- 370bhp Ford Focus RS Heritage Edition lands as hardcore swansong – Autocar: The run-out version of current Ford Focus RS features a Quaife locking differential at the front and Mountune power upgrade
- GM, Ford, VW, Toyota among automakers providing up to $130 million for Takata’s US settlement – Automotive News: Honda has faced the greatest number of airbag-related claims of the automakers, and 20 of the deaths have occurred in Honda vehicles, most of which were in the United States. In return for funding the trust, Honda will be shielded from further…
- Edmunds offers top picks for stick shifts – Washington Post: For a more luxurious experience, there’s the 2018 Audi A4. A manual transmission is available in all three of the A4’s trim levels:, Premium, Premium Plus and Prestige. And it is paired to a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine and all-wheel…
- Dyson plans three-car EV range – Autocar: Second and third cars will follow a low-volume first model, as the brand looks to penetrate the car industry from 2019
- China Electric-Car Startup Hires Ex-Goldman Banker – Bloomberg: Byton, the Chinese electric-car startup founded by BMW AG veterans, hired former investment banker Charles Cheng to focus on its capital markets and fundraising activities, … The car also taps Amazon’s Alexa technology for its entertainment system…
- Volkswagen’s Skoda Auto reports January deliveries up 10.7 pct year-on-year – Reuters: Skoda Auto raised its global deliveries by 10.7 percent year-on-year in January to 103,800 cars, its best result ever for the month, the Czech unit of Volkswagen said on Wedndesday. The carmaker increased the deliveries mainly in Russia, India and…
- New X4 will be a sportier drive, BMW says – Automotive News: BMW said its new X4 will will have “noticeably superior” driving dynamics after its chassis technology was extensively upgraded and its weight was reduced by up to 50 kg. The second-generation X4 moves to a new architecture — BMW’s CLAR platform –…
- South Korea union says GM plant closure is ‘death sentence’, threatens strike – Reuters: Gunsan city worked really hard to rescue GM, buying GM cars produced from the factory. The whole town is now in panic, Park Chung-hi, chairwoman of the Gunsan city council, told Reuters. Park who also has a GM car said one out of five in Gunsan,…
- GM Korea offers workers three times annual wage, tuition fees for redundancy – Reuters: A GM Korea spokesman confirmed the details of the document, saying the offer was part of efforts to proceed with restructuring in an orderly manner. The average annual wage at the plant, including wages and allowances, is around 87 million won, the GM…
- 2018 BMW X4 unveiled: new swept-back SUV sets it sights on Evoque – Autocar: This is the new BMW X4 In a bid to close the gap to Land Rover’s top-seller, the Mercedes GLC Coupe and Porsche Macan, BMW has reinvented its X4
- The roadblocks to successful self-driving cars – FT: Companies everywhere are rushing towards this great prize, and that has never been as clear as this month when the Valley was transfixed by a high-profile court case over the alleged theft of self-driving trade secrets featuring Uber and Waymo. Because…
- Glut of off-lease SUVs may slow new-vehicle sales – Detroitnews: Recent-model crossovers and SUVs heading to dealer lots this year could eat into new-car sales
- South Korean union protests GM plant closure move, calls it a “death sentence” – Reuters: Workers at a General Motors (GM) plant in South Korea that the U.S. automaker plans to close staged a protest on Wednesday, saying the … The South Korean auto industry’s high cost and low productivity has been a deep-rooted issue, which can’t be…
- GM claim high cost for S. Korea plant closure, union cites mismanagement – Yonhap: On Tuesday, the South Korean unit of General Motors Co., said it will shut down one of its four plants in South Korea by May as part of its broader global … The state-run Korea Development Bank owns a 17 percent stake in GM Korea, with GM and SAIC…