05 Volkswagen Touareg Headrest on 2040-parts.com

Ferrari 599 Hybrid – it’s a very ‘Green’ Ferrari

The very green Ferrari 599 Hybrid at Geneva To a die-hard petrol head, Ferrari lover or frankly anyone with a proper sense of right and wrong, the idea of a ‘Green’ Ferrari is anathema. Fortunately, although I suppose you could consider the Ferrari 599 Hybrid ‘Green’ in the sense that it will probably produce less CO2 (which is, of course, the single most important thing for  Ferrari), the performance of this 599 Hybrid  is going to be its forte, and the real green bit on this particular 599 Hybrid is the hideous paint job. We’ve known for a while that Ferrari were working on a Hybrid, and we recently revealed it would be a hybrid version of the Ferrari 599.

Petrolhead spiders cause Mazda recall

Mazda has had to recall 42,000 vehicles in the US after it emerged that a species of spider had been weaving webs in fuel vent hoses, increasing the risk of fuel leaks and fires. The yellow sac spider’s curious domestic activities cause a build-up of pressure in the evaporative fuel vent that – in theory at least – could result in a cracked fuel tank and therefore an increased risk of fire. This isn’t the first time that the Mazda 6 has received the unwanted advances of a gas-guzzling arachnid, either – three years ago Mazda had to recall over 50,000 cars for precisely the same reason.

News watch June 2012: 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-hour Friday 29 June 2012• As predicted, BMW and Toyota today announced the next stage of their cooperation to jointly develop powertrains, lightweight technologies, fuel-cells and future platforms (BMW and Toyota)• Today's announcement follows the initial agreement signed in December 2011; in March 2012, BMW and Toyota signed a binding agreement to work together on lithium-ion battery research and for Munich to supply Toyota with diesel engines from 2014 • Now Toyota and BMW have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on the electrification of car powertrains, research into lightweight technologies, develop fuel-cells and to consider future vehicle architectures – 'for a sports car, for example'• Renault will cut 300 jobs at its Flins plant near Paris, it announced today. The factory builds the Clio and is preparing for the new Zoe ZE too (Automotive News Europe)• Ford has warned its pre-tax operating profit in the second quarter will be 'substantially lower' than before.