Mazda Cx-9 Hood Protector on 2040-parts.com

VW halts merger talk with Porsche

Volkswagen on Sunday slammed the brakes on merger talks with Porsche, just before the first meeting to discuss ways to bring all of the automakers' brands together under one entity. VW said that it made the move because it believes that Porsche doesn't have a solid plan for the merger. VW and Porsche announced the plan to hold merger talks on May 6.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW both post record September sales

Not only are the German horsepower wars still going strong, but if this next bit of news isn't evidence of German sales wars, then we don't know what is. BMW sold 189,675 vehicles worldwide during the month of September, an increase of 6.7 percent over the previous year, which also made it the best September sales month for the automaker. This comes with a small asterisk -- namely, that figure includes Mini and Rolls-Royce sales, though if we're talking just BMW-badged vehicles, the September sales totaled 158,029 (still a 7.6 percent increase over September of 2012).

Driving the Nissan EV: We get seat time in a prototype

We got to fling a prototype of the coming Nissan electric vehicle around the parking lot at Dodger Stadium and, like the Dodgers themselves on Opening Day, it was a winner. The prototype body was a previous-generation Cube, but the drivetrain of the car was "99 percent there," according to Nissan. So we drove an old car with the new drivetrain.