2010 Ford Mondeo Mk4 1.8 Diesel Egr Cooler 4m5q-9f464-bd 584 on 2040-parts.com

Will Volvo need a JV in China with itself?

Western car makers wanting to operate in China need a joint venture with a Chinese partner. And it looks like Volvo is going to have to partner with itself to keep officials happy. The Chinese authorities are keen to make sure that Western car makers can’t just rock up on their doorstep, open up a factory or three and flog cars in the most populous nation on earth.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.

BMW 2 Series Active Tourer gets (slightly inappropriate) M Sport Package

The BMW 2 Series active Tourer moves to the butch side with an M Sport Package Purists moan, but the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer MPV is a sensible move by BMW and aimed at BMW lovers who need a BMW equivalent to the Mercedes B Class; a premium family car for shifting kids and stuff around. Using the same platform as the all new MINI, the 2 Series Active Tourer is BMW’s first front wheel drive car, although a 225i Active Tourer will go on sale in November complete with BMW’s 4WD xDrive. But the 2 Series Active Tourer wouldn’t be a BMW offering unless it also came with the option of an M Sport Pack, which is exactly what will be on offer – however unsuited the Active Tourer may seem for such sporty embellishments – when the xDrive Active Tourer arrives in November (although the M Sport Pack will be offered across the whole Active Tourer range).