Lotus announces 100 new jobs

Lotus Lotus is on a recruitment drive - prompting confidence that the iconic British sportscar firm’s future looks brighter than it has for years. The company has suffered a rollercoaster ride since relaunching in 2010 with a bold promise to build five new sportscars and a supermini. But the architect of that plan, CEO Dany Bahar, was fired by the company's Malaysian owners and the expansion has since been wound down.

New Volkswagen Golf Plus BlueMotion Introduced

Volkswagen has introduced the new VW Golf Plus BlueMotion The new VW Golf Plus Bluemotion is basically a Golf Plus with the standard BlueMotion tricks added to improve economy and emissions. These include low rolling resistance tyres, revised gear ratios, start-stop and regenerative braking – the usual box of tricks. The 1.6 litre common rail diesel engine in the Golf Plus BlueMotion – down from 1.9 litres in the old Golf Plus BlueMotion – manages 65.7 mpg and emissions of 114g/km, an improvement of 11% in economy and 10% in emissions.

German new car sales drop 11 per cent – pre-reg accounts for 33.5 per cent

New car sales in Germany dropped by 11 per cent in September with pre-reg cars accounting for over a third of all sales. That drop of 11 per cent in Germany is despite deep discount offers – an average of 12.2 per cent in September – with even the previously invincible Mercedes and VW having to offer discounts of up to €3k, despite which VW’s sales fell by 20 per cent in Germany and Mercedes by 12 per cent. What’s perhaps most interesting about the decline in car sales in Germany is the number of pre-reg cars sold (pre reg cars are cars registered by dealers to hit sales targets and then sold at a discount of up to 25 per cent).