Archive for International News

Despite being based on the F01/F02 7-Series chassis, the Rolls-Royce Ghost brings alot more to the buyer’s table. Firstly, it looks completely different. Retro-futurism isn’t only confined to modern incarnations of old musclecars – its quite clear that classic Rolls-Royce design cues are executed well here.

The kind of switchgear employed inside look of a completely different standard compared to what you get in BMWs. They look more like they came out of a luxury yacht or helicopter, and you can also say the same about the look of the wood, it’s just a grade above. Frosted lamps, chrome door handles, traditional violin key switches, eyeball air vents, frosted white dials, the works! The interior uses deep-pile carpets and there are even optional lambswool floor mats.

Leather comes only from bulls raised in pastures free of barbed wire to help reduce leather imperfections. Marks are avoided by the laser cutters. At least 8 hides are used in each interior, and a set of hides are drum-dyed in batches at the same time to ensure colour consistency. Seats and interior panels are hand-stitched.

Producing a Ghost requires it to pass through 60 pairs of hands, 2,000 individual operations, and 20 days. 7 days consist of painting and polishing. The Ghost body is first applied with a phosphate electro-coat to protect against corrosion. Then on comes a layer of primer, a colour coat, and two coats of clear lacquer. Between each layer, the body is hand-sanded and once the final cost is on, it is hand-polished for 5 hours.

The Ghost rides on air suspension at all four points. The electronically adjustable air suspension is so sensitive that it can sense the movement of a single rear passenger from one side of the seat to the other and compensate accordingly. Dampers can self-adjust every 2.5 milliseconds. The car can also raise and lower itself by 25mm.

Power comes from a new 6.6 liter twin turbo V12 engine mated to an 8-speed ZF transmission. 0 to 100km/h takes just 4.7 seconds thanks to 563 hgorsepower and 780Nm of torque from as low as 1,500rpm. The dash does not feature a rev counter but a “power reserve” gauge.

I like how they’ve added umbrella storage compartments integrated into the two front doors. The umbrellas are provided too and are Teflon-coated.

Click here to read the rest of All-new Rolls-Royce Ghost – full details unveiled!

Lotus will be showcasing its very own “range extender” powertrain at the Frankfurt motorshow this month. If you know how the Chevrolet Volt works you’ll basically have a gist about what range extenders are all about. A range extender engine does not power the car’s wheels. It either provides power to an electric motor or charges the vehicle’s battery, depending on needs as per what the management system tells it to do.

The Lotus Range Extender Engine is a 1.2 liter 3 cylinder engine. Its power/torque curve is optimised for 2 power generation points – 15kW (20hp) at 1,500rpm and 35kW (47hp) at 3,500rpm, which by the way is also its redline. The engine is most fuel efficient at these points in the RPM range so it can just run at these speeds without having to go into the other inefficient ranges because it does not drive the wheels directly. Peak torque is 107Nm at 2,500rpm.

The engine is a single cam engine with 2 valves per cylinder on a 10.0:1 compression ratio. It uses a monoblock construction with an integrated exhaust manifold, which means the head and block are integrated, removing the need for a head gasket. 17 parts are eliminated thanks to this and the water jacket can be optimised – the result is a dry weight of only 56kg. No fancy direct injection here – fuel is delivered via port injection and the minimum octane requirement is RON95. It can also run on ethanol or methanol.

Peugeot’s rebadged Mitsubishi i-MiEV didn’t turn out looking quite like what Theophilus Chin imagined it to be – the actual product doesn’t really stray far from its Mitsubishi looks. As for the name, the Peugeot branded car is going to be called the Peugoet iOn while the Citroen one has yet to be named.

Looking back at history, this is not Peugeot’s first electric car. In the mid-90s, there was actually an electric version of the Peugeot 106 for sale. It had a regular speedometer but the RPM meter was replaced by a dial showing the percentage of maximum power output being used. It had a top speed of 90km/h and went up to between 70km to 100km on a single charge.

The new iOn can go further – 130km on the European driving cycle on its lithium ion batteries. The iOn’s batteries can be charged in 6 hours using a regular 220V socket or up to 80% in 30 minutes via a fast charging system. It’s powered by a 64hp motor with 180Nm of torque.

Theophilus Chin’s rendering of a Peugeot-ized i-MiEV

Mitsubishi and Peugeot have finalised its EV agreement where Mitsubishi will be supplying PSA Peugeot Citroen with an electric car for the European market based on the Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Both Citroen and Peugeot-badged vehicles will be available, and production will start in October 2010, with a launch happening shortly after.

Honda have released four new photos of the 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour in red, making it a total of 6 official pix from them so far. Does the Crosstour look better in these angles and shade of colour? Honda isn’t getting too flattering a response to how the car looks on their Facebook page. It’s an absolute slugfest there. Whatever it is, it’s nothing something that we’ll be getting here in Malaysia.

Look at all six photos released so far after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of New photos of Accord Crosstour in red

Here’s a first photo of Hyundai’s new electric i10 set to make its debut at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show. The Hyundai i10 Electric will begin limited series production in 2010 and will initially be offered in Korea only. It will be offered to the Korean government, state corporations, and utility companies. No price has been revealed as of now, but the press release mentions “sell” instead of “lease”.

The i10 Electric is powered by a 49kW (66 horsepower) motor, mated to a 16kWh battery which promises a range of 160km and a top speed of 130km/h. Because of the switch of powertrain, the steering, air conditioning, water pump and brake vacuum pump systems have been modified to all run on electrical power now.

The Koreans have improved the standard of their powertrains tremendously in the past decade. From the initial set of engines based on Mitsubishi products, they’ve moved to very competent engines with dual variable valve timing, new engines with turbocharging and direct injection, impressive and fuel efficient R-engine diesel engines, LPI Hybrids and now, an all-electric powertrain! Impressive!

Click here to read the rest of Hyundai i10 Electric EV set for Frankfurt debut

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Some say Gordon Murray Design’s T.25 City Car will change the way we look at small compact city cars, and also at how they’re designed and built. The T.25 is designed to be licensable to people who want to build them so we could even see a potential Apple iCar if they thought there was a market for it.

The latest bit of info is the car’s seating layout, which you can see in the newly released image found above (click it to view an enlarged view). The T.25’s driver sits in a central driving position which Gordon Murray calls ‘iCentre’. Very Apple-like isn’t it?

Murray is clearly a fan of the centre seating position as his McLaren F1 also featured a similiar position, with the driver in the middle and two passengers flanking him seated rearwards.

You can see the various seating positions allow a combination of three adults or have this varied with kids and storage space. In the full ’shopping mode’ where all the non-driver space is used for goods, Gordon Murray Design claims a maximum of 750 liters of storage space. The car does not have a gear lever so you can forget about a stick shift, instead it has push buttons that say Forward, Reverse and Neutral.

GMD also says the iStream method of producing the T.25 and future models from the company will reduce the cost of a typical car factory by 80%. This is all quite interesting. Will the T.25 make obsolete the automobile we know today?

Proton’s Group Lotus now has a new CEO – Dany Bahar, a Swiss national. Some of you may notice his face is quite familiar, in fact he appeared most recently on this blog on one of Ferrari’s promotional videos of the new 458 Italia.

This is because Dany Bahar was the Senior VP of Commercial & Brand for Ferrari SpA where he oversaw sales, aftersales, marketing, licensing and merchandising for the prancing horse.

Now of course, he is in Group Lotus. Let’s hope he will do some good for Lotus, as ultimately their performance affects Proton.

Click here to read the rest of New Lotus CEO: Ferrari man Dany Bahar

BMW’s chairman Dr Norbert Reithofer have confirmed today that two new MINI models will go into production at UK’s Plant Oxford, including the Frankfurt show’s MINI Coupe Concept. This ends speculation as to whether the MINI Coupe Concept will be produced or not. Previously other senior BMW officials have said that the concept will be built if public response at the motorshow was good but I think these days with the internet and social media you can already gauge such responses before the public sees a car.

The announcement today also had another surprise – apparently a second car that will be unveiled at Frankfurt will also go into production. I have a feeling this is the MINI SUV based on the MINI Crossover Concept showcased last year. This will give the MINI brand a total of 5 bodystyles – Hatch, Clubman, Convertible, Coupe and Crossover.

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This is probably an Auris/Blade with a new skin, but a C-segment premium 5-door hatchback like this Lexus LF-Ch Concept is vital for Lexus to deepen its penetration of the European market.

The concept’s name is quite easily decoded – LF for L-Finesse (Lexus design language), C is probably a reference to the production car’s CT name while h denotes a hybrid powertrain. Lexus confirms that it will have a full hybrid system which means an EV mode will be available.

More images and details will be unveiled when the concept car makes its public debut at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show.