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First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.

Hyundai to eschew electric cars

Hyundai Blue2 is Hyundai's future - not electric cars We were beginning to think that we were a lone voice in the wilderness crying about the futility of the headline dive in to developing electric cars. But we’re not – Hyundai has decided to eschew electric car development. Hyundai has declared that in future they are to concentrate on hybrid car development (which we still feel offers a negative cost/benefit advantage for cheaper cars) and hydrogen fuel cells – of which we approve enormously.

2012 Nissan NV hauls the goods

On the vehicular-evolutionary chart, full-size cargo vans haven't progressed much beyond the shag-carpeted, porthole-windowed, rolling disco lounges of the 1970s. Not a bad thing for obvious reasons, unless you're a tradesman or anyone else whose business requires a heavy-duty box on wheels to haul tools, equipment or goods. Enter the 2012 Nissan NV (Nissan Van), directed at what Nissan found was the least-satisfied segment of automotive customers.