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Michelin Announces Finalists for 2011 Challenge Design Competition

The following designers' vehicle concepts will be displayed in the Michelin Challenge Design exhibit from January 10-23, 2011: Colin Pan, China Sang-June Lee, Kyung-Kuk Kim, Seoung-Bin Lee, South Korea 2:1 Industrial Design Team, Brazil Ramon Ramirez, Mexico Carlos Arturo Torres, Colombia Hui Wang, China Sergio Andres Ortiz, Colombia Lukas Kuba, Czech Republic Gunwoong Kim & Suji Kim, South Korea Attila Tari, Hungary Sadegh Samakoush Darounkolayi, Afghanistan Kyu-Hyun Lee, Sol Lee, Hae-Won Jo, South Korea David Cardoso Loureiro, Belgium Ralph Tayler-Webb, United Kingdom Antti Eskeli, Finland Kyoung Soo Na, South Korea Federico Beltran, Ivan Orozco, Edmundo Platt, Mexico Eduard Gray, Sweden Cristian Armando Polanco Sosa, Guatemala Artem Afanasev & Aleksey Kazakov , Russia Shinsuke Aizawa, Japan Jordie Lewis, Canada Xiaowu Huang, China Zhi Min Lin, China Pai-Ching Hu, Taiwan Peixin Li, China Mike Simonian, Maaike Evers, Laure Garreau, USA Gabriel Wartofsky, USA Dario Alejandro Narvaez, Colombia Andrey Alekseev, Russia Marko Lukovic, Serbia Mohammad Ghezel, Iran Hugo Carlos Fernandez, Spain Thierry Dumaine, France We'll bring you more on the finalists' work when we see them on display at the NAIAS next week. But in the meantime, if you'd like to have a chance to see your design shown at the NAIAS next year, enter the 2012 Michelin Challenge Design competition. Pre-registration for the 2012 competition is open until 4 March 2011. Visit the competition website by clicking on the link below: Michelin Challenge Design 2012 Related Articles: Michelin launches 2012 Challenge Design competition Four CCS students win awards in 22nd annual Michelin/CCS competition

Electric SEAT Altea & plug-in SEAT Leon hybrid revealed

The SEAT Altea EV & plug-in SEAT Leon hybrid - testing for the next 4 years Seat may have revealed a pair of cars with ‘eco’ powerplants -  the Leon TwinDrive Ecomotive and the Altea XL Electric Ecomotive – but they’re not coming to a showroom near you. Well, not before 2015, anyway. The plan is to build a small prototype fleet of the Leon Hybrid and Altea EV and make them available to local government in Catalonia and Madrid, to get evaluation and real-world feedback before the cars go in to production, which won’t be for at least four years.

MINI miffed at Spy Photos of 2014 MINI Hatch

MINI has released their own ‘Spy’ shot of the 2014 MINI hatch (pictured above) The rise and rise of the internet in recent years has seen the once niche market for spy photos of unreleased cars go mainstream, and whether car makers like it or not they can be sure the moment they take their new pride and joy on the road it will be papped and online. Most unrevealed cars go out testing covered in swirly camouflage and padded add-ons to disguise shape and form, but this week a 2014 MINI hatch was snapped with no disguise at all, and it didn’t look great. It didn’t look great because the photo was taken from such a distance it distorted perspective and made the new MINI look a very odd shape.