04 05 Toyota Rav4 Air Cleaner 2azfe Eng on 2040-parts.com

Ford Fiesta eWheelDrive gets wheel hub electric motors

The Ford Fiesta eWheelDrive – a driveable research vehicle built by Ford and German specialists Schaeffler – may be a regular supermini in size, but it points towards a potential future EV which is much more compact and very manoeuvrable. Ford has taken a regular Fiesta and dumped its powertrain, replacing it with a battery bank where the engine would be and fitted a pair of in-hub electric motors on the rear wheels. But the plan is to build new cars with the batteries under the floor which frees up the space under the bonnet which can then be all but removed to create a very compact urban car that still has space for four.

Saab production starts – 2010 Saab 9-5 first off the line

The 2010 Saab 9-5 is first off the restarted Saab production Line It’s been a long and sometimes fraught road back to production for Saab. Almost sinking in to oblivion after GM decided to wind it down after failing to secure a buyer who would jump through the required hoops, Spyker is now in control and production has restarted at Trollhatten. It is true that we did report Saab 9-4x production had started back in January, but that was just a limited number of cars for evaluation and crash testing and was prior to the Spyker deal completing.

Nissan tests self-cleaning paint

Well that took long enough. Nanotechnology is here, and Nissan is reportedly using it in the paint on its little Versa Note hatchback. We would have started on something a little more exciting, like the hard-to-care-for matte finish on the GT-R's rear spoiler, but that's just us.