World Auto News & Reviews

Volvo Cars of North America has revealed prices for the XC60 compact SUV. The starting price is US$37,200. The vehicle comes with a 3.0-litre gasoline turbo T6 engine and AWD. It delivers 281hp and maximum torque of 295 lb.-ft.
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There is no questioning iQ’s status as one of the most fuel-efficient cars on the market, but a new hypermiling challenge has seen the tiny Toyota perform way beyond its official mpg figures.Piloted by two of the team from the iQ blog, a standard iQ2 with a 1.0-litre VVT-i petrol engine, broke through 500 miles on a single tank of fuel. What makes the achievement all the more remarkable is that this was no finely tuned marathon attempt, but a gruelling drive through some of the most congested town centres in the south and midlands of England and Wales.
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Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Stuttgart, was not able to escape the general downward trend in the global automotive industry in the first six months of the current year of business 2008/09 (1 August 2008 - 31 January 2009) and will therefore show a decrease in revenues according to provisional figures of 14.3 per cent to approximately Euro three billion. Taking the development of sales by mid-January 2009 as a fundamental indicator, sales in the first half of the business year are expected to have decreased by 27.3 per cent to approximately 34,000 units. This was announced this Friday by the President and Chief Executive Officer of Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Dr. Wendelin Wiedeking, at the Annual General Meeting of the Company in the Porsche-Arena, Stuttgart.
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We were mildly surprised yesterday to learn that Toyota is going to air a Super Bowl spot for its all-new Venza crossover. Today, we’re simply blown away that the company — which today will report its first annual net loss in history — is spending another $3 million on a commercial for its full-size pickup, the Tundra.
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GTRblog reports that Nissan will be making programming changes to the 2010 GT-R’s ECU that should result in better acceleration times when the Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC) system is engaged. An additional change also allows the engine to rev past 2000rpm when the brakes are depressed and VDC is engaged, for less aggressive launches. The modifications to the VDC basically neuters the Launch Control system, but that’s not what’s causing the controversy.
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