Ford Mustang 2010 V6 Premium on 2040-parts.com

Old is new again: Will a floor-hinged throttle pedal be in your future?

If you think that every little nut, bolt, switch, gear or widget in your new car wasn't scrutinized by a team of highly educated, overworked car geeks (read: engineers), think again. A couple of recent conversations with automotive engineers confirmed that virtually nothing that goes into a car today is taken for granted. During the recent Pebble Beach weekend, I had the pleasure of spending time with an engineer for Jaguar, and the subject turned to materials used for various switches in the cabin.

Nissan LEAF: Fleet sales double

Nissan has revealed that fleet sales of its electric LEAF have doubled in the UK, with overall Nissan fleet sales up 9 per cent. Sales of electric cars are not exactly stellar, but there is a light at the end of a very long tunnel shining dimly on UK EV sales – the fleet sector. Nissan has reported that its fleet sales in the UK – with 89 per cent of all fleets sales of cars actually built in the UK – has risen by 9 per cent so far in 2012, but the Nissan LEAF EV has seen its fleets sales more than double.

2011 Ford Flex goes Titanium

Taking a page from its SEMA playbook, Ford is rolling out a top-of-the-line, semi-blinged-out people hauler for 2011, the Flex Titanium. It's dressed up for a night on the town, or a trip to soccer practice, and was devised by Ford product gurus who noticed most Flex customers tend to take high levels of content in their vehicles. The Flex Titanium has a unique black chrome-finish grille with Flex badging on the edge of the hood--a cue straight from SEMA models in 2008 and 2009.