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50,000 copies of the 2012 Honda Civic recalled over driveshaft issue

About 50,000 copies of the 2012 Honda Civic are being recalled because of a potential issue with the left driveshaft. The automaker claims that the driveshaft “may not have been properly assembled, potentially allowing it to separate from the outer CV joint while in operation.” While such a separation could result in total loss of power to the wheels and the inability to securely park the vehicle without the use of the parking brake, Honda claims that no incidents related to the issue have been reported. Earlier this year, Honda recalled about 45,800 Honda Odyssey minivans for faulty tailgate struts, 8,700 Honda Pilot and Acura MDX SUVs to fix a problem in the fuel tank, and 1,300 copies of the Honda CR-V to correct a control-arm problem.

IDEA Institute acquired by Quantum Kapital

Turin-based automotive design, modeling and engineering firm IDEA (Institute of Development in Automotive Engineering) has been sold to Quantum Kapital AG, an investment company with an industrial emphasis based in St. Gall, Switzerland. The transaction is expected to be completed in the next few weeks.

Lexus Hybrid sales top half a million

Lexus has revealed that they’ve sold more than 500,000 hybrid cars, with the Rx 450h the top seller and the CT 200h catching fast. Unsurprisingly, as it was the first Lexus hybrid to be introduced in 2005, the biggest seller - accounting for half of all Lexus hybrid sales to date (259,000) – has been the RX 400h / RX 450h, but the CT 200h, which was only introduced in 2011, is catching up fast with sales to date of 122,000 to date. During the last seven years Lexus hybrid sales have risen from 26,000 to 113,000 a year and 25 per cent of those Lexus hybrid sales now happen in Europe, even though we don’t get cars like the HS 250h (56,000 sales) and the ES 300h (8,000 sales).