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Interior Motives China Conference to explore new design directions

Chinese consumers are driving new design directions, and CDN's Interior Motives China Conference in Beijing next week is set to explore how. Titled ‘New brands and the search for a design identity', the conference features an impressive speaker line-up that blends the international (Chris Bangle and VW's Wolfgang Muller Pietralla) with the regional (GM PATAC's Friedhelm Engler, Ford China's Chelsia Lau and PSA-Peugeot/Citroën China's Robert Walker), with the domestic (Shan Wei of the Beijing Automotive Technical Center (BATC), and Ken Ma of SAIC). The annual conference is the third in China to be hosted by CDN's magazine Interior Motives, and will be held on Wednesday 21 April, and Thursday 22 April, just in advance of the opening of Auto China 2010 in Beijing on Friday (23 April).

Driving the Edison 2 Very Light Car 4.0

Oliver Kuttner got into the alternative car business to make money. Or, more accurately, he got into it to win money. In 2010, the $5 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize was up for grabs and Kuttner, a Charlottesville, Va., real estate developer and former IMSA/ALMS racer, won it with his single-cylinder-engined Very Light Car (“Lightweight Endeavors,” June 27, 2011).

Meet the new BMW 2-series

Thanks to some leaky websites, we can bring you the all-new BMW 2-series Coupe a little earlier than we expected. The new car will be shown first at the Detroit auto show in January and will arrive in U.S. dealerships next spring as the 228i and M235i.