Peugeot Onyx Supercar Gets Scooter Concept Sibling, will Also Debut in Paris

The public outside of Europe may not generally know it, but Peugeot has a long history in the motorcycle segment having introduced its first bike back towards the end of the 1800s and continues to do so today offering 14 different models including scooters, multi-gear bikes and mopeds with engine capacities from 50cc to 500cc (0.5-liters).
At next week's 2012 Paris Motor Show, the French company will present a new prototype three-wheeler named the Onyx Concept Scooter, and yes, as you may have guessed already, it was inspired by the 680HP diesel-electric Onyx Hybrid Supercar Concept.
Read more »

Fisker Wraps Investigation of Karma Fires at New Jersey Port, Blames One Car's Vehicle Control Unit

Last week, Sandy's furious tempest resulted in 16 brand-new Fisker Karma sedans and three Toyota Prius hybrids going up in flames at a shipping facility in New Jersey after being submerged in seawater for many hours.
While we have yet to hear from Toyota, Fisker's engineers finished investigating the incident and have just released their findings through a press statement.
According to the manufacturer, the culprit turned out to be a low voltage Vehicle Control Unit in one Karma, which after being under salt water for several hours, short-circuited and caused a fire that then spread to the other 15 extended-range plug-in hybrid models parked nearby due to the strong winds blowing at the time.

Read more »

U Design: Tesla Model C Concept Study for a Compact Electric Hatch by Dejan Hristov

While Tesla Motors started its career and gained worldwide attention through its 2008 electric-powered Roadster that was built around the Lotus Elise and which has since been retired, the Silicon Valley-based carmaker has much bigger plans in store for eco-conscious consumers.
This year, Tesla launched its first entry into the automotive mainstream, the Model S electric sedan that went on sale in June, and previewed its next step in making electric cars available to a wider audience with the Model X seven-seater crossover concept that will lead to a production model within the next couple of years.
Understandably, in order to survive, Tesla will need to expand its range in other segments as well, and here's where an old acquaintance of CarScoop comes into the picture.
Dejan Hristov is an independent designer whom we came to know from his study for a Bugatti Super Sedan. This time, Hristov is proposing a smaller Tesla vehicle that he named the Model C.


Read more »

U Design: VW Ayoreo Design Concept for a More Affordable Alternative to the Tesla Model S

It's been a few years since the first modern-era electric cars started to become available to the masses, and even though they haven't exactly set the market on fire, they're slowly gaining pace in the automotive marketplace.

Over the next few years, we're going to see many new battery-powered models going on sale, be that with pure electric drivetrains like the BMW i3 or EV's with a range extender such as the Cadillac ELR Coupe.

Along with carmakers, automotive designers are also preparing for the things to come. Erik Sætre, a Norwegian Industrial design-engineering student who is currently doing an exchange year at the UK's Coventry University, sent CarScoop a concept study he created for an all-electric Volkswagen four-door coupe named the Ayoreo.

"The Volkswagen Ayoreo is a coupe designed to enter the EV market in 2013," Sætre tells us. "The goal was to achieve a fairly simple and clean surface language with incorporated industrial elements, like its rear view cameras. A more affordable option than the Tesla S, but hopefully a more appealing one then the Nissan Leaf."

Read more »

Tesla Model S Lands in Europe, Prices Start From €71,400 in Germany

With U.S. deliveries having started since June, Tesla Motors is now introducing its Model S all-electric luxury saloon in the European market – but only in its higher-end versions.

For the time being, Tesla announced that it will offer only the 60- and 85-kWh battery pack versions, leaving the 40-kWh edition out of the Model S' European range.

Read more »

Designer Dreams Up Single-Seater Bugatti TypeZero Concept

It's never a bad idea to look to the past for inspiration, just as long as you don't forget the needs and wants of the future when doing so.

French designer Marc Devauze looked at Bugatti's glorious past and chose the brand's most successful racecar ever, the 1920's Type 35 that won over 1,000 races including the Grand Prix World Championship as well as the famed Targa Florio, for inspiration in creating his award winning TypeZero Concept.

Read more »

VW Rocky 3-Door SUV Design Concept Based on the Up! Mini Car Platform

Here's another design concept for a small crossover model utilizing the platform hardware from the Volkswagen Up! family of mini cars.

We say another one because Volkswagen itself introduced a very-near production study at this year's edition of the São Paulo International Motor Show in Brazil in October.

Read more »

Scoop: New BMW i3 Prototype Fitted with Final Production Ends

BMW's new urban electric mini has been spied wearing its production front and rear end parts, and in particular, the bumpers and lights. Previously, i3 prototypes were fitted with fake front and rear panels.

While it’s clear that the overall shape and styling will resemble the original i3 Concept car displayed at the 2011 Frankfurt Show, the production model's exterior will be toned down a notch with less fancy detailing.

Read more »

All-New 2014 Cadillac ELR Coupe to be Introduced in Production Guise at the Detroit Show

Adding to the many important world premieres that General Motors has planned for us at the upcoming 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January, and which include the new Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra and Corvette C7, is the production version of the Cadillac ELR.

Cadillac's interpretation of the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle project was previewed three years ago with the Converj Concept at the 2009 Detroit auto show.

Read more »

U Spy: BMW i3 Coupe Concept Parked on the Streets of LA

As we were reminded earlier this week, BMW has been working on electric cars for four decades now beginning with the 1602 Electric in 1972, and next year, it will introduce its first series production EV in the form of the all-new i3 five-door supermini.

At the recent LA Auto Show, BMW displayed a three-door concept version of the sub-compact model named the i3 Coupe, and it is this car that CarScoop reader Alfred H. spotted on the road this week.

Read more »

Rinspeed Boxes Up New Micromax Concept for the Geneva Motor Show

You didn't think that Swiss design house Rinspeed would miss the 2013 Geneva auto show, did you? Of course not. For next year's event, which sounds further away than it really is, as it will open to the public in less than three months on March 7, Rinspeed will debut a new concept vehicle named the "microMAX". Read more »

This is What a Tesla Model S EV Burnout Looks and Sounds Like

While fiddling around with Tesla's new battery-powered Model S, the crew at Road&Track magazine wanted to have their 6 seconds of fame fun by performing something that looks, but never really sounds, like a proper burnout.

The result? As one commentator named Jason Pischke put it on the publication's YouTube channel, "Well that was... ummm, I'm just going to go with awkward".

Read more »

Spy Shots: BMW's i8 Hybrid Coupe Shows its Revised Hofmeister kink.

We were hoping that by the end of this year, BMW engineers would have peeled off most of the camouflage covering their i8 coupe prototypes, but as you can see, that's not going to happen – unless, of course, Munich surprises us over the next couple of weeks.

What we do get from these fresh spy shots of the i8 that was captured once again during cold weather testing in Europe is a less obstructed view of the car's upper profile as the company's people removed some of the swirly wraps covering the side windows.

Read more »

A Brief Look at BMW's All-Electric Cars from the 1970s to Today

On July 25, BMW’s first dedicated i Store opened its doors at London’s Park Lane, right next to the BMW and Mini dealerships, a year and a half before the i3 premium city car rolls off the production line at the company’s Leipzig plant.

The i3 was previewed by a concept study at last year’s Frankfurt Motor Show. The prototype is powered by a 170HP electric motor, although BMW has revealed that the production model will also feature a range-extending gasoline engine that will work as a battery generator.

That much you may know as the Munich-based automaker has been promoting its i sub-brand heavily, the most recent example being the i3 Coupe, a three-door version of the 2011 study.

Read more »

Fisker CEO Says Carmaker is Looking for Partners, Shopping Out its Hybrid Technology

Having cars like the Aston Martin DB9 and V8 Vantage and the BMW Z8 in your portfolio is quite an achievement. Building your own car company from scratch beats that – even more so, when you factor in that you haven’t celebrated your 50th birthday yet.

Henrik Fisker is the man who has done all of the above. Fisker Automotive may have rolled out its Karma luxury plug-in hybrid sedan but is facing some problems, the most pressing of which is the lack of finance.

Read more »

Volt Owners Pass the 100 Million Mile Mark in EV Mode, Save Two Supertankers of Gas

Two years ago this month, GM launched its Chevrolet Volt extended range plug-in hybrid. During this period, it faced some issues but now it is happy to announce that Volt owners have collectively surpassed 100 million all-electric miles (160 million km). Read more »

Yema Auto's All-Electric and All-Audi Looking Mustang F16 Enters Production

It's been a little over a year since China's Yema Auto dazzled us with its replication capabilities when it introduced a new breed of clone concepts at the Chengdu Auto Show 2011 with the T-SUV (call me VW Tiguan), E-SUV (Infiniti EX) and the F16 and E-Taxi twins (Audi A4 Avant).

In the time that passed since then, Yema Auto's engineers worked hard to finish the development of one of those models, the F16, that is now ready for a small-scale production in battery-powered form under its sub brand Mustang.

Read more »

Tesla Motors Under Federal Investigation for Using Foreign Instead of U.S.-Made Parts

Electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors has had its ups and downs in recent months. It may still be in the red and facing the wrath of traditional dealers over its Apple-like stores, but its Model S received a lot of praise, and unlike rival Fisker Automotive, it hasn’t been involved in massive (and image-damaging) recalls.

What it does have in common with Fisker, though, is federal agencies questioning their spending of federal loans. According to a report from The Washington Times, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been conducting an investigation on Tesla for nearly a year.

Read more »

Tesla Internship Project for a Battery-Powered Compact

As a pioneer of the modern day electric car, it’s only natural that Tesla Motors draws the attention of young and aspiring designers like Hyonwoo Jason Kim, a transportation design student at the Art Center College Of Design in California.

What makes the Korean-born student's conceptual study for an all-electric Tesla hatchback more interesting, is that it was penned as an internship project while working at the Silicon Valley-based carmaker.

Read more »

Nissan Says “Look Who’s Talking” After Fiat Implied that the Leaf is a Visual Pollution

It seems that “green” vehicles are the new field of confrontation between big automotive groups. After Ford attacked Toyota’s Prius claiming it’s inferior to the Blue Oval’s C-MAX Energi, Nissan and Fiat got into a fight about their EVs' designs.

Before the launch of the all-electric 500e at last week’s LA Auto Show, head of Fiat product marketing Matt Davis told Bloomberg News: “Let’s be honest, ugliness is probably one of the worst forms of pollution. The Fiat 500e proves that you do not have to give up on good looks to deliver an electric car.”

Read more »