Monthly Archives May 2014

VW 7-Seat SUV North America Production Site To Be Announced Next Week

Two weeks earlier we reported that VW has decided the plant location to build the Chinese market 7-seat SUV, based on the CrossBlue concept.

A VW source released more information to US media that, the company management may come out with the decision of where to build the north America SUV.

The current candidates including the Chattanooga, Tennessee plant, and also the Mexico site. We will report back once the result is available.

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The Most Expensive Car in the World

If you consider the Bugatti Veyron to be very expensive, the price of the following car will make you think this is ridiculous.

The latest transaction price of the 1962 -1964 Ferrari 250 GTO, reached $52 million. That is 20 times of the base Bugatti Veyron’s MSRP.

Ferrari_250_GTO_1

Many of you may not know, 50 years earlier Ferrari cars do not hold value, that’s because at that time Ferrari owners generally did not care about the car and did not maitain it well. Ferrari only build 39 units of the 250 GTO during the 60s, it was sold MSRP $18,500 as a new car in 1962 – 1964; it depreciated quickly to $10,500 as a second-hand car in 1965...

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Mercedes-Benz W205 C Class Wagon Spy Shots

The W205 C Class wagon will be revealed in the 2014 Paris Motor Show on Oct.24, 2014.

Here are some latest spy shots of the latest Mercedes wagon.

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The Automobile Industry Ecosystem

The 2015 K900 and Genesis is a big step forward for the Hyundai Motor Company. Not only because of its superb crash testing performance, but also some key components are all developed by Hyundai itself.

For example the AWD system (called “HTRAC”) are developed in-house, so does the 8-speed transmission. Especially for the 8AT, its design is totally different from the ZF, GM and Aisin units. The Hyundai 8AT uses 4 planetary gear sets and 7 shifting elements (5 clutches, including a one-way clutch and 2 brakes). It is more complicated than any of the other similar units...

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2015 Hyundai Genesis Prevails in Crash Test

Yesterday the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) release crash test results for the new generation Hyundai Genesis sedan.

From the compartment intrusion measurement data on small overlap front test, moderate overlap front test, the performance of the Genesis sedan is superb. Look at the below photo after the small overlap front test, there is minimal shape changes for the safety cage; from the actual measurement data, the Genesis small overlap front intrusion is even better than some other cars’ moderate overlap test result.

2015_Hyundai_IIHS_SmallOverlap

For the side impact test, the Genesis performs OK, not bad but not the 1st class one...

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