Atlanta Won't Rename Henry Ford II Avenue to Ferdinand Porsche Avenue Due to his Nazi Past

There’s no denying that the crimes committed during World War II (WWII) by Nazi Germany are among the darkest pages of mankind’s history.

It’s also no secret that Germany’s industries were providing its army with airplanes, tanks, vehicles and ammunition, and that the use of forced labor in the plants was a common practice.

Even though war ended in 1945 and the world has become a very different place now, with Germany being an ally of its former enemies, history occasionally comes back to haunt the modern Germans’ descendants.

Porsche Cars North America has invested US$100 million in building its new headquarters and a test track in a 26-acre estate close to Atlanta’s International airport.

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Nissan to Facelift Leaf for U.S. Production, Add a Budget Version in Early 2013 to Boost Poor Sales

That the Leaf hasn't been the success Nissan hoped for, is not a secret. This year through September, the Japanese carmaker delivered only 5,212 Leaf EVs in the United States, down 27.6 percent from the first nine months of 2011 when it sold 7,199 units.

Both these numbers are a far cry from the 20,000 Leafs Nissan wanted to sell in the car's first fiscal year on the market.

However, Nissan isn't sitting with its arms crossed waiting for a miracle to happen, as the company plans to add a lower-cost variant to the range as part of a 2013 model facelift, Autonews reported today.

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French Minister Filmed Exceeding Speed Limit by 16km/h in Renault Zoe Outside the Elysée Palace

Saying, “Let’s see what she’s got in her” and gunning a car for all it’s worth is a phrase uttered a billion times by drivers around the world. Doing so may or may not get you into trouble.

French minister of “industrial recovery” Arnaud Montebourg, certainly got into a bit of trouble when he uttered that phrase while taking the ZOE, Renault’s all-electric supermini, for a spin outside the Elysée Palace.

Unfortunately for the minister, the TV crew that was in the car filmed him hitting 66 km/h (41 mph), exceeding the 50 km/h (31 mph) speed limit by 16 km/h (10 mph).

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Euro Debt Crisis Reaches VW's Front Door, Cuts 2012 W. European Sales Target by 140,000 Vehicles

It was bound to happen sooner rather than later. The European sovereign debt crisis that started in Greece and spread to other countries including Cyprus, Portugal, Ireland and Spain, is beginning to have a deeper effect on companies like Volkswagen.

The continent's largest carmaker has cut its internal 2012 sales target for Western Europe by up to 140,000 vehicles, the German news daily Handelsblatt reported on Friday.

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Renault to Produce New Clio Mk4 Simultaneously in France and Turkey

The crucially important for Renault's future new Clio Mk4 will be manufactured simultaneously at its Flins plant in France and the Bursa factory in Turkey, the automaker announced today.

The French carmaker pointed out that, at this point, it "cannot supply any figures on the share of New Renault Clio production between these two plants".

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This is the End: Michael Schumacher Announces Retirement from Formula 1

Even the best of plans sometimes don’t pan out. Having a seven-time Formula 1 world champion with 91 wins, 155 podium finishes, 68 pole positions and 77 fastest laps drive one of your cars is probably a wise move.

Mercedes GP certainly thought so; that’s why when Michael Schumacher, the most successful F1 driver of all times, decided that three years away from the tracks were more than he could handle and wanted to make a comeback in 2009, he was signed by the Silver Arrows despite being at the ripe age of 40.

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Volvo Exec Confirms S60 and S80 Facelifts for 2013, New XC90 Coming in late 2014

The press days of the 2012 Mondial de l'Automobile in Pars are long gone, but the first major car show of the fall season continues to provide us with news on future models.

Speaking to Autonews Europe on the sidelines of the show last week, Doug Speck, global head of marketing and sales for Volvo Car, said that the Swedish automaker plans a "major refresh" for two of its sedans.

These include the mid-size S60 that was only just presented in 2010, and the larger S80 that has been in production since 2006 having been modestly updated in 2010.

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NHTSA Reports Increase in Traffic Deaths For the First Time in 5 Years, Baffles Experts

U.S. traffic deaths increased by nine percent in the first six months of the year, to 16,290 people, the most since 2009, according to a preliminary report by the National Highway Safety Administration.

The latest findings interrupt a 5-year continuous downward trend, which resulted in what the administration called a “historic” 60-year low in 2011. The NHTSA report does not examine causes, and a full report of analyzed data could take more than a year.

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Ford Takes Another Swipe at the Prius V with La Linea-Inspired Commercials for C-MAX

If you take a moment to check out Ford U.S.A.'s recent press releases on the new C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid, you will notice that the Blue Oval always finds some room to insert a reference or two…or three to Toyota's rivaling Prius V minivan, be that for its fuel economy numbers, pricing or features.

In Ford's latest release, the word "Prius" appears…15 times, but that's to be expected since the automaker is bumping the challenge to the next level by launching a new campaign to "establish C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid as better, more fuel-efficient hybrid alternatives to Toyota Prius V".

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Jaguar Boss Says F-Type is the Brand’s “Orientation Point”, Small Saloon and SUV May Come Next

The on-again, off-again “E-Type successor” saga that’s been dragging on for more than a decade finally ended with the launch of the F-Type roadster at this year’s Paris Auto Show.

Jaguar boss Adrian Hallmark stated to Autocar magazine that the without the F-Type “our heritage would not be complete” and that the new sports car will form the core around which the rest of the brand’s future range will be built.

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VW Favoring Mexico Plant for North American Golf Mk7, Expected to go on Sale at the End of 2014

One of the reasons why Volkswagen hasn't officially mentioned anything about the North American availability of the new, seventh generation Golf that was presented at the Paris Motor Show last week, is because it hasn't reached a final decision on where it will produce the compact hatchback for the local market.

Nevertheless, that may change soon as VW CEO Martin Winterkorn told German magazine Automobilwoche, a sister publication of Autonews, that the company is leaning towards its factory in Puebla, Mexico, for the North American production of the new Golf. The same plant also builds the Jetta saloon.

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BRZ and FR-S Owners Complain About Rough Idle and Stalling Engines, Some Don't Like Remedy

The sports coupe jointly developed by Toyota and Subaru that entered production as the Subaru BRZ, Scion FR-S and Toyota GT86 was one of the most awaited cars of the year, since it rekindled the fun to drive and relatively modestly priced niche.

Despite being a long time in the making, being teased by a series of concepts, the final product received positive reviews. The three models are nearly identical, featuring a 2.0-liter flat-four engine with both direct and indirect injection driving the rear-wheels via a six-speed manual or auto gearbox and a Torsen limited-slip differential.

The problem is that Subaru and Scion customers who rushed in to buy the first batch of cars are now complaining about rough idle and stalling issues.

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Was Detroit Cop Right or Wrong to get "Aggravated" Because Passenger Did Not Disclose her HIV Status?

A casual traffic stop over an inoperative brake light by a police officer in Dearborn, Michigan, on August 3, 2012, took a weird twist when the cop discovered that the passenger of the 1999 GMC Jimmy was HIV positive.

The police dashboard video that was obtained by national news network The American Independent, and which was released in late September, shows Dearborn Police Officer David Lacey pulling the truck to the side of the road and then approaching the driver, Mark Scott, and asking for his papers.

Scott told the Michigan cop that he did not have his license with him and that he may have a warrant for his arrest related to a traffic ticket. He then handed Lacey another piece of identification.

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Debt-Stricken Greece Wants to Build a Formula 1 Racing Track in the Peloponnese

Greece is the country that’s been hit the hardest by the debt crisis that has brought a lot of unrest in Europe, threatening even the existence of the Eurozone itself. For the past three years, successive governments have imposed heavy taxes and pay cuts to reduce the country’s debt, an effort that has yielded questionable results.

Yet it looks like a long dream of Greek car and motorsport fans may come true, even amidst the crisis. The Ministry of Development and Transportation has given the green light to begin construction of a Formula 1 track; all it remains for the works to begin is the ratifying of the project by the Greek Parliament.

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Porsche CEO Says Sport Turismo to Influence Future Models’ Design, Hints at New 'Ring Record Time

Talk to most people about the current Porsche Panamera's biggest flaw, and they are very likely to point towards its exterior design. Porsche’s foray in the segment may be a fine sports saloon featuring a nicely crafted interior, but its bodywork is unexciting to some, ugly to most.

Company CEO Matthias Muller talked to Motor Trend at the Paris Auto Show and said some very interesting things about the company's future models.

First of all, Muller revealed that the head- and taillights of the Panamera Sport Turismo concept, which was displayed in Paris, will gradually be applied to all Porsche models, starting with the Macan compact luxury SUV that’s due next year.

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U.S. Car Sales Increase by 13 Percent in September, Market is on its Way to Reach 15 Million Units

September auto sales were up 13 percent compared to the same month in 2011, according to sales tracker Autodata. This is the best result in the last four years and exceeds even the most optimist analysts’ expectations.

It also raises the automotive industry sales’ Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) projection to 14.9 million. SAAR is determined by dividing the unadjusted annual rate for the month by its seasonality factor, resulting in an adjusted annual rate for the month.

September was the fourth consecutive month, and the seventh month this year, that the SAAR has exceeded 14 million.

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Audi Reportedly Kills Quattro Sports Car in Favor of an Evoque-like Coupe Crossover

Audi's automobiles have long been praised for their immaculate interior quality and ultra-safe road manners, but they have also been labeled as too clinical.

The R8 supercar changed all that mixing everyday usability with supercar-like performance and entertaining driving dynamics, but it is far too expensive for most buyers.

Having celebrated the original Quattro rally car’s 30th anniversary at the 2010 Paris Auto Show with the Quattro Concept, Audi fans hoped that a production version of the prototype would eventually hit the streets.

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German Gov. Mulling Subsidizing EVs, Which So Far, Haven’t Made a Blip on the Sales Radar

In the first eight months of the year, new passenger car registrations in Germany were more than 2.108 million units. According to a study from the Center of Automotive Research (CAR) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, electric cars registrations in the country, were just 2.272, which accounts for a negligible 0.1 percent market share.

The thing is that Chancellor Angela Merkel has set a target of having one million fossil-free, i.e. electric- and fuel-cell powered vehicles, on German roads by 2020 – a goal which Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, head of CAR, finds “unworldly and naive” to continue pursuing.

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BMW Already Testing 1-Series Compact Models with its New Three-cylinder 1.5-liter Engines

As we were looking for pictures the other day for our story on the availability of the BMW Group's new 1.5-liter TwinPower Turbo engines in the United States and Canada, we discovered images of a prototype of the 1-Series five-door hatchback fitted with this powerplant on the company's website.

To date, while BMW has set the market introduction of the 1.5-liter TwinPower Turbo engine in diesel and petrol forms for 2013, it has only confirmed the i8 sports coupe and the i3 supermini gasoline-electric hybrids as the recipients of the three-cylinder units.

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To Charge or Not to Charge? Nissan Faces Class Action Lawsuit on Leaf's Battery Range

Nissan claims to be at the forefront of all-electric vehicles with the Leaf. Yet the Japanese company and its U.S. division are currently been accused in the U.S. that it has misled buyers about its EV's battery life and true driving range.

Humberto Klee and David Wallak say that Nissan advertises a range of 100 miles (160 km) or less, depending on a number of variables like the road conditions and the weather.

The plaintiffs claim is that the carmaker does not say that the Leaf can attain this range only if its battery is fully charged.

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