Proton will be launching a 1.6 liter IAFM variant of the Saga in Australia soon (November 2009 ETA) and has put up a teaser website for it at newsedan.com.au. It won’t be called the Saga in Australia though – a new name will be picked. Prices will begin at under AU$13,000, or under RM37,895 for the 1.6 liter manual, but an automatic option as well as a smaller engine (likely the 1.3) will be available from February 2010 onwards.
Fiat has decided to rename the Grande Punto with its mid-life facelift. It is now known as the Fiat Punto Evo (no relation to Mitsubishi) and it will be making its first public appearance at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The chassis and wheelbase remains the same but the new bodykit makes the car longer, though width and height remains the same as the outgoing Grande Punto.
Portable Tom-Tom device functions as the car’s infotainment controller when mounted in the car
Under the hood is either a 1.4 liter MultiAir petrol or a 1.3 liter MultiJet diesel but Fiat seems to be shouting the loudest about the latest version of its Blue&Me which debuts in the Punto Evo. The new system is called Blue&Me – TomTom and it is a fully integrated infotainment system that lets you manage telephony, GPS navi and other information functions on a touch-screen LCD.
Thanks to working together with car systems provider Magneti Marelli for tighter integration with the car, the display will also display information fed from Fiat’s Eco:Drive Info system for real-time information on driving style and suggestions for reducing fuel consumption by changing gears and accelerating to suit the nature of the GPS navigation route.
Look after the jump for more pix of the new Punto Evo. Click here to read the rest of Punto drops Grande name, undergoes Evolution?
Does the car above look familiar to you? If you were online on this blog sometime last night you would have read about the new Renault Fluence. Yes, the Renault-Samsung SM3 was launched before the Fluence and the two cars are essentially one and the same.
Looking at the details released regarding the SM3 we discover more about the two cars. The platform that underpins the cars is the Megane’s Renault-Nissan C-platform, which is one segment higher than the stretched B-platforms that underpin the Latio and the Sylphy here in Malaysia.
It makes me wonder, considering the SM3 was originally a rebadge of our Sentra, will this model end up being a replacement for Nissan’s C-segment contender here in Malaysia once the Sylphy reaches its End-Of-Life? For awhile there was also a rumour that the Penske Automotive Group’s soon to be newly acquired Saturn brand would be selling this car in the US as a new model and that the Penske team were in Korea in July to do evaluations.
If you read the Fluence story you’ll also know that this car is set to be turned into an electric vehicle in 2011 and will be offered in certain countries like Israel in collaboration with Project Better Place. Basically, Project Better Place hopes to turn electricity into an easily accessible power source on the go via charging stations and automated battery-swap stations.
Look after the jump for more pix of the SM3, but what’ll interest you more is a video demonstration of Project Better Place’s battery swap station. It’s really pretty cool. Click here to read the rest of Renault-Samsung SM3: Korean-rebadged Fluence
There won’t be a Megane III sedan, instead we have the new Renault Fluence which will be built at the Megane II sedan’s assembly line in Turkey. It’s a relatively large car, somewhat like a small Euro D-segment slightly smaller than the size of an Avensis. It’s shorter than the Avensis but it’s got a 2,702mm wheelbase, just 2mm longer than the Toyota. Renault themselves say it’s size is somewhere between a large C-segment car (like the FD Civic) and a D-segment car.
The Fluence is all about space. It has 530 liters of boot space and Renault claims it has more passenger space than any major rival. Interior stats include 1,480mm of elbow room at the front, and 1,475mm at the rear. The driver’s seat can be adjusted 240mm fore/aft and 35mm +/- in height, and the steering wheel has both rake and reach adjustment. The cabin features 23 liters of storage, including a 9 liter refrigerated glovebox and a 2.2 liter centre console cubby. The 530 liter boot has a low sill and a 1,020mm wide entry for easier loading.
It’s got decent specifications too. All models including entry level ones will get rear aircond vents, and dual zone control for the front is an option. Renault has also made available a hands-free entry and ignition system using a card. As the card-holder walks away from the car, the doors will lock automatically. You’ve got up to 6 airbags, ABS, and stability control.
In the engine bay, for now diesel and petrol engines are available. All the diesel models qualify for Renault’s eco2 branding, which means CO2 emissions of 119g/km. In 2011, Renault will be introducing an all-electric Fluence, which technology most likely adapted from the Nissan Leaf EV.
The petrol engines include a 140hp 2.0 mated to either a manual or a CVT. This is likely the same engine and transmission combination available in the Sylphy. There is also a 110hp 1.6 liter engine. The eco2 Diesel engines all use the same 1.5 dCi block but with different stages of tune – 85, 90 DPF, 105, 110 DPF and another 110 DPF mated to a new twin-clutch transmission.
I think you can guess that the Fluence is obviously a car designed for emerging economies. The Renault Fluence’s main markets will be Turkey, Russia, and Romania. Too many manufacturers are producing cars that are focused on being as small and cheap as possible and when they can afford something better there is no economical larger sedan to turn to. This is bound to happen as the economies of these developing countries mature. The Fluence can be one of their choices, and Renault has put effort to ensure running costs are low.
Renault claims the Fluence’s diesel engine service interval is once every 30,000km! For light to moderate usage of about 300km per week, that would mean once every 2 years! The only exception is the dCi 85 which requires changes every 20,000km or every year. Renault has also added an additional 800 QC checks over their standard procedures to ensure the Fluence will be able to sustain the ‘demanding’ road conditions of the countries where it will be marketed. Click here to read the rest of New Renault Fluence for Eastern Europe replaces the Megane II sedan, EV coming in 2011!
The equivalent fuel costs of 3.3L/100km of diesel, and 0g/km of CO2 emissions. These are the eco-vital statistics of the new Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL, which will be delivered to about 200 customers in the US and Europe early 2010.
These customers will consist of mainly owners in Hamburg, Stuttgart and California where Daimler has cooperations going with government authorities and utility/oil companies. This car and the decision to sell it is the fruit of more than 100 test vehicles and a combined total of over 4.5 million km of trial testing.
The B-Class F-CELL uses a 136hp electric motor with a massive 290Nm of torque from as low as 1rpm. That’s basically the entire rev range of the motor. The hydrogen capacity can take the car up to 385km on a full tank (NEDC driving cycle) and the tank can be replenished at a hydrogen refueling system in only 3 minutes, which is way shorter time than any EV can promise, even with quick chargers.
There is a 1.4kWh lithium ion battery that is used to temporarily store the charge recovered from brake energy regeneration and this energy will also be used to provide a power boost to the electric motor.
Mercedes-Benz’s stand is that internal combustion engines powered by fossil fuels will remain to be relevant for a long time to come – alternative energy solutions as they are now do not satisfy the needs of long haul travel not only just for consumers, but especially inter-state transport. But urban transport within cities will definitely benefit from zero-emission and low cost electric drive. Click here to read the rest of Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL in early 2010
There are rumors that a new electric car prototype concept will be unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show this October, a move that would seem to go against the Japanese carmaker’s stand that hydrogen fuel cell technology is the way of the future. Toyota is sticking to hybrids for the moment, while Nissan and Mitsubishi has already decided to jump straight to EVs. EVs make a lot of sense but the long charge times and the problem of solving how to implement a charging infrastructure and payment system for charging needs out of one’s own home is not easy to solve.
The advantages of hydrogen fuel cell cars – which essentially are also electric cars but with their electricity generated on the fly with a fuel cell – are that refuelling hydrogen is much faster than recharging a battery and consumers are already very familiar with the concept of plugging something in that refills your car with something in the matter of minutes and you driving off with a renewed vehicle range.
Even though Honda only has hybrids and fuel cell cars in its portfolio right now, it does not mean they are strangers to the concept of the battery-powered EV. They were leasing a pure electric car back in 1999 – the Honda EV Plus, which was a 3-door hatchback. You could lease it for US$455 a month for a 3-year lease. After the lease, you had to return the car to Honda where it would be crushed. It had a 66hp brushless DC motor and travel up to 160km under normal economical driving conditions and even 190km under ideal conditions.
An AP report claims that a Honda spokesperson confirmed that new EVs were in Honda’s development plans, but a release date had not been decided yet. An estimated date for a US production launch is pegged at 2015, a long, long way to go.
Honda has released 3 images of the Accord Crosstour which will be unveiled very soon – one of the grille, one of the headlamps and and another of the car’s rear end curve.
Us Malaysian may not care much about this model as it’s unlikely to be introduced here but it COULD give us a clue as to how a facelifted Accord could possibly look like next when it receives its mid-life facelift.
We see a projector headlamp above. When the Accord was first unveiled in 2008, the sedan model did not get projector lights, however the coupe got them. It looks like the Crosstour will also get them… will Honda please update the Accord with projector lamps during the mid-model change? The yellow turn signals are an American law thing, the rest of the world gets much better looking clear lenses.
Some Accord sedan owners in the US took it to themselves to retrofit projector lamps to their original headlamps with projector headlamps from the Infiniti FX.
Above is the front grille, which still kinda looks like what we already have on the Coupe and Sedan. Most of the noticeable on the Crosstour will probably be from the B-pillar towards the rear.
As it turns out, the 3-door Volkswagen Polo is just as handsome looking at the 5-door Volkswagen Polo. Volkswagen has definitely got its baby B-segment hatchback’s styling sorted out nicely. Most importantly to me, the Polo now looks unisex, while its predecessor looked a little feminine to me.
6 engines will be available with the car, with the most fuel efficient being a 75 PS turbodiesel that uses only 3.3 liters per 100km and puts out only 87g/km of CO2. The most powerful engine so far is the 1.2 liter TSI, putting out 105 PS thanks to its direct injection and forced induction. Of course, that’ll only be until the Polo GTI hot hatch is unveiled, which could feature either a 150 PS or 180 PS engine, assuming it mimics what’s offered with the hot version of the Ibiza.
Look after the jump for a full hi-res gallery of the 3-door Polo.
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Volkswagen has converted its South American centric Volkswagen Gol into a front wheel drive car-based single cab pickup, or “ute”, whatever you prefer calling it. The Gol-based ute is called the Volkswagen Saveiro and is powered by a 1.6 liter inline-4 flex-fuel engine thats shared with the Gol, producing 104 horses at 5,250rpm and 156Nm of torque at 2,500rpm if you fuel it with ethanol (minus 2 horses and 3Nm if you use regular petrol). The Saveiro is not a new name – it’s traditionally used a old time ago for car-based pickups in the Volkswagen family, and the last model was based on the Volkswagen Fox if I am not mistaken. Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Saveiro car-based ‘ute’
Here are an initial 4 photos of the new Maserati GranCabrio, essentially a drop top version of the GranTurismo. There are no photos of the GranCabrio with the top up right now but it has a soft top made of canvas, which is quite obvious looking at the length of the area behind the passenger cabin compared to the roof length required to cover up the cabin. Under the hood is of course Maserati’s 4.7 liter V8, putting out 433 horsepower. Of course with most cars scheduled only to debut at Frankfurt, details are scarce whenever the manufacturer decides to “tease” us with a few images and some details, so for the full release we’ll have to wait for Frankfurt. Click here to read the rest of Spider GranTurismo called the Maserati GranCabrio
