1977 1978 Ford Motor Company Sherwin-williams Color Chip Paint Sample on 2040-parts.com

Driving the Nissan EV: We get seat time in a prototype

We got to fling a prototype of the coming Nissan electric vehicle around the parking lot at Dodger Stadium and, like the Dodgers themselves on Opening Day, it was a winner. The prototype body was a previous-generation Cube, but the drivetrain of the car was "99 percent there," according to Nissan. So we drove an old car with the new drivetrain.

Like it or not, autonomous cars are here -- almost

One of the odder things about living in "the future" is that things develop so gradually, hardly any of the really amazing things we're exposed to every day seem amazing or futuristic. If the iPhone had just appeared from nowhere in 2007, there would have been riots, demonstrations and legislation. But since we had a Blackberry first, and dedicated cellphones before that, the iPhone and its progeny were never quite shocking.

News watch March 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Friday 30 March 2012• Fiat is suffering from its decision to suspend new product innovation during the recession, argues ANE. It is losing ground on account of delays to its Punto range, which won't be replaced until 2014, and the ageing Bravo, which was launched in 2007 and has no successor in sight (Automotive News Europe)• Mercedes plans to build the new four-door coupe spun off the A- and B-class architecture at its new Hungarian factory (Automotive News Europe)• Opel denies rumours it may sell the Eisenach factory in east Germany where it builds the Corsa supermini (Automotive News Europe)• Mercedes is cutting the time it takes to build a car from 43 hours in 2008 to nearer 30 hours by 2015, according to production boss Wolfgang Bernhard.