Yesterday we received a bit of news that came as a little bit of a surprise. According to a source (who has been reliable in the past), Honda hosted a "Grassroots" meeting for West Coast Honda dealers yesterday. During this meeting, the dealers are said to have shared some of their comments and concerns about the 2012 Civic, and reportedly Honda's response was that a "very refreshed, and more aggressively styled Civic" would make its debut in December 2012, as a 2013 model.

We tried reaching out to some of the contacts we have in other regions to see if they had heard anything similar. The one that I heard back from indicated that they had not heard this information, but they had heard a few months back that there would be some tweaks to the '12 Civics (improved wheels/tires on the Civic LX, possibly some upgraded interior materials) and the car would be "relaunched" sometime in the near term.

Suffice it to say, we will be tracking this one.

Source;
http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=1007927

In line with its strategy of Pure Drive, Nissan continues to innovate to improve the performance of CO2 and fuel economy to generate profits without real commitment to consumers. As part of this strategy of Nissan launches a pure version of the new hardcover for sale Nissan Qashqai equipped with a new state of the art 1.6 dCi.



The new engine is a perfect example of the strategy of Nissan Pure Drive, replacing the previous 2.0 dCi with a more efficient engine that provides not only a reduction of emissions and significantly improved levels of fuel economy, but provides the same level performance of the more powerful engine.



Best of all, when combined with Nissan Stop / Start CO2 system machine just 119 g / km.
Along with this new innovative options available in Nissan Qashqai range, including a new CVT gearbox for the first time on a C-segment car, Around View Monitor. AVM uses a series of small cameras placed outside the vehicle to make parking maneuvers as safe as possible by giving the driver a helicopter view real-time environment around the car.



Nissan's move underscores the growing line of crossovers on the market and maintaining the Nissan Qashqai for one or even two, steps to the opposition.



"When Qashqai was launched in 2007, quickly re-wrote the rule book in the C segment, offering innovation and the capacity in a market previously conservative. The combination of SUV looks and tenacity in driving dynamics, a strong performance and plenty of interior space has captured the imagination of the public to buy cars. "

by Abhishek Chaliha

The hydrogen powered next generation Honda FCX Clarity has been around for a couple of years now and it makes electric cars look like dinosaurs. Read on to know more about the vehicle that is undoubtedly the future of motoring

Automobili Lamborghini Blancpain and to combine their engineering skills and phenomenal honor of the great success Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo racing series with a super sports car very special: the new Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Blancpain edition.

This extraordinary super sports car with the spirit of competition, the Super Trofeo race car with the luxurious and fully road usability. The first exclusive, limited-edition Gallardo Blancpain has presented a batch of Stephan Winkelmann CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, and Marc A. Hayek, Blancpain CEO of the final weekend at the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo is Sunday, September 26, 2010 at the "Piero Taruffi" circuit, Vallelunga.



Automobili Lamborghini, the Italian manufacturer of extreme super sports cars, and Blancpain, watch the world's oldest luxury brands is among the best in their respective fields from around the world. Blancpain has recently been voted "Best of the Best", "Luxury Institute" marks one of the best in the world looks to New York. Now the two brands have jointly developed a unique combination of technology and design to create the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Edition Blancpain, set the power of the world's fastest single-make race series as part of a street-legal vehicle.

Blancpain is the main sponsor of a series Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo. The cooperation between the two brands will bring the highest levels of engineering and automotive industries chronometry. Blancpain has produced an innovative masterpiece of watchmaking art Vallée de Joux in Switzerland since 1735. Each watch is assembled one at a blacksmith, a reflective quality and individual attention to build a Lamborghini super sports cars in the street, and its 570 hp Super Trofeo cars.

Journalists at a Nissan press event in Spain this week got a nice surprise: a first glimpse at the now-complete Nissan Juke-R sport crossover.

This is the first of two Juke-R models built by Nissan’s European Technology Center and the RML racing team. The project entailed stripping the funky Juke crossover of its turbocharged I-4 and massaging the bodywork and platform to accommodate Godzilla’s powertrain. As a result, the car now sports the GT-R’s 3.8-liter, twin-turbocharged V-6, and boasts all-wheel-drive, 480 hp, and a six-speed dual-clutch transmission. Impressive, but most incredible is the fact the finished cars will be street legal.

On the inside, Nissan managed to squeeze in the GT-R’s gauge cluster, as well as its seven-inch LCD display with graphics by video game house Polyphony. The car also gets a complex roll cage, designed to brace the Juke body to cope with the extra power.

The hopped-up crossover was given a surprise unveiling at a press event in Malaga, Spain, which was primarily focused on Nissan’s less-insane crossover models. Nissan says the Juke-R will begin testing next month, but after that, the plan is a little less certain. Interestingly, Nissan says it’s toyed with putting a form of a super Juke into limited production, and that the Juke-R will gauge public reaction to such a vehicle.

Seeing as the Juke-R has roughly 25,000 fans on Facebook, many of whom have left comments like “Love that JUKE!” and “This is exactly what all car companies should be about,” we predict the reaction will be favorable.

Thanks to: Motor Trend

Audi’s off-road-focused Allroad Quattro model has historically been based on the A6 Avant. Now, it appears the Allroad package will make the jump to the next-smaller wagon in Audi’s lineup, the A4 Avant. Taken in Southern Europe, these spy shots show the next-gen Allroad undergoing final tests before its anticipated European launch, which could be sometime early 2012.

Identifying this A4 wagon as an Allroad are the increased ride height and pronounced fender guards, all trademarks of past Allroad Quattro models. We can also see this car wears unique rocker panel moldings as well as a slightly different front valance, complete with extra fog lamp holes. An Allroad-specific grille is also present, which replaces the characteristic horizontal slats with metallic-looking vertical ones. This motif first began on the A6 Allroad Quattro, which is currently on sale in Europe. A black rectangular piece covers part of the grille, likely blocking out the Audi emblem, assuming this is the final grille design.

All we can presume to know about the drivetrain is that it features Audi’s Quattro all-wheel drive system. Powering this Allroad model could be the standard A4’s turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4, which makes 211 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque. Audi might also pull from the A4’s range of other turbocharged four-cylinder engines, which include both gasoline and TDI turbodiesel options. A dark horse powertrain option would be the 333-hp supercharged 3.0-liter V-6, an engine already available in the larger A6 Allroad in Europe. It’s hard to say at this point whether or not this model will make it across the pond, but if it does, we say there’s always room for more wagons in the U.S.

Thanks to: Motor Trend

The new Subaru BRZ coupé will have the lowest centre of gravity of any production car when it goes on sale next summer, according to the manufacturer.

The BRZ’s rear-wheel-drive configuration has meant that Subaru's compact 2.0-litre Boxer engine can be mounted even lower in the chassis than would normally be permissible in the manufacturer's conventional four-wheel-drive layout.

Despite being co-developed with Toyota, the vast majority of the engineering work has been undertaken by Subaru; although the company has confirmed that the BRZ's flat-four unit will incorporate a Toyota direct fuel-injection system.

Power outputs, however, will differ with a Subaru-spec ECU liberating the BRZ’s power to “less than 300bhp,” compared with the FT-86’s 200bhp figure.

Details of the car’s final spec remain under wraps - even Subaru's UK new MD admitted to Autocar that he'd only seen a clay model of the finished product - but insiders suggest that the grille and bumpers will differentiate the RBZ from its Toyota-badged sibling.

A roadster version could yet play a part in future model plans, but a topless car is ‘under consideration’ rather than developmental reality.

Subaru insists that no costing strategy has been established, but with the Volkswagen Scirocco confirmed as the main rival, expect the RBZ’s price tag to land somewhere in the current coupé ballpark.

The lack of a final figure - or even an image of the production car - has apparently not dissuaded Subaru fans from already registering their interest with the company's dealership network.

While the new 2+2 coupé is expected to fill a healthy new niche for the manufacturer, Subaru UK has made it clear that it intends to focus much of its energy on 'lifestyle' products, such as the new XV crossover, as it looks to achieve a sales target of 7500 units in 2012.

The Subaru BRZ will be unveiled at the Tokyo show next month.

Nic Cackett

Source;
http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle.aspx?AR=259739

By Matt Peckham

OnStar's crying uncle after the media (and presumably customer) hoopla over its plans to track former subscribers. That's terrific news—I called the plan creepy, because it was.

OnStar just announced that it was changing course, stating it was "reversing its proposed Terms and Conditions policy changes," and that it would "not keep a data connection to customers' vehicles after the OnStar service is canceled."

MORE: Creepy: OnStar Will Track You Whether You're Subscribed or Not

The satellite based tracking service had planned, beginning this December, to collect speed, location and related customer data from users whether they discontinued service or not—unless, that is, customers specifically contacted OnStar to sever the latent, secondary connection.

OnStar recently emailed its customers to let them know of their plans to begin collecting the data, ostensibly to mine and sell to third parties, but it seems that between the media's negative reaction and the presumed customer backlash, OnStar changed its mind.

“We realize that our proposed amendments did not satisfy our subscribers," said OnStar president Linda Marshall in a statement. "This is why we are leaving the decision in our customers' hands. We listened, we responded and we hope to maintain the trust of our more than 6 million customers."

Marshall says that if OnStar decides to pursue post-cancellation data collection in the future, it would be opt-in only, and even then, OnStar says it would work with customers to determine how the data was used. Marshall lists two ways the data might benefit former customers, including providing updates about natural disasters or recalls that impact their vehicles (though she doesn't mention any of the less desirable things OnStar might use the data for, including monitoring driving behavior or general location-based activity).

If you're a current OnStar subscriber, however, your data's still being mined, like it or not.
According to the company's terms of service, subsection 33 (titled "YOUR PRIVACY"):

The information we may get from your Car includes things such as: data about its operation; data about your use of the OnStar Services; the location of your Car; data about accidents involving your Car, including safety belt usage; and information about your use of the Car and its features. We may also approximate the speed of your Car based on GPS data to support a limited number of OnStarServices, such as Stolen Vehicle Assistance services, as further described in our Privacy Statement. We may collect information from your Car on a periodic or regular basis.

In any event, OnStar's quick reaction and unambiguous reversal for customers who want to snap their subscription link clean and free gets my thumbs up. The only thing that'd top this would be more detailed disclosure of what else, beyond providing basic services and legal compliance, the company's actually doing with the data its mining from current subscribers.

Source;
http://techland.time.com/2011/09/28/onstar-reverses-position-wont-track-you-if-you-cancel-service/

Cadillac announced that it will return to competition in 2011 with a race-ready version of its CTS-V Coupe to compete in the World Club Challenge Sports Car of America, North America's largest series of race-based production.

Cadillac announced that it will return to competition in 2011 with a race-ready version of its CTS-V Coupe to compete in the World Club Challenge Sports Car of America, North America's largest series of race-based production.

Vender tilbage til en Flytningen Series Cadillac konkurrerede Hvor den 2004 til 2007. GT i-med Konkurrerende Klassen CTS-V Sport Sedan, Cadillac fanget Producentens Championship The 2005 og 2007 og førerens the 2005 Championship.
Cadillac is the field two teams in the future is based SCCA World Challenge GT-class racing on the Cadillac CTS-V Coupe. CTS-V, which also includes the CTS-V sedan and CTS-V, Wagon, was recently named Car and Driver magazine list of the Top 10 for 2011.

"Palatakseni races of the SCCA World Challenge is Hyvä ja osoittaa suorituskykyä kykyä top Cadillac CTS-V Coupe" Sanoi Don Butler, johtaja Markkinointi Cadillac. "Taman Sharjah perustuu tuotanto Kilpi, joka anta toimintaamme Meille vast Parhan mahdollisuuden kilpailijoiden vahvistaa radalla, Eika showroom vain."

Cadillac is working with Pratt & Miller, a New Hudson, Michigan, engineering firm specializing in motor sport, to develop the Cadillac CTS-V Coupe race car. Although some components of the production CTS-V will be modified due to the unique requirements of career or to meet the technical requirements of the SCCA series, all efforts to maintain the production of content as possible.

Cadillac Concept Aera won the Challenge 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show Design, tying the smart labels and animals of the seven other automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Nissan, Toyota and Maybach. GM Advanced Design has won the honor more than any other design team, this is the third win since 2005.

This is the seventh year of competition and this year designers were asked to consider the "1,000-pound car," and instructed to imagine an effective four-passenger vehicle that has kept the comfort, safety, driving performance and style, while not exceeding the weight requirements.



"The concept Cadillac Aera was designed to continue the art of Cadillacs fantastic forward thinking" and science "philosophy," says Jussi Timonen, lead designer of the project. "It is shaped like a small city car city, but we approached this 2 +2 coupe drive both from the point of view of the luxury brand. Aera in every detail was designed to minimize the environmental impact of the car without sacrificing style, comfort and a sense of the details that make the reputation of the Cadillac. "
The Concept Cadillac Aera is powered by compressed air via a pneumatic control system very efficient, which has a 10,000 psi composite tank air storage with a capacity of 1000-mile range. Flexible air cells in the outer skin, similar to the material developed for NASA's airbags Mars Rover, improve passive safety features and interior comfort. The aerodynamics of flexible polymer to optimize skin function as a lightweight alternative to traditional body panels and glass.