BMW will be showing a crossover version of the Mini at the 2008 Paris Auto Show. Although only a concept for now, it hints at the design direction for future Minis, while gauging consumer reaction to a possible new variant to the Mini line.
Chevrolet’s last attempt at a minivan, called the Uplander, was a total disaster. Their new attempt will be shown off as a concept at October’s Paris Auto Show.
Indian conglomerate Tata, makers of the controversial Nano and owners of two British marques, has introduced an all-electric version of their Indian-market Indica V2 hatchback. The kicker is that this Indica EV will be ready for production by 2009.
If you keep track of the American car market, you’ll know that the four-door Toyota Prius is a seriously popular car there, since its launch a decade ago. Being a hybrid, it runs on a petrol engine which shuts off to use electric power as much as possible, and it generates this electric power simply from energy released during braking. Honda also had its own hybrid car a decade ago, called the Insight, which was cancelled by 2006 since it was a two-door hatchback and wasn’t as popular. Now Honda has revived the Insight nameplate for their latest hybrid,
While it was all but ignored at the 2007 Dubai Motor Show, the Chevrolet Volt has been doing rounds of international auto shows in concept form, and is set for release in 2010. As brash as the deadline is, the Volt is a game-changing car, designed to run purely on electricity from on-board lithium-ion batteries for up to 64 km, enough for commuting to work, while charging the batteries overnight every day. Also, with the use of a small petrol engine driving a generator to resupply the batteries, the Volt’s range is potentially increased to 580 km on the highway.
General Motors has released brief details about their upcoming 2010 Chevrolet Cruze compact car, along with official photos.
Believe it or not, but there are people out there who actually worship the perennially awful Honda City. Most of these people reside in countries such as India, Malaysia and China, and they’ve been tracking the progress of the upcoming 2009 model. We have to say, the new model actually looks rather decent, even though it looks nothing like any other Honda, in keeping with the company’s unfortunate tradition of all its models not sharing any corporate styling features among one another.
One of our readers, Mohamad, pointed us to this thread on nissan-arabia.com, showing local photos of the GCC-spec Renault “mystery sedan” that we exposed some time ago. It looks like the new sedan will revive the Renault Safrane nameplate for this Japanese-designed Korean-built French-badged car.
The 2010 Cadillac SRX has been revealed, alongside the CTS sport-wagon. While the older SRX was based on the larger rear-driven CTS platform, the new SRX will be based on a smaller front-driven platform to be shared with the upcoming Saab 9-4X.
Hot on the heels of renderings for the 2009 Mazda 3 sedan, these photos show early models of the 2009 Mazda 3 hatchback.