Automotive

With General Motors last year announcing its intention to roll out Chevrolet across Korea, this year’s Seoul Motor Show has seen the unveiling of a slick hybrid roadster concept developed by the GM Advanced Design Studio in Seoul to celebrate Chevrolet’s 100-year heritage and showcase future design possibilities for the brand. The Mi-ray, which is apparently Korean for ‘future’, is a small open top vehicle that boasts an aerodynamic body that GM says is reminiscent of modern jet fighters. Read More

Kia added to its electric vehicle concept line-up at the Seoul Motor Show today with the world premiere the Naimo electric crossover utility. Designed as a five-door, four-seater urban runabout, the Naimo is powered by an 80 kW electric motor which Kia says produces maximum torque of 280 Nm and will deliver a top speed of 150 km/h, while the 27 kWh Lithium Ion Polymer battery promises a range of around 125 miles (200 km) on a single charge. Read More

Porsche has unveiled the top dog in its Gran Turismo line. The new Panamera Turbo S raises the four-door sports car bar with a 4.8 liter, V8 biturbo charged engine that delivers 550 hp (410 kW) , which is 50 hp (37 kW) more than the engine found in the Panamera Turbo. The Panamera Turbo S also ups the torque from 700 to 750 Nm, while an overboost function in “Sport” and “Sport Plus” mode sees the torque peak at 800 Nm. These improvements allow the car to go from a standing start to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.8 seconds, on its way to a top speed of 306 km/h (191 mph). Read More

It's no secret that ambient temperature can have a significant impact on the performance of battery electric vehicles and temperature differences can therefore have a major impact in the range of said EVs. To combat this Volvo has equipped its C30 Electric (which started out as the Recharge Concept) with three climate systems including a bio-ethanol powered heater and put the vehicle through a barrage of tests in the rough winter conditions found in the automaker's Swedish homeland. Read More

With much of the traffic clogging city roads made up of vehicles that carry a single occupant to work, sit idle for the day (usually attracting inflated parking fees) and then return home, driving in urban areas is a headache that just keeps getting worse. While public transport is the answer for many, some still require the flexibility of a car. Recognizing this, BMW is positioning itself as not just an automobile manufacturer but rather a "mobility provider," and has partnered with car rental company Sixt for a car sharing venture called DriveNow that will offer premium BMW models that can be picked up and dropped off wherever the user needs them. Read More

Jabra says that its new FREEWAY in-car speakerphone is the first to offer virtual surround sound through a three speaker configuration that provides quality audio when making and taking calls or listening to music. The unit sports dual microphones with noise cancellation technology, can be paired with more than one mobile phone and will even switch itself on when you get in the car. Users can control much of the device's functionality by voice commands and the claimed battery life is pretty impressive, too. Read More

It’s nice to see that mass-market daily drivers aren’t the only vehicles going electric. Improvements in battery and materials technologies have opened the door for high performance electric vehicles like the Tesla Roadster, Li-ion Motor’s Inizio, Mercedes Benz’s all electric SLS AMG E-Cell Gullwing and Audi’s e-tron series, just to name a few. Joining the expanding all-electric sportscar showroom is the Artega SE (Sports Electric) from Germany-based automaker Artega, which can go from zero to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.3 seconds on its way to a top speed of over 250 km/h (155 mph). Read More

When designing a vehicle’s interior, it’s essential to know what different colors, instrument layouts and lighting options will look like at different times of day. Certain shades of black, for instance, can look almost gray in bright sunlight, while instruments that are clearly visible at night may be subject to glare during the day. Since 2006, engineers at the Ford Motor Company have been using something called the Visual Performance Evaluation Lab (VPEL) to determine what the insides of their vehicles will look like at any time of day, under varying amounts of cloud cover. Read More

First shown as a concept at the Geneva Motor Show 2010, Porsche's highly innovative and deliciously proportioned Hybrid 918 Spyder is now available for order. Powered by a 500 hp V8 assisted by two electric motors, no more than 918 units of the new two-seater supercar will be made with production slated to begin in September 2013. The asking price: US$845,000. Read More