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Lamborghini shifts R&D focus from more horses to fewer pounds

Lamborghini's drivetrain wizards say they have all the horsepower they need for their super-fast cars. So from here on, performance gains will come from using lighter materials to reduce vehicle weight, instead of from chasing more engine thrust. "It has come to the point where acceleration equals consumption," said Stephan Winkelmann, CEO of the Italian automaker.

SAIC's Mobiliant wins 2013 LA Design Challenge

SAIC has been revealed as the winner of this year's LA Design Challenge. The Chinese carmaker's entry, a single-seat urban public transit vehicle, was declared the victor after intense judging sessions took place throughout the LA auto show's second press day. The panel – which included Tom Matano, executive director, School of Industrial Design at San Francisco's Academy of Art University, and Stewart Reed, chair of Transportation Design at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design – combed through the entries, discussing their merits and how closely they fit the brief, before hearing the teams' presentations in the afternoon.

New design app aims to revolutionize design process

The Morpholio 2.0 app has been launched with a host of new tools aimed at revolutionizing the design process across all disciplines. Launched in July last year specifically for architects, this iteration is the result of collaboration between developers and designers in the automotive and fashion fields, among others. "Aside from making design production easier, we wanted to know if better tools could make it smarter by integrating the wisdom of crowds and capitalizing on the power of the touchscreen to capture feedback," says Anna Kenoff, Morpholio co-creator.