Sperry Ba-141 Altitude Indicator on 2040-parts.com

Opel product chief Weber quits to take job with yet-unnamed rival

Frank Weber, the German-born engineer who helped lead development of the Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera hybrids, is leaving General Motors' Opel unit to work for an as-yet unnamed competitor. Weber has been Opel's product chief since November 2009. His departure was reported Thursday by Automotive News Europe and confirmed by company sources.

Audi A3 1.6TDI announced

The Audi A3 1.6TDI - one of a range of A3s featuring the new 1.6 litre diesel from Audi Audi has announced that they are introducing a new 1.6 litre common rail diesel engine across the A3 range, which will oust the old A3 1.9TDIe and the A3 and Cabriolet 1.9 TDI. The new engine offers the same 104bhp as the old 1.9 litre unit, but manages to improve economy by over 8% to 68.9mpg and cuts CO2 to 109g/km. The new A3 gets stop-start and energy regeneration to achieve the same performance and power from the smaller engine.

Europe's road train technology ready for testing

Work is accelerating at Europe's project to let clusters of cars drive together in convoy on motorways - with no input from the driver. The so-called Sartre project today issued a new video showing how its work is developing. Ah, that'll be the Europe-wide Sartre road safety project. It stands for Safe Road Trains for the Environment and is part-funded by the European Commission.