brembo brakes and Brembo two-piece floating cross-drilled discs with billet aluminum hats. Inside the rear wheels are disc brakes fitted with drilled rotors, not as much bite as the front but the whole system works together very well. Wheels are 19 inch wheels wrapped with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup ultra-high-performance radials in 265/30/R19 size. The car is still a front wheel drive, but the clutch was upgraded to one that can handle all the extra torque (460 newton meters!), as well as a Quaife limited slip differential to stop the wheels from going bald trying to move from a stand still.

More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen R GTI at SEMA 2006

This is the Volkswagen Nanospyder. A two seater Ariel Atom-like car that runs on hydrogen fuel cells powering in-wheel electric motors. It has a strong spine, on which other components is bolted on, and the body panels are constructed from latticework of billions of tiny programmable nano devices each measuring less than half a millimetre in daimeter. These devices can individually be programmed to be as strong or weak as required, meaning the vehicle could have active crumple zones.

These nanopanels are also coated with materials which can inflate to provide further cushioning upon impact, and also doubles as a solar power panel, which assists the hydrogen fuel cell in powering the in-wheel motors.

Of course, such a vehicle doesn’t exist. The Volkswagen Nanospyder is actually the vision of three Volkswagen designers, their idea of what the future car would be. It was conceptualised as an entry for the Design Los Angeles conference. The challenge was to design a car that can make the most of California without harming the environment.

One more photo after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Nanospyder Concept

One of the major contributions to the cost of a fuel cell vehicle is the cooling system. This is because the fuel cells in the fuel cell vehicle prototypes released by manufacturers so far are mostly LTFC, or low temperature fuel cells. In fuel cells, the membrane temperature can operate at a maximum temperature of approximately 80 degrees Celcius. If the temperature exceeds this value by a considerable margin, fuel cell performance breaks down and irreparable damage is done to the cell.

Volkswagen Research has developed a new type of high temperature fuel cell, or HTFC, which uses newly designed electrodes which can be driven at temperatures of up to 160 degrees Celcius at the same amount of power, though a medium operating temperature target of 120 degrees is intended.

This means a simpler cooling system is sufficient, thus reducing the cost, weight, and space needed for vehicle fuel cell systems. Volkswagen expects fuel cell drive vehicles that use HTFC drives could appear by the year 2020. They see no chance for mass production of LTFC vehicles due to fundamental disadvantages in their design.

New Car Net did an interesting experiment - they conducted a survey on their website, allowing the public to vote for what they wanted in a car. Different elements were available - overall car silhouette, wheel design, front end, back end, engine, seats, doors - and guess what the UK buyer’s dream car is?

A four-door coupe with the front end of a Porsche Boxster, the roofline of the Jaguar XK, stretched to allow it to be a 5-seater, and has a medium sized engine, no big supercar engine, but no Tamiya motor either. Not suprisingly, diesel power had the edge of petrol as the fuel of choice.

Know what. Looks pretty much like a Porsche Panamera to me, or at least what I imagine the car would look like. This means the Panamera would like be another runaway success similiar to the Cayenne.

The annual Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) auto show is here, and this means Volvo fans finally get to see the modified C30 trio that was promised to be shown. Actual photos and details of the three cars from Evolve, Heico Sportive and ipd are after the jump. Enjoy!

Click here to read the rest of Modified Volvo C30 concept cars at SEMA

Naza has unveiled a new minicar, the Naza Suria, which appears to be a locally assembled rebadged Kia Picanto. At a glance from the image of the Suria appearing in the local dailies, the new Naza Suria gains a slightly sportier facelifted bumper with a different foglamp design as well as a new mesh grille sporting the Naza logo.

The advertisement says the car has a 1.1 liter SOHC engine, which should be the same unit in the CBU Picanto; a 1,086cc unit making 65PS at 5,500rpm and 99Nm of torque at 2,800rpm, this is coupled with a 4 speed auto.

There are rumours of prices floating around, the car is reported to be in the mid RM40,000 to RM50,000 range, but I’ll get official prices before putting it up here. In other news, mStar reports that Naza will be releasing another 3 cars in the year 2007, one of which will be a 1.5 liter saloon model.

UPDATE: Prices are confirmed to be RM43,888 for the standard version, and RM45,888 for one with a sporty bodykit, think Novus.

UPDATE #2:

There is not much difference between the lower spec and the higher spec version of the Naza Suria. The additional RM2,000 that you have to fork out for the high spec version gives you a front lip, side skirtings, a rear spoiler, sportier foglamps in a black insert, as well as rims similiar to the one available on the Naza Sutera. You also get this black piece of plastic at the rear window as you can see in the image above. On the interior, the high spec version gets cloth trim on the doors for both the front and rear doors, while the low spec only has cloth on the front doors, the rear is just pure plastic! The Naza Suria will be launched on the 20th of November 2006.

UPDATE: More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Naza Suria - locally assembled Kia Picanto

Petronas has reached an agreement with two Chinese automotive companies to jointly manufacture the Petronas E01 engine for commercial use, after a Letter of Intent was signed between the three parties back in September 2005.

The inline-4 16-valve DOHC engine with variable valve timing which can be configured in three displacements - 1.8, 2.0 and 2.2 liters - was developed with Petronas’ experience in Formula 1, and is expected to begin production in December 2006 with an annual production capacity of 100,000 units a year.

The two Chinese companies are Nanjing Automobile Corporation and Brilliant Culture Group. The former is an automotive manufacturer while the latter is a consulting group.

Source

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A research team from the Tokyo University of Science and the Japan Science and Technology Agency has managed to use gallium nitride (GaN) crystals to extract hydrogen from water, which might lead to the development of more efficient processes of extracting hydrogen for the use in fuel cells.

A GaN wafer is connected with platinum using a wire, and immersed in water. Light is applied, and current flows through the water which causes electrolysis, hence producing hydrogen. The efficiency of converting light energy to hydrogen energy using this method is a mere 0.5%, however efficiency was improved 1.3 times by introducing the narrower bandgap material such as InGaN. According to Professor Kazuhiro Ohkawa of the Tokyo University of Science applied physics department, this can be raised to more than 20%.

I’m just wondering if this is the magic metal used in LMG’s Hydroxene

Source