German Union Wants Opel to Rule Out Redundancies, Sign New Deal by October 26

Opel has been bleeding money for the past 12 years and analysts predict that it will post a total of US$1billion operating losses annually until 2021. General Motors wants to restructure the ailing carmaker and turn it around. This, however, involves not only collaborating with PSA Peugeot Citroen, but some serious cost cutting as well.

Industriegewerkschaft Metall, the Industrial Union of Metalworkers that is (thankfully…) more commonly known as simply IG Metall, is the most prominent union in Germany and has some really serious clout with both manufacturers and the government.

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MINI to Pull Out of the WRC at the End of 2012 Pointing Towards the Financial Crisis as the Reason

Just as suddenly as it entered the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) after a decades-long hiatus in 2011, the BMW Group's MINI brand is abandoning the sport.

On Friday afternoon, the British carmaker announced that it will terminate its works involvement in the WRC at the end of the 2012 season by withdrawing its financial support for "WRC Team Mini Portugal".

The bad news came from Kay Segler, Senior Vice President MINI Business Coordination and Brand Management.

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Ferrari Reportedly Planning to Lift the Veil Off F70 Hybrid at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show

There's a lot we know about Ferrari's next hypercar, but there's also a lot we don't. If we are to believe a report from Inside Line, then we can add the venue where the unveiling of the car we've come to call the F70 (even though the name has not been confirmed yet) will take place to the list of things we know.

The news site said the Ferrari F70's world premiere in front of a public audience will be held at the 2013 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit next January.

If true, then it’s more likely than not that Ferrari will give us our first online look of the hypercar towards the end of this year.

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Is Fiat Flirting with Suzuki as a Response to the VW Group Wanting to Buy Alfa Romeo?

VW’s Chairman Ferdinand Piech and Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, two of the European automotive industry’s most prominent executives, have presumably read Sun Tzu’s Art of War and are aware of this excerpt:

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

The two groups are currently involved, if not in war, then certainly in a peculiar game of strategy and tactics – and there is no way of knowing who will come up trumps.

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European Economic Crisis May Lead to Delay of Bentley and Lamborghini SUVs

The ongoing European debt crisis was bound to touch even Germany's finest in one way or another. While Europe's biggest carmaker, the Volkswagen Group, doesn't have a problem yet, the company's decision makers believe it's wise to prepare for the worst and save some cash aside by putting on hold certain projects.

Inside sources told Autonews and Reuters that VW officials might delay the introductions of two new SUVs from Bentley and Lamborghini, among other vehicles.

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New Ford C-MAX Energi PHEV EPA Certified at 100 MPGe, Beats Prius PHEV by 5 MPGe

Thanks to an EPA certified EPA-certified 108 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) in the city, Ford's new C-MAX Energi has been afforded the title of America’s most fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid.

The compact minivan that shares most of its parts with the regular 47 mpg C-MAX Hybrid adding plug-in capability, also returns 100 MPGe on the combined cycle.

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Mercedes Still Trailing Behind BMW and Audi in Premium Sales Race for Number 1 Spot

A year ago, Mercedes-Benz CEO Dieter Zetsche sent a letter to his employees claiming that the three-point star brand must regain the top spot that it lost in 2005 in the premium segment.

“We are Daimler – we should be ahead of the pack!” proclaimed Zetsche who added at the time that in no way should they “be content with a solid second or even third place”.

Unfortunately, Mercedes’ global domination plan doesn’t seem to bear fruit. If anything, the company has fallen even further behind BMW and Audi, which are the number one and two premium carmakers in the world respectively.

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Fiat-Chrysler CEO Marchionne Says European Car Market Won’t Recover Without EU Intervention

If anything, Sergio Marchionne is a man who speaks his mind – a bit too often, some might say. Still, the CEO of the Fiat-Chrysler group is deeply concerned about the drop in European car sales and he thinks something should be done about it.

Marchionne, who is also the head of ACEA, the European auto manufacturers’ association, is strongly endorsing the idea that there should be a European Union-led coordinated strategy if the industry is to survive.

“I am concerned that if we don’t find a collective will to resolve this at a European level, it is going to become a permanent crisis”, he said on Wednesday, October 10.

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Volkswagen's Scorching Hot Polo R with 2.0-liter Turbo Confirmed for a Geneva Show Premiere

The people at Volkswagen see Renault's and Peugeot's bet with their new Clio RS and 208 GTi respectively, both of which are powered by a 1.6-liter turbocharged four with 197hp, and raise them by another 20-horsepower for a grand total of 217hp with the brand's upcoming Polo R.

VW had previewed the car with the Polo R WRC Street concept at this year's Wörthersee Tour in Austria back in May, confirming the launch of a production model in late 2013.

Now, the automaker's R&D chief Ulrich Hackenberg has told Autocar magazine that the Polo R will make its world premiere at the Geneva Motor Show in March of 2013.

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New Research Could Lead to Smaller, Cheaper and Faster-Charging Lithium Ion Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries may be employed widely in a variety of products, including hybrid and all-electric vehicles, but up until now, engineers have had a limited understanding of how lithium ions “behave”.

Professor Miroslav Krstic and postdoctoral fellow Scott Moura of the University of California, San Diego, claim they have devised new algorithms that enable them to better comprehend what’s going on inside lithium-ion batteries.

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Oldest Surviving Ford, a 1903 Model A with an Original $830 Price Tag, Heads to the Auction Block

Henry Ford is credited with pioneering the assembly line that allowed for the mass production of affordable automobiles such as the Model T.

At the (very) early days of the company, though, Ford’s first model, which was rather unsurprisingly named the Model A, was put together in one large assembly room at the Mack Avenue plant and each car bore no sequential chassis number.

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Aussie-Based Carbon Revolution Creates the World’s First One-Piece Carbon Fiber Rim

Companies all over the world seem hell-bent on bringing carbon fiber and its weight and strength advantages into the hands of the everyday motorist.

After Ford’s display of a prototype CFRP bonnet earlier this week, Australian-based company Carbon Revolution launched the CR9, the world’s first one-piece production carbon fiber wheel.

Carbon Revolution says that this is the result of “nearly a decade” of research and development. The benefits in weight and rigidity have been established both by its own testing as well as with premium European OEMs.

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Neiman Marcus “Special Christmas Gift” is Limited-Edition Version of McLaren MP4-12C Spider

The great F. Scott Fitzerald summed it up perfectly: “Let me tell you about the rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them… unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.”

Apparently, Neiman Marcus understands all too well, no matter if they were born rich, married into money or made their fortune by themselves. That’s why every year its Christmas Book catalogue includes, among other things, a limited edition of an automobile, which is priced accordingly.

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Toyota Issues Massive Global Recall For 7.4 Million Vehicles Over Faulty Power Window Glitch

After the 10 million-vehicle recall in 2009 and 2010 over the infamous unintended acceleration problems, Toyota has once again been hit by a massive recall that concerns a lofty 7.43 million vehicles.

This time, the issue on hand is a faulty power window switch in 14 different models, which may malfunction and offer a “notchy” or sticky feel during operation. The use of a commercial lubricant, instead of the special fluorine grease used by the factory, may result in the melting of the switch and the emission of smoke.

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Japanese Automakers May Slash China Production in Half as Sales Plunge Amid Islands Row

Tumbling sales can be attributed to many factors. Japanese carmakers, though, just can’t seem to get a break as since last year, they have seen their production hurt by an earthquake and a tsunami, a nuclear reactor malfunction and now, a political crisis.

As we have already reported, the dispute between the two countries over the ownership of a group of East China Sea islands has resulted in escalating protests, boycotts and even violence against anything Japanese, from restaurants to automobiles in China.

Following these events, Toyota and Nissan announced that last month they recorded their biggest sales drop in China since 2008. In September, Toyota, Nissan and Honda sales fell by 49, 35 and 41 percent respectively, to 44,100, 76,066 and 33,931 units.

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Ford Shows Prototype CFRP Bonnet, Wants to Introduce Carbon Fiber to Mass Production Cars

Carbon fiber is up to five times as strong as steel, twice as stiff, and one-third the weight, which is why it has been widely used in aerospace applications and in the construction of racing cars.

Production models make use of this material as well; that is, if you consider a McLaren MP4-12C, a Pagani Huayra or a Ferrari Enzo a regular “production car". Carbon fiber is very expensive and takes a lot of time to produce, but those companies can afford to price their products accordingly.

The problem is that, so far, no manufacturer or supplier has managed to reduce its cost to a level that would make it suitable for regular, mass production vehicles.

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Chevy Dealer has Man Arrested After Mistakenly Offering Him a Really Good Deal…

We all know what happens if an auto dealer manages to talk you into a bad sale, but what's the scenario when a customer walks out of a showroom with a truly good deal?

Well, it depends, but in the case of Danny Sawyer, the 40-year-old man was arrested and placed in jail for four hours before being released on bond!

Sawyer's strange story begins when he traded his 2008 Saturn Vue for a black 2012 Chevrolet Traverse on May 7 at Priority Chevrolet of Chesapeake, Va. The next day, however, he changed his mind and returned to the dealership to exchange the black Traverse for a blue-colored example of the same car.

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Fiat-Chrysler CEO to Announce 2013-2014 Sales Projection on October 30, Attacks VEBA

It’s not the best of times to be a Chrysler-Fiat executive, never mind the group's CEO. Sales keep falling due to the European crisis, your Italian factories are operating at less than 50 percent of their capacity and you have postponed the long-awaited return of Alfa Romeo to the U.S. market more times than even you can recall.

At the same time, the local government and workers’ unions are, understandably, pressuring you to keep your factories operational.

Nevertheless, Sergio Marchionne isn’t willing to give up so easily. In fact, he has already met with the Italian PM and assured him that even though he won't implement the €20 billion (US$26 billion) investment plan that he announced last year, he won’t close any plants either.

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Honda Offers New Civic Natural Gas Vehicle Customers a $3,000 Fuel Card, Is It Worth a Look?

With gasoline prices creeping up again to as high as an average of $4.67 a gallon (€1.23 a liter) in California on Tuesday, according to the AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report, Honda thought it would be a good idea to launch a new promotion for its natural gas-powered Civic.

The Japanese carmaker said that it will offer customers purchasing a new 2012 Civic Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) at participating dealers from now until January 2, 2013, a debit card pre-loaded with $3,000 worth of fuel.

As always, there's some small print including that the card can only be used at Clean Energy CNG fueling stations around the country to purchase fuel. There are approximately 150 Clean Energy filling stations in the U.S., 40 of which are located inside California.

According to the most recent Department of Energy, Clean Cities Alternative Fuel Price report on fuel prices, the nation-wide average price of natural gas fuel for vehicles in July was $2.05 per equivalent gasoline gallon.

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Former City Councilman in Smart ForTwo T-Bones a Ford Crown Vic Interceptor

A red light camera caught an accident between a 2008 Smart ForTwo mini and a Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor that occurred on September 12, 2012, in Palm Coast City, Florida.

The footage shows a Flagler County Sheriff’s Ford cruiser driven by Deputy Darrell Butler, 26, making its way through the traffic with the car's emergency lights activated.

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