Kw Coilovers Variant 3 Subaru Sti on 2040-parts.com

News watch October 2011: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hourMonday 31 October 2011• The two companies planning to buy Saab - China's Youngman and Pang Da - have agreed to pay a €50 million bridging loan, court documents show. And they are pledging €610m in long-term funding from 2012, according to ANE (Automotive News Europe)  • Martin Winterkorn, the CEO of the Volkswagen group, says he is pleased with the performance of Seat and Skoda.

Vauxhall Ampera Hybrid – No range anxiety

The Vauxhall Ampera goes on a 350 mile run We’ve been moaning quite a bit about the claims being made by car makers for their electric cars. We understand that a big drawback for buyers is ‘Range Anxiety’, a completely understandable concern when you can’t exactly pull over and top up your electric. So we asked Secretary of State Philip Hammond to look at legislation on range claims by electric car makers so buyers can make a judgement on the facts, not the fiction.

E85 makes inroads on cost and availability

Three years ago, we embarked on a Midwest road trip in search of what was then the Holy Grail of fuel: E85. Our findings weren't too positive--there were far more E85-compatible vehicles on the road in 2006 (5 million) than there were E85 pumps to fuel them (about 700 out of some 200,000 fuel stations nationwide). In addition, those burning the mix of 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol were paying a pretty penny for their earth-friendly ways, losing about 15 percent in fuel economy while often paying the same price as for regular unleaded.