The “New Small Family” from Volkswagen is gaining speed on its journey to the future. Just six weeks after the world premiere of the up! – the two-door city specialist – Europe’s largest automobile producer is now introducing the second member of the “New Small Family” at the Tokyo Motor Show: The space up! concept car.

“The world premiere of the up! at the IAA in Frankfurt served as an initial test to see how the concept of our New Small Family would be received in Europe. And the results of this test were more than favorable,” says Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Head of Technical Development. Volkswagen’s chief engineer continues: “The second member of this new family now follows in the space up!. The small van shows that we are consistently exploiting every millimeter of space and creating an emotional design.”

Continue reading →

Share This

CHIBA, Japan — Japan’s Honda Motor Co. plans to release a more affordable hybrid car by 2009, hoping to boost sales among consumers who now find eco-friendly vehicles too expensive.

Japanese automakers pioneered hybrid-engine cars such as Honda’s Civic Hybrid, which save fuel costs and have proven to be major hits at a time of soaring oil prices.

Honda showed to the Tokyo Motor Show the CR-Z concept car, a lightweight sports model with a hybrid engine.

“Honda plans to release a new hybrid vehicle in 2009 that is more affordable than the Civic Hybrid,” Takeo Fukui, president of Japan’s second largest automaker, told reporters at the industry show held in Tokyo’s outskirts.

“In addition to that model, we are continuing development so that we will be able to release to the market a vehicle based on the CR-Z concept,” Fukui said.

The Nikkei business daily, quoting unnamed company sources, said that Honda would release the lower-priced hybrid in 2009 across the world, including Japan, the United States, Europe and China.

With the new model, Honda hopes to raise global hybrid sales 10 times from last year’s figure, reaching up to 500,000 cars by 2010, the newspaper said.

Continue reading →

Share This

CHIBA, Japan : Nissan and Renault hope to start selling a car for about US$2,500 in India in around 2010 along with their local partner there, chief executive Carlos Ghosn said on Wednesday.

“We have already practically decided all the attributes of the car,” Ghosn told reporters at the Tokyo Motor Show.

“We have the full intention to do it - if it’s feasible. Hopefully this is going to be 2010 in India,” he said.

Ghosn, who heads both Japan’s Nissan Motor Co. and its French partner Renault, said he would visit Indian partner Bajaj Auto next week for talks on the car.

He said that it appeared possible to make a US$2,500 car for India, but the big question was whether it could be exported to other markets such as Europe, China, Brazil, Mexico or even the United States.

Continue reading →

Share This

Share This