2008 Volvo S40 Sunvisor Passenger Rh Gray Lighted/mirror 2523041 on 2040-parts.com

Renault Megane CC (2010): first teaser photo

Renault today issued the first teaser photograph of the new 2010 Megane Coupe-Cabriolet. It’ll be shown on 2 March 2010 at the Geneva motor show in Switzerland, but we’ll have to wait until then to learn anything of substance about the new Megane convertible. It’ll stick with a folding hard top, but this shadowy teaser shot annoys as much as any restricted pre-publicity hype-up: we can’t really see much at all.

News watch July 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 Tuesday 31 July 2012•Porsche SE recorded a first half profit of €1.15bn, in comparison with €149m for the same period in 2011. The enormous jump has come not from directly selling cars, but from the group's investments in Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH and Volkswagen AG (Porsche SE)•Reuters suggests Germany's car market is in recession, but few outside the industry would know it, thanks to a controversial sales practice that inflates official statistics and paints a flattering picture of demand.

BYD E6 – Next Gen Electric Car battery technology

Chinese car maker BYD are using revolutionary battery technology in the BYD E6 The biggest problem with electric cars (or one of them, at least) is that the battery technology is not really up to the ambitions of car makers. Chevrolet’s Volt (aka Opel Ampera) is a good case in point. Tellingly, a Toyota tecchy referred to the science behind the Chevvy Volt as ‘Vaporware’, and the whole project is founded on the expectation that the technolgy will develop quickly enough to make the car a reality.