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News watch August 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Friday 31 August 2012•European car sales continue to struggle, down 8.2% in July. Spain, europe's biggest market, saw sales frop the most, by a massive 26%.

First look: 2014 BMW M3 and M4

The BMW M3 is back, faster and more powerful than ever before -- but only as a four-door sedan. For its iconic 3-series-based performance model, BMW will dispense with a 26-year tradition of high-revving naturally aspirated engines in lieu of turbocharged six-cylinder power. Revealed here in production-car guise for the first time, the new 425-hp M3 sedan will be joined at the outset by its sister model, the M4 -- a mechanically identical but stylistically sleeker two-door coupe previewed in lightly veiled concept-car form at the Pebble Beach concours in California last August.

Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid: Production to double to cope with demand

It’s particularly appealing if you like a car with a decent turn of speed – the V60 will do 0-62mph in 6.1 seconds – like the reassurance and practicality of 4WD – the V60′s electric motor drives the back wheels – drive in to London on a regular basis – the 48g/km emissions are congestion charge free – and get taxed as BIK from your company. If all those apply – and you already appreciate the Volvo V60 is a very good car to start with – then the V60 plug-in hybrid is a bit of a no-brainer, even with a headline price of nearly £50k (which gets within £6k of an equivalent non plug-in after the taxpayer has chipped in). It seems that many buyers agree, and Volvo is being inundated with orders.