News watch February 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 Wednesday 29 February 2012• Following on from yesterday's news of a cross-holding between PSA and GM, it now appears that Peugeot Citroen would offer a €1bn rights issue to create cash and strip back jobs as part of its proposed alliance with GM (Automotive News Europe)  • The Bloomberg Riskless Return Ranking, a survey of investor performance, suggests that Kia has outperformed all 22 other car makers with a risk-adjusted return of 9.2% in the past five years. Second highest was Hyundai, whose shares rose 4.8% in the same period (Bloomberg)• Fisker has a new chief executive officer, as founder Henrik Fisker moves to executive chairman. The new boss is Tom LaSorda, the former top man at Chrysler pre-bankruptcy (Fisker)Tuesday 28 February 2012• General Motors is in talks to buy a 5% to 7% stake in PSA Peugeot Citroen, according to reports by news agencies Bloomberg and Reuters.

CarFest South 2013: the best bits of Chris Evans’ car show in pictures

The weather wasn’t all it could have been but that didn’t stop the fun at the 2013 instalment of CarFest South at Laverstoke Park Farm near Basingstoke in Hampshire. The annual event organised by DJ, TV presenter and famous car nut Chris Evans ran over three days with a sell-out crowd helping raise money for Children in Need.MSN Cars was on site capturing the best of the cars and the atmosphere. Click through our gallery to get a feel for the CarFest South experience and see the stunning cars that were on display.

Lotus electric city car (2009) the first photos

By Richard Webber First Official Pictures 17 July 2009 09:59 Lotus Engineering has turned its hand to city car design, and has produced this innovative electric vehicle concept, pitched at the urban driver of 2015. At just 2600mm in length and 1600mm wide, the Lotus supermini is even smaller than a Toyota iQ, but manages to match the Toyota’s 3+1 layout. The crucial aspect of the design is the aluminium spaceframe in the floor, which houses the batteries and electrical gubbins, while also providing stiffness and crash resistance.