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Kia styling chief Schreyer is fluent in Koreapean

The way Peter Schreyer sees it, there is one key difference between European and Korean automakers: Europeans design from the heart, Koreans from the head. "In a European company, everybody is a car driver, a car enthusiast," says the Germany-born design chief of Kia Motors Corp. "Everybody from the CEO to the little designer to people on the production line, they want to build cars they want to drive themselves." Koreans can be more market-oriented: "They look at the big picture, which markets to explore or conquer.

Corvette Z06 Convertible revealed

Chevrolet has announced that it is building a Corvette Z06 Convertible. In Corvette terms, that’s like Porsche building an SUV – people are going to be upset. But not us.

CES: GM to open the dashboard to developers

At last year's Autoweek Design Forum, father of the iPod and Nest Labs co-founder Tony Fadell suggested that automakers concentrate on designing and building cars, leaving handset makers to handle infotainment. The latest announcements from Ford and GM -- in conjunction with the International CES -- suggest that automakers would rather treat the dashboard space as a handset. Yesterday, Dearborn, Mich., announced the Ford Developer Program, which opens up Sync to outside application development; now General Motors has announced a similar initiative.