Hyundai has been targeted by Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit advocacy organization, over the automaker’s 40 mpg fuel efficiency claim on the Hyundai Elantra. The group says Elantra owners have seen fuel economy averages of 18 and 19 mpg instead of the the 29 mpg city and 40 mpg highway reported by Hyundai and the Environmental Protection Agency (see also: Civic Hybrid lawsuit). As such, the group has sent letters to both Hyundai CEO John Krafcik and President Eok Jo Kim warning that if the automaker advertised the 40 mpg claim in the company’s Super Bowl spots, Consumer Watchdog would release a retaliatory video of its own. The group has since followed through with that threat.

Hyundai has since released a new, updated version of its Super Bowl ad, and Consumer Watchdog claims the Korean automaker has now promised not to include the 40 mpg figure in any of the spots. Hyundai, meanwhile, released a statement saying the company’s advertising was “in no way” influenced by the Consumer Watchdog claims, comments or statements. Click past the jump for a look at the Elantra Super Bowl spot, the Consumer Watchdog clip about the vehicle’s mileage claims and a press release from the non-profit.

Also worth a read is Popular Mechanics just-published (and very timely) fuel-economy test of two cars boasting 40 mpg EPA highway ratings: the Ford Focus SFE and the Hyundai Elantra. Ultimately, when you get past all the noise, it’s important to remember that “your mileage may vary” is a mantra for a reason.

Continue reading Did Hyundai pull MPG claims from Super Bowl ad due to watchdog group pressure? [w/video]

Did Hyundai pull MPG claims from Super Bowl ad due to watchdog group pressure? [w/video] originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on AutoblogGreen

Chris Bangle may be the name most recently associated with BMW design, but he’s just one of many men and women who have sketched and sculpted automobiles for Bayerische Motoren Werke. BMW enthusiast website BMWism.com has gone all the way back to the beginning of the brand, when a BMW was a knockoff of an Austin 7. The names we all know show up in the chronology; giants of post-World War II automotive design world like Michelotti, Bertone, Gandini, Bracq, and of course, Hofmeister.

In addition to the Italian hired guns who sketched for BMW at one time or another, a few surprising names dot BMW’s history. Josef Ganz, the largely unsung automotive engineer responsible for much of the original Volkswagen Beetle, also did contract work for BMW. Aerodynamicist Wunibald Kamm based his Kamm-Coupe on BMW 328 mechanicals. Raymond Loewy’s mid-century lines were wrought upon at least one BMW 507, and Albrecht von Goertz was a colleague of Loewy’s before he designed the 507.

In more recent years, it’s intriguing to note the diversity of backgrounds. You’ve got Bangle, Henrik Fisker, current design chief Adrian van Hooydonk (the man actually responsible for the “Bangle Butt”), and Z4 designer Juliane Blasi. Perhaps the most understated of all BMW designers is Jojii Nagashima, the man responsible for the outgoing E90 3 Series, the iconic E39 5 Series, and, along with Boyke Boyer, the E36 3 Series. Taken as a whole, BMW has a pantheon of automotive design big-thinkers, a trend that doesn’t look to be slowing anytime soon.

BMWism.com chronicles BMW designers through the eras originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on Autoblog Design/Style

The Suzuki Regina concept shown at the 2011 Tokyo Auto Show was an unusual little car. We don’t want to get our hopes up about production (especially since we’d probably never get it in America anyway), but the Regina will return to the spotlight at the Geneva Motor Show with some tweaks that have us wondering if Suzuki plans to actually build the French-looking runabout. Despite its bold styling, the Regina’s drivetrain seems plausible enough; it’s powered by a conventional three-cylinder gasoline engine.

The Regina will apparently be renamed G70 when it’s shown in Switzerland. Tokyo publicity for the car centered around the five-door as “an idea for a 1,600-pound sedan that gets 75 miles per gallon.” Suzuki has officially pegged the weight of the G70 at 730 kg, or 1,606 pounds. The “70″ in the name likely comes from its 70g/km of carbon emissions, but Suzuki hasn’t divulged its numbers yet. Follow the jump for a press release on the G70 concept.

Continue reading Suzuki Regina concept renamed G70, production version coming?

Suzuki Regina concept renamed G70, production version coming? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on Autoblog Design/Style

A Switzerland-based company is testing an extended-range plug-in mini-vehicle that it says gets more than 200 miles per gallon and has a single-tank range of more than 300 miles, according to website TechnologicVehicles.com.

The company, Catecar, tested a prototype of the vehicle at the Geneva Airport this week. The car weighs less than 800 pounds, while its batteries account for about 10 percent of the vehicle’s weight, according to the website. Making the car even more energy efficient are the solar panels on the vehicle’s roof.

At just under 10 feet long, Catecar is about a foot longer than Daimler’s Smart ForTwo two-seater and about two feet shorter than the Mini Cooper. In other words, it’s not big – but the company does have big plans, and production could start next year, TechnologicVehicles reports.

Switzerland-based Catecar extended-range vehicle is tested in Geneva originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on AutoblogGreen

The next GTI will be an order of magnitude better, bringing it back in line with the original hot hatch.

Lighter, faster, stronger, better. That’s what we can expect from the seventh-generation Volkswagen Golf, due to be unveiled at the 2012 Paris Motor Show before it hits dealerships across Europe this fall and eventually lands on U.S. shores as a 2013 model.

So what makes it special? A combination of new manufacturing processes, an all-new platform, a range of upgraded engines and what will go down as one of the greatest democratizations of active safety and in-car technology in automotive history.

What’s more, the next GTI will be an order of magnitude better because of it, bringing it back in line with the original hot hatch while packed with even more standard features.

It all starts with Volkswagen’s new Modular Transverse Matrix (MQB) platform, which is set to underpin every front-wheel-drive VW product from the Polo to the Passat, along with the 2013 Audi A3. To hear VW tell it, it will redefine the automaker’s manufacturing processes while curing world hunger and eradicating leprosy.

Read on to find out what’s got Volkswagen so excited.

Continue reading What we know about the 2013 Volkswagen Golf, next-gen GTI

What we know about the 2013 Volkswagen Golf, next-gen GTI originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on Autoblog Design/Style

There are very few things that get the unanimous approval of everyone here at Autoblog. One of them is Icon 4×4, which makes impossibly expensive yet worth-every-penny reimaginings of history’s best off-roaders. For this year’s SEMA Show, Icon debuted something new that had nothing to do with off-roading, yet still had our whole team salivating.

Christened a “Derelict” by Icon founder and designer Jonathon Ward, this 1952 Chevy Coupe looks like an abused artifact from a time not worth remembering. Knowing Icon like we do, however, it’s anything but. The Derelict is fitted with a 6.2-liter V8 from General Motors producing 430 horsepower and an interior upholstered in gorgeous vintage briefcase leather, but the exterior is as original and rusty as it was when Icon found it. What we didn’t know at SEMA is that the ‘52 Chevy isn’t the first Derelict that Icon produced.

Our friends at eGarage have produced an excellent video about how the two Derelicts came to be, including how Jonathon Ward and his company made them. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t as easy as dropping a new engine into an old car and redoing the leather. The Derelicts were meant to be high-performance yet reliable daily drivers, which requires more thought and engineering than we ever imagined.

Follow the jump to be one of the first to watch this latest video from eGarage.

Continue reading Jonathon Ward talks about his Icon Derelicts in latest eGarage video

Jonathon Ward talks about his Icon Derelicts in latest eGarage video originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on Autoblog Design/Style

What impact will the “over-compliance” rule – some would say loophole – in the California Air Resources Board’s recent changes to the Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate have? The short and obvious answer is that only time will tell, but one can make the case both that it’s a good thing and that it’s a bad thing. Odd, but true.

Before we get too far into this, a primer on the ZEV Mandate changes and what the over-compliance rule actually is is important. The basic idea is that CARB wants to reduce the amount of CO2 and other pollutants in the air that come from transportation. Zero-emission vehicles – whether they be plug-in or hydrogen powered – will do this, so CARB decided that at least 15.4 percent of all the cars sold by a major automaker in California needs to be either an EV, a plug-in hybrid or a hydrogen fuel cell vehcile by 2025. To go along with this new rule, some automakers asked for – and got – an over-compliance rule that will “allow manufacturers who systematically over comply with the proposed LEV III GHG fleet standard to offset a portion of their ZEV requirement in 2018 through 2021 model years only.”

Some argue that the over-compliance rule will lead to a smaller environmental benefit from ZEVs because, quite simply, there will be fewer ZEVs on the roads than there would be without the rule. This is true. It’s also true, as others will argue, that what matters most is lowering the amount of nasty pollutants and emissions from the air, so who cares if this happens because there is a true ZEV driving around or a much-improved (read: cleaner) gas-powered car that emits fewer greenhouse gases than today’s vehicles?

We didn’t want to try and answer that question. But we did think it made sense to try and capture the landscape of the recent battle over the rule, and so we asked some of the involved automakers and other concerned parties for their opinions. We put together a list of responses after the jump.

Continue reading Who was for, who was against CARB’s ZEV mandate “over-compliance” rule

Who was for, who was against CARB’s ZEV mandate “over-compliance” rule originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on AutoblogGreen

Infiniti has named its electric concept car headed for next month’s Geneva Motor Show the EMERG-E. The company says that its showcar will be a coupe powered by a 1.2-liter gasoline engine with a range-extending electric motor. The powerplant will be mounted amidships for superior weight distribution, and the Japanese automaker promises the concept will offer impressive performance.

Infiniti has released very few details beyond saying the car’s pure-electric range will be “respectable.” The vehicle also promises zero-emission driving in most urban settings, so there’s a good chance the concept will show off some advanced charging tech as well. The automaker is intent on making us wait until the vehicle’s full unveil in Geneva before it drops any more clues, though a few more teaser images have surfaced to whet our appetite. Check them out in our gallery below.

Infiniti names Geneva-bound range-extended sports car concept EMERG-E originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on Autoblog Design/Style

Though the Ford Transit Connect may be a niche player in the North American market, the small van market is big business in Europe. According to Mercedes-Benz, it accounts for some 700,000 units annually, and that’s a pie of which Daimler wouldn’t mind getting a bigger slice. And so it has announced its new Citan.

Taking its name from a combination of City and Titan, the Citan will slot in below the Vario, Sprinter and Vito in order to meet the needs of workers who need to get around crowded city streets and take their gear with them. Mercedes plans to offer it in a broad range of configurations, lengths and engine options once it hits the market in the fall.

The concept was unveiled at a logistics symposium held at the Mercedes-Benz Design Center in Sindelfingen, and will be presented for the first time in public next September at the IAA Commercial Vehicle Show. In the meantime, you can check out the details in the press release after the jump and the renderings in our high-res image gallery below.

Continue reading Mercedes-Benz gets sketchy with Citan urban delivery van

Mercedes-Benz gets sketchy with Citan urban delivery van originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on Autoblog Design/Style

The on-again, off-again Volkswagen BlueSport roadster is, well, on again according to EVO Magazine. The publication reportedly spoke with Uli Hackenberg, head of engineering with Volkswagen, who said the company’s dealers are mistaken when they say there won’t be a market for a vehicle like the BlueSport. Hakenberg said that the rise of hardware like the Toyota GT 86 and Subaru BRZ, alongside the upcoming next-generation Mazda MX-5 suggests buyers are once again willing to put down cash on an entry-level sports car. Throw in the fact that the dollar is regaining strength and European vehicles start to look even more competitive in the Land of the Free. Despite this, recent reports have indicated that the BlueSport’s planned sibling at Porsche has been delayed, and its other planned sibling, the Audi R4, is understood to have been canceled back in May.

As a result, Volkswagen is reportedly going to ask its dealers to once again gauge demand for a mid-engine convertible. The roadster will need to see sales estimates of at least 50,000 units worldwide in order to get the go-ahead from corporate. Even if that happens, it will likely be a good three years before we see the production model touch down. Maestro, cue up the sad trombone if you would be so kind.

Volkswagen BlueSport roadster still on-track after all? originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full post on Autoblog Concept Cars