1341323 1341320 Polaris Front Gear Case on 2040-parts.com

Will your next new car stop itself?

Last week in Park City, Utah, a group of us were discussing the chutzpah that some manufacturers have in charging hundreds of dollars for outboard mirrors that dip downward when the vehicle's placed in reverse. The consensus was, “Since the electric motors in the mirrors are already there, and the computers know the car's set to back up, it's only a line of code. A very expensive line of code.” The European Union seems to be thinking along the same lines.

SEAT Ibiza ECOMOTIVE does 100mpg

Gerhard Plattner achieved almost 100mpg in a SEAT Ibiza ECOMOTIVE But when press release came in from SEAT this afternoon telling us that a SEAT Ibiza ECOMOTIVE has just achieved a run, on real roads from Barcelona to Germany, of 1,562km and used just 45.53 litres of fuel, we had to get our calculators out (we’re so old now we can only see the reality of the achievement in mpg!). By our reckoning the Ibiza managed just a shade under 100mpg. Astonishing.

Scuola Politecnica di Design announces Chris Bangle workshop

Italy’s Scuola Politecnica di Design has announced a seven-day workshop with former BMW Group design boss Chris Bangle at its campus in Milan. Themed ‘Future Personal Emotional Mobility’ and scheduled to run from 18 to 24 September 2009, the workshop invites design degree graduates and experienced car designers to take part in a project to create a new breed of sustainable shared transportation for the year 2050. Based on the concept that the mass migration of people from the countryside to cities will in the future create even more social, economic and ecological differences between population zones, this event will see attendees work closely with Bangle towards designing systems that engage on an emotional as well as an economic level, satisfying the personal transportation needs – and desires – of a disparate global population while minimising impact on the environment.