The Car Tech blog

A U.S. version of the tiny Mazda2 goes into showrooms in 2010.

(Credit: Mazda)

Mazda2 preview (photos)

A burgeoning small car market in the U.S. convinced Mazda to finally sell its tiny Mazda2 here. The car, available around the world since 2007, will be shown in U.S. spec at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show. It joins the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Scion xD, and Kia Soul in a subcompact market that has seen increasing sales.

The U.S. spec Mazda2 will get a 1.6-liter four cylinder engine mated to a five speed automatic transmission. Cabin tech offerings will be minimal, although a Bluetooth phone system should be present, along with audio controls on the steering wheel.

The 1.6-liter engine is the biggest offered in its world-wide marketing, with smaller powerplants also available starting at a 1.3-liter engine. Diesel engines are also in the mix, along with manual and continuously variable transmissions. In Japan, the car can also be optioned up with navigation, something that won't be available here.

Check out our upcoming coverage of the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show for full details on the U.S. Mazda2.

U.S. electric-car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, amid growing interest in green technology and battery-powered vehicles.

An IPO filing from the 6-year-old start-up, best known for its $109,000 all-electric Roadster, is expected any day, said one of the sources. The person did not give a specific time frame, although IPOs typically take several months.

Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes declined to comment on what he called "rumor or speculation."

Tesla Model S

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET)

Tesla would mark the first public offering from a U.S. automaker since Henry Ford's Ford Motor debuted its shares in 1956. The IPO represents a landmark in the resurgence of electric-car technology that most carmakers had dismissed as impractical until recently.

The company's chairman Elon Musk said early last year that an IPO was a possibility in either late 2008 or 2009.

But the financial market turmoil following the collapse of Lehman Bros. in the latter half of 2008 virtually shut down the IPO market. The appetite for IPOs has picked up since mid-September this year with a robust pace of new filings.

Tesla's IPO would follow the successful debut of lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems, whose shares rallied 50 percent on their first day of trading on September 25.

Analysts have said that the success of A123, the first green-technology IPO this year, would encourage more venture capital-backed green companies to go public.

Tesla will compete with established automakers like Ford, General Motors, and Nissan Motor, all of which are racing to launch electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Tesla, by contrast, is a small player with a high-end market and limited production.

A combination of factors has driven the recent interest in developing electric, or partially electric vehicles, including the Obama administration's push to have 1 million rechargeable vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015 and low-cost Department of Energy loans for manufacturers.

Venture funds back green cars
The carmaker is developing a second, lower-cost model, an electric sedan known as the Model S, which will have a base price of $49,900.

Tesla said in September it delivered 700 Roadsters since February 2008. The Roadster, which is built on a Lotus frame, can go from 0 to 60 miles an hour in less than four seconds, making it faster than a Porsche 911 or a Ferrari Spider.

The electric-car start-up was offered $465 million in low-cost loans by the U.S. Department of Energy to help build the new Model S. Tesla said it will build the new car in California.

Tesla's investors include Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Other investors include Daimler; Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments, which owns a stake in Daimler; and venture capital funds Valor Equity Partners, Technology Partners, The Westly Group, and Compass Venture Partners.

Tesla said it had achieved overall corporate profitability in July with about $1 million of earnings on revenue of $20 million.

But like established automakers, survival in the hyper-competitive U.S. automotive market has not been easy for Tesla. The company had to face cost overruns and production delays for the Roadster.

Story Copyright (c) 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

(Credit: Automotive News)

DETROIT--BorgWarner forecasts about $1.8 billion in new powertrain business in the next three years as automakers revamp their engines and transmissions to meet stricter government mandates on emissions and fuel efficiency.

Analysts, who had expected the supplier's plan to take a sharper hit from the global recession, were surprised by the strength of the forecast.

The suburban Detroit company, which last month posted a third-quarter profit after four straight quarters in the red, said half of the new business would come from Europe, the main market for advanced gasoline and diesel engine technology. Asia will account for 30 percent of the new business and the Americas, 20 percent.

When it unveiled its three-year plan a year ago, BorgWarner said it expected to bring in $2.1 billion in new business from 2010 through 2012.

"The size of the drop is somewhat smaller than expected, given the decline in expected global light-vehicle production," David Leiker, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co., said in a research note. Last year's projection came in late October, "when the global financial crisis was still in its early stages," Leiker said.

North America soon should bring in more drivetrain and engine air management business, CEO Tim Manganello said last week during a conference call.

For instance, Chrysler Group does not account for any new business in BorgWarner's backlog of orders. That could change because Chrysler's future vehicles with smaller-displacement gasoline engines are to be powered with engines from Fiat S.p.A.

BorgWarner already supplies the control module for Fiat dry-clutch transmissions and turbochargers for diesel and gasoline engines. The supplier's contracts include turbochargers for Fiat's 1.8-liter gasoline engine, which Manganello said could power a number of Chrysler vehicles.

Manganello said he expects that by 2013 or 2014, North American car and truck production will return to rates seen in late 2007 and early 2008. Production then was around 3.5 million vehicles a quarter but has dropped to around 2.5 million now.

Dual-clutch transmissions make up about 13 percent of BorgWarner's 2010-12 backlog of orders. Manganello said he expects dual-clutch transmissions to occupy a larger share of sales in 2013 to 2015, noting a "very strong" development program with a Japanese carmaker for dual-clutch technology.

(Source: Automotive News)

As a preview to the 2009 Los Angeles auto show, Honda sent out some tantalizing words--but no photos--of a new concept it will display. The Personal-Neo Urban Transport (P-NUT) concept is described by Honda as an "ultra-compact, aggressively designed coupe". Given the word "personal" in the concept's name, though, we're assuming P-NUT will be less CRX and more Batcycle, probably with some electric drive technology thrown in.

When our coverage of the 2009 Los Angeles auto show starts on December 3, we will post photos and answer the question, what is P-NUT?

(Credit: Automotive News)

The federal government is taking public comments on proposed changes to the long-standing corporate average fuel economy mandate. Those proposed changes include considering new approaches to improving fuel economy and, for the first time as part of CAFE, reducing emissions.

New CAFE rules are being hammered out by the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an agency of the Transportation Department.

The two agencies considered more than 35 technologies that automakers could use to improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions during the 2012-16 model years, according to the agencies' joint proposal for the new rules.

That proposal, currently the subject of public comment, is expected to be completed around April, a NHTSA spokeswoman said.

The technologies being considered fall into five categories:

1. Engine.

2. Transmission.

3. Vehicle.

4. Electrification/accessory.

5. Hybrid technologies.

Most "are readily available, well-known, and could be incorporated into vehicles once production decisions are made," the 337-page proposal says.

At the same time, though, the EPA has opened the door for automakers to get credits for using new technologies that would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

"Eligible innovative technologies would be those that are relatively newly introduced in one or more vehicle models but that are not yet implemented in widespread use in the light-duty fleet," the proposal says.

Combining NHTSA's miles-per-gallon targets for CAFE with the EPA's emissions goals could result in overall efficiency improvements.

Said Jim Kliesch, a senior engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, "This is good news from an efficiency standpoint because there's overlap between the amount of greenhouse gas emitted and fuel economy."

(Source: Automotive News)

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Top Safety Pick award for 2010 goes to 19 cars and eight SUVs. And for the first time, the vehicles were tested on roof strength, to measure protection in a rollover. Top Safety Pick winners also must have electronic stability control, which research shows significantly reduces crash risk. This is the second time the Institute has tightened criteria since announcing the first recipients in 2005.

According to the IIHS report out today, Subaru is the only manufacturer with a winner in all four vehicle classes. The automaker earns five awards for 2010, followed by Ford and Volvo, coming in with six winners. Volkswagen/Audi has five, and Chrysler follows with four awards. Two new small cars, the Nissan Cube and Kia Soul, join the Top Safety Pick list for 2010.

The new requirement for strong roofs are in response to the fact that rollovers kill more than 9,000 people in passenger vehicles each year. The Institute estimates that stronger roofs reduce the risk of serious and fatal injury in single-vehicle rollovers by about 50 percent compared with roofs meeting the minimum requirement.

(Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)

You can control the iPhone's music playback within the Gokivo GPS app.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)

You have two main options when it comes to GPS apps for the iPhone: apps with offline map and apps with online maps. Examples of apps with offline maps are the Navigon, the iGo My Way, TomTom, or the recently added Magellan RoadMate.

These apps are excellent for heavy users as they don't require a live data connection to work. All the maps are included with the app and downloaded to the phone. However, they tend to require gigabytes of storage space and take a long time to install. If you plan on going on a long road trip, they are good fits.

If you are a casual user, however, it's better to use an online GPS application. These applications are just a few megabytes in size and therefore take just a few seconds to download to the phone via a 3G connection. This means you can immediately get one the moment you suddenly need turn-by-turn directions.

The first online GPS app for the iPhone is the AT&T Navigator, which works pretty well. Unfortunately, it's only available to AT&T customers and is rather expensive ($10/month) for what it offers. The good news is, you now have other and more flexible choices.

(Credit: Automotive News)

Whatever happened to ethanol?

With all the buzz about hybrids, full electrics, and plug-ins, the industry doesn't seem to talk a lot about biofuels these days.

But research is continuing. So is a political debate over the amount of ethanol that should be blended with gasoline in the U.S. fuel supply.

Proving grounds tests

Vehicles at General Motors' Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan have started testing cellulosic ethanol made by GM partner Coskata at a new plant in Madison, Pa., outside Pittsburgh. Coskata dubbed its plant, which opened last month, "semicommercial." It is capable of producing 50 million to 100 million gallons of fuel a year from such feedstocks as wood biomass, agricultural, and construction waste, and crops raised specifically to be used for energy.

"The next step is to build full-scale facilities and begin licensing our technology to project developers, project financiers, and strategic partners," Coskata CEO Bill Roe said in a statement.

Among the nation's automakers, GM has been the most visible backer of ethanol. In January 2008, it launched a partnership with Coskata. A few months later, it invested in a second cellulosic-ethanol venture, Mascoma.

Companies such as Coskata and Mascoma are working to address a major criticism leveled against the use of ethanol derived from corn: that it jeopardizes the world's food supplies and raises food prices.

Cellulosic-ethanol companies are looking at ways to make fuel by breaking down cellulose, the material that gives structure to plants. The idea is to get away from relying on corn and other food crops by using waste matter, such as corn stalks.

"We invested in Coskata so that we could enable the rapid deployment of commercially viable and environmentally sustainable ethanol globally," said Bob Babik, GM's vehicle emissions director, in a statement issued at the startup of the Pennsylvania plant.

The debate over cars and ethanol long has centered on the relative scarcity of ethanol fueling stations and the low fuel economy that vehicles achieve when fueled with ethanol.

How much is too much?

Lately, that debate has shifted to how much ethanol should be blended into the nation's gasoline supply.

By law, standard gasoline in the United States can contain up to 10 percent ethanol. Recently, backers of the biofuel, led by a group of ethanol makers known as Growth Energy, have lobbied to increase that limit to 15 percent. High corn prices and a slump in demand, the result of Americans driving fewer miles in the recession, have hit makers of corn-derived ethanol hard. Many ethanol makers have gone out of business.

Flexible-fuel vehicles, which many automakers now offer, are designed to run on such a high concentration of ethanol, a blend specifically labeled E85.

Groups representing carmakers, including the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, are fighting efforts to allow 15 percent ethanol in standard gasoline. They say that engines designed to handle no more than 10 percent ethanol would suffer if the mix rose to 15 percent.

Michael Stanton, CEO of the international association, wrote this summer in a letter to the EPA that if the EPA "were to approve the sale of such fuels, we believe a range of problems would result that could jeopardize the control or reduction of automotive emissions."

(Source: Automotive News)

A white 2011 My Sorento CUV, rolled off the production line yesterday at the Kia Motors manufacturing plant in West Point, Georgia. The plant is the first in the U.S. and is expected to produce 300,000 vehicles at full capacity and employ 2,500 people, with on-site and nearby suppliers creating 7,500 additional jobs.

According to a news release, Kia Motors has invested $1 billion in the facility that features the world's most advanced manufacturing techniques. The new plant offers more than a half mile of height-adjustable conveyors and wood flooring, for a more comfortable work environment.

The plant spreads out over 2,200 acres, and includes a body stamping facility, a transmission shop where the all-new 2011 Sorento's six-speed automatic transmission is produced, and a two mile test track.