News watch March 2010: today's auto industry news

Tuesday 30 March 2010• Mercedes has dismissed claims that its Maybach brand is for sale, after reports in the Chinese media claimed Chinese car company BYD was considering a bid for the upmarket offshoot. BYD has also denied the claims (Reuters)• Toyota president Akio Toyoda has promised his company will listen more carefully to customers and react faster in a bid to regain credibility after the Japanese car manufacturer was forced to recall millions of vehilces over safety fears (BBC)• The Obama administration is expected to unveil its finalised fuel economy and tailpipe emissions through to 2016 this week, to coincide with the opening of the 2010 New York auto show (Detroit News)  Monday 29 March 2010• Toyota has agreed to licence the hybrid technology in the Prius to Mazda, which will combine the electric system with its next-gen Sky engines. It’s part of Mazda’s plans to increase the average fuel economy of its vehicles by 30% by 2015 (compared to 2008 levels) and it hopes to have its first hybrid vehicle on sale in Japan by 2013 (Mazda)• Ford and Chinese car company Geely have signed a stock purchase agreement that will allow the latter to acquire 100% of Volvo (along with related assets including intellectual property rights).

Video: Living room gets a Cobra makeover

Has someone been watching too many home-renovation TV shows? We're not sure how else to explain this YouTube video from Germany. In it, the driver takes a Cobra or a Cobra replica that has found its way into an empty living room and proceeds to paint the wood floor with rubber in a nice circular pattern.

Slather your Fiesta with bacon!

Today, trends have little in the way staying power. In fact, we're astonished that the default image-meme typeface is still Impact. The recent MTV VMAs inspired much hand-wringing about Miley Cyrus' tweakoid performance, but the truly startling thing was that *NSYNC was pretty much as close as the show got to a legacy act.