Porsche finally becomes a VW company

Volkswagen has announced it is to finalise its takeover of Porsche by buying the remaining 50.1 per cent of Porsche stock for €4.46 billion. The takeover of Porsche by VW has been a long and rocky road, but then family fallouts are always messy. It all started with Porsche attempting to consume VW, but some clever manoeuvring by Ferdinand Piech thwarted the efforts of his cousin, Wolfgang Porsche, to swallow up his business and the financial crisis saw Porsche rack up €10 billion in debt in the process.

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.

Ford Design Center set to expand

Symbolic of the importance it plays in Ford's small car strategy, the automakers Design Center in Cologne, Germany, is about to receive a €11.6m redevelopment. Construction is already underway on the facility's new wing, which will include design studios and 100 workplaces. The 3,000 square-meter extension is set to be completed by the end of the year.