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

Winners of the 2013 Michelin Design Challenge announced

Michelin presented the three winners of the 2013 Michelin Challenge Design at its private Designers' Reception during of the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit's Renaissance Center. A jury of automotive designers and industry experts picked the winners from the 15 finalists that best explored how design contributes to and impacts the ongoing effort to develop more efficient vehicles, while keeping the emotional side of car design front of mind. This year's top three finalists are Jorge Biosca (Spain), Liu Shun (China) and Song Wei Teo (Singapore).

Used car sales return to pre-recession levels

As the UK’s buoyant new car sales figures continue to buck the European trend, it was only a matter of time before this had a positive knock-on effect on sales of used cars. Now, according to figures released in the latest BCA Used Car Market Report, used car sales hit 7.1 million last year, outpacing new car sales by 6.4% and, even more crucially, returning to pre-recession levels. Best used car buys for 2013 On Bing: see pictures of used cars In fact, a record £38.1 billion worth of used cars were sold in 2012, £5.8 billion more than was spent on new cars.

Nissan ESFLOW: Electric Sports Car

Nissan ESFLOW Electric Sports Car As Tesla has already proved, if you throw enough money at it, employ enough publicists (including self-publicists) and string enough laptop batteries together, you can make an electric sports car. And, because of the lightness of construct and instant torque of an electric motor, you can make it sprint to 60mph in pretty short shrift. Whether, with all the lard that comes with  thousands of laptop batteries, you can make it go round corners properly… Which has obviously inspired Nissan to send the LEAF and the 370Z off to conjugate somewhere suitable, with orders to deliver up the resulting oxymoron – an electric sports car – to the Geneva Motor Show.