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Fuel protests halt Spanish car production

By Dimitri Pesin Motoring Issues 16 June 2008 10:25 Fuel protests in Europe triggered by the soaring cost of fuel have drastically reduced car production in Spain this month.  Last week's truck blockades and fuel depot pickets in Madrid caused car plants around the country to cut production. Seat, Citroen Peugeot, Ford, Nissan, Renault and Mercedes-Benz all have factories in Spain and most said they were affected.Seat production slashed by 40 percentSeat said its main Martorell plant was operating at 40 percent capacity, with production of the Leon and Altea models severely affected. However, the protests won’t delay sales of the new Ibiza, a spokesman promised, and assembly of cars in the factory is expected to return to normal this week.

2015 Prius said to have even better fuel economy

The next Toyota Prius will get “significantly better fuel economy in a more compact package that is lighter weight and lower cost,” according to Satoshi Ogiso, the Prius program's chief engineer. Ogiso, who is also Toyota Motor Corp.'s managing officer, said the next-gen Prius' performance will reflect “significant advances” in battery, electric-motor and gas-engine technologies. He said Toyota is looking at improving miles per gallon to 55, compared with today's 50 mpg and that the next-generation Prius electric motors will be smaller and more powerful; in addition, its gasoline engine will be among the world's most efficient.

Ford adds new Fiesta Style; drops Fiesta Studio price

Ford Fiesta - seeking buyers further down the range Yesterday we got a new Fiesta limited edition in the Sport Special Edition and today we see Ford tweaking the bottom end of the Fiesta range to get more footfall in its showrooms. In comes the new Fiesta Style, from £9,995, which gets most of the cheap-looking bits on the body painted instead of being just plastic, and a few appealing toys like one-shot electric windows, driver’s seat height adjustment, remote locking and CD with aux in the standard kit list. Oh, and 15″ wheels with covers (perhaps that’s not such a big selling point).