L’argus Student Competition 2009

French magazine L'argus de l'automobile has announced the winners of its seventh Student Competition Awards, themed ‘Automobile Design for Social Utility'. Open to students studying design within the European Union and Switzerland, the competition culminated at a recent awards ceremony at the Eiffel Tower. The first prize of €3000 and an internship at Renault's Technocentre in Guyancourt (near Paris) went to Damien Grossemy, Thibaut Dereymacker and Maxime Dimarco from the Institut Supérieur de Design in Valenciennes, France.

Dodge to get 40-mpg small car; touts mid-cycle product changes

Dodge is 14 months away from having a 40-mpg small car based on a Fiat platform. The tooling for that car was recently handed off to Chrysler Group's engineering department, Dodge CEO Ralph Gilles told journalists in San Francisco on Sunday. That small car is key to Chrysler's recovery strategy and to meeting stricter U.S.

Cadillac ELR recall targets stability control software issues

The 2014 Cadillac ELR is being recalled for an issue with its electronic stability control (ESC) system. According to NHTSA, the software for the car's electronic stability control system may inhibit certain ESC functions, and fail to alert the driver than ESC is partially or fully disabled. This could potentially give the driver no warning that ESC may be off entirely, which could result in a loss of control, increasing the risk of a crash.