Triumph Spitfire Door Sill Top Cap, Passenger Side on 2040-parts.com

2013 Scion iQ EV to join car-sharing programs

The diminutive 2013 Scion iQ EV battery-electric vehicle will join car-sharing programs in the United States. The automaker says that details on which car-sharing programs the iQ will join will be announced in the coming weeks. The iQ EV sports a 12-kilowatt-hour battery, which provides an estimated range of 50 miles on a full charge.

Explosion at GM Tech Center; lithium battery is the suspected cause

According to WWJ CBS Detroit, there was an explosion at the General Motors Tech Center in Warren, Mich., on Wednesday morning. Deputy Fire Chief Gary Wilkinson said the explosion most likely was related to a lithium battery. Wilkinson told Autoweek that a responder notified the HAZMAT team via radio that the explosion involved lithium batteries in the research facility's Alternative Energy Center.

BMW takes the Active Tourer Outdoor outdoors this weekend

This weekend BMW will be taking its BMW Concept Active Tourer Outdoor to the annual OutDoor fair in Friedrichshafen, Germany. We first saw the concept last September, noting that it was a departure for BMW in more ways than one -- with the German automaker stretching itself into segments in which it previously had no foothold. The BMW Active Tourer is meant to preview a whole new generation of small cars from BMW, but one of the biggest changes underneath is a transverse layout of the engine -- a setup that BMW has traditionally shunned in favor of a longitudinal layout.