Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Design Services: Motorcity Europe

A recent Business Week article stated that "never before has design been so vital to an auto maker's success, maybe even to its survival". Much of the reason for this is the close parity in quality between different brands and the general high quality of new cars; according to J.D. Power, vehicle quality has improved 24% in the past five years.

Ford design chief J Mays retires, replaced by Moray Callum

J Mays, Ford Motor Co.'s global design chief and one of the last senior executives remaining from the Jacques Nasser era, is retiring from the company along with two other veteran senior executives. Moray Callum, 58, design director for Ford in North America, will replace Mays, 59, the automaker said in a statement today. Also retiring after long Ford careers are Jim Tetreault, 57, vice president of North American manufacturing, and Martin Mulloy, vice president of labor relations.

Audi A2 EV & A1 Range-Extender dropped

It seems Audi is getting cold feet on its electric car plans with the Audi A2 EV and the Audi A1 Range-Extender reported to be dropped. It’s starting to look as if car makers are waking up to the reality that electric cars are not something car buyers, on the whole, want to spend their hard earned cash on. We recently reported that the BMW range of EVs is being re-thought with the BMW i3 likely to be just a range extender and plans to extend the i-BMW beyond the i3 and i8 Supercar put on ice.