VW XL1 (2013) 314mpg eco-car heads for production

VW supremo Ferdinand Piech has kept his promise of putting the XL1 super-eco car into production. VW has confirmed the 313mpg XL1 will be built in limited numbers, around 50 of which are earmarked for UK sale. It's an expensive way to save money on fuel though: projected prices for the XL1 run into six figures.

News watch Feb 2010: today's auto industry news

Tuesday 2 February 2010• Spyker has outlined its plans for Saab, which include a new 'all Saab' 9-3 to be launched in 2012. Read the full story here (Saab)• EuroNCAP has named the VW Golf as 'Safest Car of 2009' after ranking all the 33 models it crashed last year (Volkswagen) • Toyota's massive recall to fix fault accelerator pedals could cost the company £1.25bn in lost output and sales (BBC)• Ford will unveil an Edge SUV at next week's Chicago auto show with a turbocharged four-cylinder Ecoboost engine, but the extensive visual mid-life facelift has been made economically possible thanks to Ford's worldwide consolidation of its model ranges (Detroit News) • Toyota has denied that it ignored warnings and acted slowly over reports of unintended acceleration in its vehicles (Detroit News) Monday 1 February 2010• Lotus's vehicle engineering director Roger Becker announced his retirement today. Becker, 64, joined Lotus in 1966, worked alongside Colin Chapman and helped develop every single model since (Group Lotus)• Tata Motors' total sales last month hit 65,478 vehicles – a rise of 77% over January 2009.

Aston Martin Rapide – First Official Image

Those clever chaps over at Car Magazine have managed to get their hands on what they claim to be the first official images of the Aston Martin Rapide, the Aston Martin answer to the forthcoming Porsche Panamera. Not that you’d ever guess where they came from, with all those ‘Car Magazine’ watermarks plastered across the picture! The Aston Martin Rapide has been ‘Coming’ for what seems like forever.