Automotive

Perhaps fearing that the brand is losing touch with "passionate drivers", Toyota is developing a new "affordable" sports car to fill the gap it left when it dropped the Supra and MR2 from its lineup. The FT-86 II concept, built on a Subaru platform under a partnership agreement, is a rear wheel drive coupe with smart styling that's clearly aimed at younger drivers. Toyota showed off the car in Melbourne, ahead of this weekend's Australian International Motor Show - and took the opportunity to give the press an advance look at the Prius C concept, Prius V, 2012 Hilux and all-new Yaris as well. Pics inside. Read More

Earlier this month, the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) and Nissan began testing a new roadside service vehicle equipped with a charger, to assist stranded electric vehicles (EVs). Now, the American Automobile Association (AAA) is about to launch a similar pilot project, where mobile charging units will join the roadside assistance fleets in six test regions - a significant marker along the path to mass adoption of the EV in North America. Read More

Last year in the Nürburgring 24 Hour race, Porsche's 911 GT3 R Hybrid held the lead for more than eight hours before problems unrelated to the hybrid system saw it relegated through the field. The organizer of the event thought the performance potential of the vehicle was so auspicious that for this year it crippled the rear-mounted petrol engine's performance to just 448 bhp. So Porsche built a completely new vehicle to the same design around the new regulations, lowered the weight, upped the electrical drive to the front wheels to 200 bhp and set out to run the same lap times. Not only did it achieve the same lap times, it delivered even better fuel consumption, and four hours after the start of this year's race, it hit the lead once more ... Read More

Despite research by automakers such as Audi and events such as DARPA's Grand Challenge, we're still waiting for fully autonomous cars to chauffeur us about town. Volkswagen has presented a new system called Temporary Auto Pilot (TAP), which is a link between existing driver assist technologies and completely automated vehicles. While still being monitored by the driver, TAP allows semi-automatic driving on a highway at speeds of up to 130 km/h (80 mph). Read More

Buckminster Fuller was an American inventor and futurist whose prolific and widely admired work gave us the geodesic dome, the remarkable Dymaxion Chronofile, the term ""Spaceship Earth" and the Dymaxion car. The Norman Foster-built Dymaxion car had a rare public outing at the exclusive boutique-style Salon Prive event in London this week. Nice photo file on this one. Read More

Toyota will continue the growing trend among auto makers of announcing new models and concept cars at places other than auto shows by unveiling the GRMN Sports Concept II at the Nürburgring 24-hour race this weekend. The GRMN is a lightweight, petrol-electric hybrid convertible with 295 bhp. The 245 bhp V6 is located centrally and drives the rear wheels while the front wheels are electrically-powered to complete the sports-hybrid AWD system. Read More

A consortium made up of specialist UK vehicle manufacturers, a green consultancy and an eco-friendly vehicle rental company has just launched a new project to road test 14 high performance electric vehicles (EV) for the next 12 months. Every aspect of performance will be closely monitored as the drivers taking part in the EEMS Accelerate project put the vehicles through the same kind of dynamic driving conditions encountered by users of regular road cars. The gathered data is to be published and used by government officials to help boost green transport manufacture in the UK. Read More

Your driving instructor probably told you to always keep two hands on the wheel, and your feet ready at the pedals. For people lacking the use of one or more upper or lower limbs, however, this isn’t always possible. Such people shouldn’t be precluded from driving, but they shouldn’t have to worry about not being able to fully control their car, either. While there are some solutions that can be applied to existing steering wheels and pedals, a group of Spanish researchers have come up with something else – a single device that allows drivers to steer, accelerate, change gears and brake with one hand. Read More

Following the appearance of the Concept M5 in April, BMW has released details of the new M5 that is expected to go on sale later this year. The fifth generation of BMW’s flagship high-performance saloon will be the first vehicle to feature the newly developed BMW M V8 engine that propels the car from 0-100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.4 seconds, 0-200 km/h (124 mph) in 13 seconds, before topping out at 250 km/h (155 mph) or 305 km/h (190 mph) with the optional M Driver’s Package. But alongside the impressive performance stats, BMW is also touting the improved fuel efficiency of the new M5. Read More