Paul Walker crash site known for street racers

STREET RACERS are known to use the California neighbourhood where Fast & Furious star Paul Walker died in a car crash. Walker and his friend and fellow fast-car enthusiast Roger Rodas died on Saturday when the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT they were travelling in smashed into a lamppost and a tree. The two had taken what was expected to be a brief drive away from a charity event at Mr Rodas' custom car shop in the Southern California community of Valencia, about 30 miles north west of Los Angeles.

Tesla Model S performance version to rival BMW M5

Tesla Model S with M5 Performance Our inherent scepticism about Elon Musk’s claims for the Tesla Model S refuses to go away, but Tesla are convinced they can deliver the Model S with a 300-mile range, great looks, great performance and top-end tecchy goodness at a sub-$70k price tag. And now, it seems, there is going to be a Tesla Model S with performance to rival the BMW M5. At an event yesterday in California, Elon Musk revealed that at launch – the Model S is expected to be hit the road in 2012 with UK cars arriving in 2013 – the Model S will in fact have four variants on offer.

News watch Feb 2010: today's auto industry news

Tuesday 2 February 2010• Spyker has outlined its plans for Saab, which include a new 'all Saab' 9-3 to be launched in 2012. Read the full story here (Saab)• EuroNCAP has named the VW Golf as 'Safest Car of 2009' after ranking all the 33 models it crashed last year (Volkswagen) • Toyota's massive recall to fix fault accelerator pedals could cost the company £1.25bn in lost output and sales (BBC)• Ford will unveil an Edge SUV at next week's Chicago auto show with a turbocharged four-cylinder Ecoboost engine, but the extensive visual mid-life facelift has been made economically possible thanks to Ford's worldwide consolidation of its model ranges (Detroit News) • Toyota has denied that it ignored warnings and acted slowly over reports of unintended acceleration in its vehicles (Detroit News) Monday 1 February 2010• Lotus's vehicle engineering director Roger Becker announced his retirement today. Becker, 64, joined Lotus in 1966, worked alongside Colin Chapman and helped develop every single model since (Group Lotus)• Tata Motors' total sales last month hit 65,478 vehicles – a rise of 77% over January 2009.