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

NLV Quant – née Koenigsegg Quant – at Geneva

The Quant - back at Geneva as the NLV Quant Last week we ran a story on Koenigsegg taking somethig new to Geneva after we’d had a chat with them. But part of that story was on last year’s Koenigsegg Quant, a four-seat electric supercar we saw at Geneva 2009. At the time it was billed as a Koenigsegg Quant (although, as Koenigsegg pointed out to us, it was always a commission project) but now it’s set to return to Geneva 2010 as the NLV Quant.

Kia KV7 concept

Kia is clearly keen to grab the last of 2010's headlines by releasing this teaser render of its upcoming concept, the KV7, due to be unveiled at the Detroit auto show. The large crossover appears to preview a replacement for the Korean manufacturer's Borrego. While the exterior's clamshell tailgate, muscular wheelarches and Ford Explorer-aping lamp graphics (from this view, at least) may be directly relative to a production model, it's unlikely that the rear gullwing door openings will make the transition.

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.