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U.S. equity firm to invest $70 million in Saab

Race-car fan and private-equity executive Alex Mascioli is pumping $70 million into Saab as the Swedish automaker works to stay afloat. Mascioli's firm, North Street Capitol, is buying $10 million in shares of Swedish Automobile, which owns Saab, and is also giving the company a $60 million loan to pay for the carmaker's reorganization. U.S.-based North Street Capital struck a deal in September to buy the Spyker sports-car business from Swedish Automobile for $44 million.

Daimler and Renault-Nissan strike a global partnership

Daimler today struck a wide-ranging partnership with the Renault-Nissan alliance, in a deal that will usher in new jointly developed cars, shared technologies and a multitude of cost savings.  Cars such as the new 2014 Smart Fortwo will now be twinned with the next Renault Twingo, while the Forfour is set for a comeback and we can expect plenty of shared combustion engines and electric motors, borrowed platforms and jointly developed SUV tech across all three parties. And that's only scratching the surface of the possibilities opened up by this wide-ranging deal.

AW gets a long-term natural-gas Honda Civic

For all those wanting to save the universe, may we introduce the latest member of the AutoWeek green car fleet--a Honda Civic GX. The GX is a regular Civic in every respect but one--its 1.8-liter four-cylinder internal-combustion engine is powered solely by compressed natural gas. The main benefit of this is that it achieves as close to zero emissions as you can get in a mass-produced passenger car.