Interior Motives announces shortlist for Student Design Awards 2009

Interior Motives magazine, sister publication of Car Design News, has revealed its shortlist for the seventh annual Interior Motives Design Awards. Handed down by a ten-strong panel of industry experts, the shortlist will be further reviewed before three finalists and a winner for each of the eight categories - and the overall competition winner - is ultimately selected and awarded on the eve of the second press day of the Frankfurt auto show. This year's competition, which saw a record number of entries from 60 schools and 30 different countries, was judged by a panel of industry experts, including Flavio Manzoni, Creative Design Director at VW Group; Ralph Gilles, Vice President of Product Design at Chrysler; Frank Stephenson, Design Director at McLaren; Dr.

Tesla asks NHTSA to investigate fires

In response to concerns following a recent accident which appeared to result from road debris damaging the underside of a battery compartment of a Tesla Model S, causing a fire in the engine compartment, the company has announced that it has requested that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conduct a full investigation into the fire incidents. In a blog post, Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote the following about the investigation: "While we think it is highly unlikely, if something is discovered that would result in a material improvement in occupant fire safety, we will immediately apply that change to new cars and offer it as a free retrofit to all existing cars. Given that the incidence of fires in the Model S is far lower than combustion cars and that there have been no resulting injuries, this did not at first seem like a good use of NHTSA's time compared to the hundreds of gasoline fire deaths per year that warrant their attention." Tesla has also released a software update to the cars which will maintain their standard ride height at highway speeds, preventing the air suspension from lowering the car an extra inch at highway speeds for greater aerodynamic efficiency.

Boris drives a Tesla Roadster

Boris test drives the Tesla Roadster [ad#ad-1] You’ve got to hand it to Tesla, or at least their P.R. people. They are certainly in the news in 2009.