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Ford Fiesta eWheelDrive gets wheel hub electric motors

The Ford Fiesta eWheelDrive – a driveable research vehicle built by Ford and German specialists Schaeffler – may be a regular supermini in size, but it points towards a potential future EV which is much more compact and very manoeuvrable. Ford has taken a regular Fiesta and dumped its powertrain, replacing it with a battery bank where the engine would be and fitted a pair of in-hub electric motors on the rear wheels. But the plan is to build new cars with the batteries under the floor which frees up the space under the bonnet which can then be all but removed to create a very compact urban car that still has space for four.

Chevrolet Volt production halted – again

General Motors has revealed that they are to halt production of the Chevrolet Volt for four weeks as sales stay low. Back in March, we revealed that GM were to stop production of the Chevrolet Volt range extender EV as actual sales fell well behind projected sales. At that time – with a production target of 45,000 Chevy Volts in 2012 – GM had managed to flog just 1.626 Volts in the first two months of 2012 so they decided to halt production for a moth as they had 6,300 Volts stockpiled.

2012 BMW M5 to get 4WD? +M5 Concept Video

Will the 2012 M5 get four wheel drive? Now there’s something to cogitate on for BMW M5 fruitcakes. Autocar are reading a comment by BMW’s head of R&D, Albert Biermann, that “…there will be some all-wheel-drive surprises on M cars in the future.” as evidence that BMW are going to do the almost unthinkable and offer 4WD as an option on the 2012 BMW M5.