GM's Volt engineer Weber moving to Opel

Frank Weber, the German-born engineer in charge of the Chevrolet Volt, is moving back to Germany to take a senior management role at Opel. He will be replaced by Doug Parks, who has been working at Opel since 2007 as chief engineer for GM's global compact cars, which include the Opel Astra and Chevrolet Cruze. General Motors Co.

Manufacturers report 2013 sales boom

CAR MANUFACTURERS are reporting strong surges in sales for 2013, with one mainstream brand up by more than 55%. So far Ford, Vauxhall, Skoda, MG, Lexus, Renault, Audi and Mercedes have all reported excellent sales performance, with Mercedes having passed the 100,000 registrations per year mark for the first time in the UK. Largely thanks to the introduction of the Dacia brand this year, the Renault Group has seen a 55.3% rise in sales, to 63,319 units.

Peugeot 208 XY heading for production

It’s been revealed that the luxury concept of the new Peugeot 208 – the 208 XY – will be at the Paris Motor Show in production guise. At this year’s Geneva Motor Show, Peugeot revealed a pair of concept cars based on the new 208 – the 208 GTi and the 208 XY. Yesterday we revealed that the new Peugeot 208 GTi was heading for this month’s Paris Motor Show ready for production, and now it seems it will be joined by its luxury sibling concept, also ready to go in to production – the Peugeot 208 XY.