03 Yamaha Wr 450 Exhaust Pipe on 2040-parts.com

Audi outlines seven tech innovations

Audi has revealed details of seven new innovations being explored by its designers and engineers including electromobility, ultra-lightweight construction, networked mobility and lighting technology. Lighting design The team in charge of lighting design – an area in which the company is the current leader in terms of LED daytime running lights and headlights – and next up they plan on introducing OLED technology (Organic Light Emitting Diode) to its vehicle range. Only a few nanometers thick, this paste-like material spans the space between the anode and cathode, both of which are enveloped in an electrically conductive coating.

Lorenzo Ramaciotti visits RCA for 'Two of a Kind' project

Lorenzo Ramaciotti, Fiat-Chrysler's head of global design, has visited the Royal College of Art as part of the Fiat ‘Two of a Kind' project explaining how Italian design has become world-famous in all fields in a talk themed ‘The Roots of Italian Car Design'. The ‘Two of a Kind' project asks four teams of four Vehicle Design students to design innovative exterior and interior proposals for how the Fiat 500 and the Panda might look in 2020, taking interactivity, digital interface, sustainability and global appeal into account. Maserati brought along a Quattroporte, a GranTurismo Sport as well as an Alfa Giulietta Sportiva to complement his talk in the hope it would encourage students to consider what the carmaker believes are the three concepts of the legacy of Italian car design: sportiness-dynamism; elegance-balance; and character-personality.

Porsche Cayenne S Diesel: The V8 diesel Cayenne arrives

Porsche has revealed the 2013 Cayenne S Diesel with a 4.2 litre V8 diesel offering 378bhp, 626lb/ft of torque and 0-62mph in 5.7 seconds. Back in April we reported that the Porsche Cayenne S Diesel was on its way with a V8 diesel engine to take on the BMW M50d and the upcoming offerings from Land Rover with a 2014 4.4 litre Range Rover Sport seeming a likely possibility. Now Porsche has caught up and revealed the Cayenne S diesel, which gets the 4.2 litre diesel V8 with a healthy 378bhp and a very useful 626lb/ft of torque, enough to scoot the Cayenne S Diesel to 62mph in 5.7 seconds – a bit slower than the M50d, but all that torque should make it feel at least as lively.