Super New Astra Let Down By The ‘Two-Door Limit’

Seán Creedon took a trip down memory lane in the latest Opel Astra GTC, an almost unrecognisable variant of the car he drove in the early 1990s… Around 16 years ago I bought a second-hand red Opel Astra. There were a lot of Astras around at the time, and it served me well. Later I gave the car to my son, who had just passed his driving test, and he got a few more years out of it. I was reminded of the reliability of that old car last week when I picked up an attractive new red Opel Astra GTC. However, the only thing the cars had in common was their logo and red paintwork.

The new Astra GTC is a sporty model and, naturally, a two-door. By now, my family is becoming accustomed to two-door cars… although that doesn’t mean that they are beginning to like them. I thought the car was of sufficient length for an extra pair of doors. Opel would have made at least one family very happy if they had taken this option, perhaps keeping the handles discreet, as Alfa or Citroen have done.

 The Astra has changed a lot in recent years, and if you were returning to Europe after a lengthy break elsewhere in the world, you would hardly recognise the new model from the trusty car that was so popular on the continent in the early 1990s. Opel was on a high back then, in the days when it sponsored the Irish soccer team. The contemporary Astra now resembles the Opel Insignia, and indeed, had already adopted the coupé look before the ‘performance’ GTC elements were added. The front headlamps are very attractive, and inside there is room for four people, and if required, there might be just enough room to enable a third small adult to squeeze in.

 For the second week in succession, my regular passenger and I enjoyed the heated front seats, as April is still quite chilly for leather seats in Ireland. On the dash, all controls are grouped together in a neat console, with an abundance of slave controls on the sporty-looking steering wheel. The boot is a decent size for a sporty hatchback. While the car is certainly attractive, I thought the alloys could have been better—I have seen fancier ones on the other cars I have driven recently.

 I have two further small gripes. Firstly, the bright sat-nav display could have done with adjustment controls for night-time driving, when it might prove a distraction. And secondly, while the new style handbrake currently in vogue works fine, with an activation display on the dash, I would have preferred a traditional handbrake.

China paring electric-car ambitions

China's leaders are finding it's a lot tougher to create a world-beating electric car industry than they hoped. In 2009, they announced bold plans to cash in on demand for clean vehicles by making China a global power in electric car manufacturing. They pledged billions of dollars for research and called for annual sales of 500,000 cars by 2015. Today, Beijing is scaling back its ambitions, chastened by technological hurdles and lack of buyer interest.

Developers have yet to achieve breakthroughs and will be lucky to sell 2,000 cars this year, mostly taxis. The government has hedged its bets by broadening the industry's official goals to include cleaner gasoline engines. The government has repeatedly changed targets because the "technology isn't advancing quite as fast as people had hoped," said Joe Hinrichs, Ford Motor Co.'s president for Asia, at this week's Beijing auto show.

 The government has yet to lower sales goals that ramp up to 5 million vehicles a year by 2020. But officials including Premier Wen Jiabao started acknowledging last year that progress was slow and developers need to improve quality instead of rushing models to market. About 13,000 all-electric and other alternative energy vehicles are being tested in 25 cities, but that is "still small despite government subsidies," the deputy director of the Ministry of Science and Technology's electric vehicle bureau, Zhen Zijian, said in March, according to the business magazine Caixin. China's most advanced developer, BYD Co., in which American investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Corp. owns a 10 percent stake, says its electric e6 sedan can travel 300 kilometers (190 miles) on a charge, similar to Western models.

 BYD has sold 300 taxis and 200 electric buses used in the southern city of Shenzhen, a center for business and technology near Hong Kong, according to Henry Li, general manager of its export division. BYD has invested heavily in research and has thousands of engineers working on battery and motor technology. "We think our EV (electric vehicle) platform is one of the most advanced in the world, and our capability for mass production is quite high," Li said. But as for the rest of the industry, "there are not many manufacturers with really reliable or commercialized products," he said.

 Chinese leaders saw electric cars as a way to curb demand for imported oil, which they regard as a strategic danger, and to help transform China from a low-cost factory into a creator of profitable technology. "China has run up against the same technical obstacles as anyone else," said Michael Dunne, president of Dunne & Co. Ltd., a Hong Kong-based industry researcher. "They said: Hold on, maybe we shouldn't marry ourselves to electrics just yet. Let's look at the alternatives. Maybe we have to take an incremental approach, just like everyone else," Dunne said. Wary consumers have been put off by news reports of batteries in Chinese-made cars catching fire.

A lack of charging stations is causing "range anxiety" -- fears a car might run out of power, leaving the driver stranded. Under the Communist Party's latest five-year development plan for China's economy, issued in 2011, the government has released guidelines for other industries but not for alternative vehicles -- a possible sign officials have gone back to the drawing board.

Lamborghini, BMW Expect Car Sales Growth in China to Slow

Volkswagen AG (VOW)’s Lamborghini and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) said they expect sales of luxury cars in China to rise at a slower pace amid higher fuel costs and a decelerating economy. Lamborghini Chief Executive Officer Stephan Winkelmann and BMW sales chief Ian Robertson are among global car executives who said yesterday at the Beijing auto show that Chinese demand is slowing. Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, said April 22 that industrywide inventory of vehicles in China is rising. China’s economy expanded 8.1 percent in the first three months from a year earlier, the least in almost three years, as exports cooled and Premier Wen Jiabao waged a campaign to damp consumer and property prices.

The slower pace of growth and stiffer competition prompted BMW, Daimler AG (DAI), and VW’s Audi AG - - the world’s three biggest premium automakers -- to dangle steeper discounts in the world’s largest automobile market. “The message sounds a bit more cautious than before,” said Juergen Pieper, an analyst with Bankhaus Metzler in Frankfurt. “Everybody understands that growth has been too high to sustain.

 I think the market will normalize to a more sustainable rate of growth.” China raised prices of gasoline and diesel last month by the most in more than two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ‘Ease Somewhat’ BMW expects sales growth this year to “ease somewhat” from a gain of 37 percent in the first quarter, Robertson said. Still, new products such as the revamped 3-Series and a factory that will open next month in Tiexi will help the company post a double-digit sales increase in the Asian nation this year as it targets a new global sales record, he told reporters yesterday.

 Orders for Lamborghini in China were lower in the first quarter, which is being offset by a pickup in the U.S. and the Middle East, Winkelmann said. Lamborghini expects to beat last year’s global deliveries of 1,600 vehicles in 2012. Porsche AG, the sportscar maker jointly owned by VW and the Porsche SE (PAH3) holding company, expects that growth will slow to about 10 percent this year in China from 65 percent in 2011, Chief Executive Matthias Mueller said in a Bloomberg TV interview yesterday. Sales last year were boosted by the revamped Cayenne SUV, he said.

Councilors accept gift of power station for electric vehicles

The city will soon be one of four municipalities in the Northeast to receive a donated electric vehicle charging station for public use.

The new Class 2 electric vehicle charging station will be at the city-owned High-Hanover parking garage. Installation is expected as soon as possible.
The charging station was accepted by the City Council on Tuesday night. It's installation will come courtesy of the local Nissan dealership.

Jennifer Fecteau, executive manager at Port City Nissan, said the Portsmouth location was selected by Nissan Corp. as one of four recipients from Virginia to Maine.

Fecteau said, once installed, the new car charger will allow owners of electric-powered cars to come to the parking garage and recharge their cars while they shop and dine downtown.

"Portsmouth could be a real hub for electric car drivers," she said.

Port City Nissan sells an electric car model known as the Leaf. Other car makers also have electric models, including the Chevrolet Volt, Ford Focus Electric, Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, Ford C-Max Energi and Mitsubishi "i."

Fecteau said research indicates sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles will hit 3.2 million vehicles nationally between 2010 and 2015.

City Manager John Bohenko said accepting the gift will help push the city toward its goal of becoming an environmentally conscious municipality. Bohenko called it a no-cost pilot program because demand will help decide whether more chargers should be installed later.

"This opportunity gives us the ability to move forward, pilot it, see how it works, and if we're finding there is demand, then it's in our best interest to put in some additional charging stations," Bohenko said.

Councilors had many questions on the logistics behind installing the car charger and how the city would charge users for the electricity they use in the parking garage.

Councilor Jack Thorsen asked how long it would take for a car to charge at the location. He also questioned whether the one charging station would be tied up all of the time.

Fecteau said it takes about seven hours for a full charge. She said most car owners wouldn't likely spend that length of time charging their vehicles at the garage; rather, they would plan Portsmouth as a destination to charge their vehicle while they shopped or dined in the city.

"Most people aren't taking them on long trips," she said.

Fecteau said the vehicles are also equipped with a telematics system that interacts with the vehicle's onboard navigation system to show electric car owners where chargers are located. She said there is also a smartphone application that directs them to the nearest car charging station.

Councilor Ken Smith questioned how the city would charge for the electricity being used.

Bohenko explained that the city will likely end up charging electric car users an additional fee on top of the cost to park. The city could charge them an extra 25 cents to 50 cents per hour, he said.

"We will look at the electric usage and consider adding that on to the hourly fee," he said.

City Councilor Brad Lown was one of several councilors who liked the idea.

"I suspect that, if the idea takes off, then we are going to need hundreds of these things," he said.

Toyota Tacoma Wins PickupTrucks.com's 2012 Midsize Shootout

PickupTrucks.com, the authority for new and used pickup truck buyers, announced today the Toyota Tacoma as the winner of its 2012 Midsize Shootout. Toyota's Tacoma won the first-place prize in the competition between seven popular midsize trucks.

"Of all the small trucks we tested, the Tacoma was the clear winner in this Shootout," said Mark Williams, PickupTrucks.com editor. "A strong bang-for-your buck value, combined with refinements to the ride quality and interior cabin helped the Tacoma trump the other competitors by a pretty good margin. The Toyota Tacoma just continues to get better and better."

Experts from PickupTrucks.com and USA TODAY put these midsize trucks through 10 tests that included a four-wheel drive capability challenge to gauge vehicle suspension and off-road driving confidence; acceleration and braking at maximum cargo capacity to determine each truck's cargo-carrying abilities; and an extremely diverse 203-mile drive to analyze fuel economy and on-road driving comfort. Maximum load capacity, horsepower and overall value were also calculated and scored.

The Nissan Frontier finished a relatively close second with a top three finish in most tests. "The Frontier was our all-around backup utility player, earning solid points in just about every challenge we could throw at it. It had plenty of grunt to pull and haul when called upon, yet enough comfort to allow you to relax," Williams said.

Toyota hybrid Le Mans race car teased in photos

Though we’ve seen some lovely Toyota hybrids earlier this month already, the auto company is never satisfied to bring you just what you were expecting – that’s why this week they’ve teased a fabulous new Le Mans-class racing car complete with TOYOYA HYBRID emblazoned across its gigantic shark fin.
This vehicle currently comes in a lovely red and white color scheme, rolls around a track with no name, and has car aficionados gripping their kneecaps in anticipation. This vehicle has not yet been named, nor have essentially any of its details been released.


This vehicle is therefor currently classified as a prototype endurance racer, using hybrid technology to race in and out of our dreams with glee. Currently if you want a car in a Le Mans race in the top LMP1 class, you need to be employing a kinetic energy recovery system working with brakes, exhaust, engine, or suspension that allows for electricity generation on the fly.

Energy with this type of system is stored in a battery pack or a flywheel from whens it can be directed to the electric motor where it can be used for a boost in power. This also, of course, increases the efficient nature of the vehicle overall. This Toyota hybrid racer with no name undoubtedly uses something to this effect.

BMW-Like Interior for Next-Gen Mini Cooper

Comments, rumors and speculations are pouring in about the next generation Mini Cooper that is slated to be released for their 2014 Mini Cooper model. One thing that seems the most significant is the interior redesign. It is purported to be just like the BMW 1 series GT. In fact many are stating that it is a BMW 1 Series, dressed up like a Mini Cooper. What is unclear of is if this is a convert way of testing new platforms that BMW may be developing.

The 2014 Mini Cooper hatchback is still rumored to have the same cute exterior that Cooper fans have come to love and expect. Many are up in arms about replacing the unconventional interior including toggles and switches with mundane features. The radio, gauges, stalks and overall dash layout in the 2014 models look provincial instead of unique as they had before the redesign.

A comment from an anonymous Mini Cooper fan states “That interior is too plain from the limited view of it. Yes retro may not work for some people but to take the retro out of a mini would do it more harm than good. I say keep the retro lines and just clean them up and do away with some of the business. I never heard of a mini owner complaining about the interior being too retro or the center mount speedometer which does not really take much at all to get used to, and they go better with the overall aesthetic with the car than having the exterior of a recognizable Mini wrapped around the interior of a Golf.”

Other comments coming in voice how “bland” the new interior looks. Many people paying attention state that they hope BMW will consider keeping the older version Mini Cooper interior. What BMW’s final decision about this is not known, but the speculations are creating a lot of attention for the upcoming new Cooper models.