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Seat Mii (2012): the Spanish VW Up city car

We’ve seen the German and Czech versions of the Volkswagen Up – and today it’s the turn of the Spanish to showcase their new Seat Mii. The Mii is the new city car for VW’s Mediterranean outpost, and launches Seat back into a segment it deserted when the Arosa walked off choice lists. Seat Mii (2012): the lowdown Seat will launch the Mii in the Spanish market in winter 2011, but UK buyers will have to wait until spring 2012 before they can order the city car.

Bondholders snub GM, bankruptcy filing likely

Nowhere near enough General Motors bondholders agreed to exchange their debt for stock before a midnight Tuesday deadline, making a bankruptcy filing by the automaker highly likely. GM had set a threshold of 90 percent of the $27 billion in bond debt it wanted to exchange for 10 percent of the stock in a reorganized company for the deal to take place. In a statement Wednesday, GM said the amount of notes tendered was substantially less than the 90 percent target.

Ford Fiesta eWheelDrive gets wheel hub electric motors

The Ford Fiesta eWheelDrive – a driveable research vehicle built by Ford and German specialists Schaeffler – may be a regular supermini in size, but it points towards a potential future EV which is much more compact and very manoeuvrable. Ford has taken a regular Fiesta and dumped its powertrain, replacing it with a battery bank where the engine would be and fitted a pair of in-hub electric motors on the rear wheels. But the plan is to build new cars with the batteries under the floor which frees up the space under the bonnet which can then be all but removed to create a very compact urban car that still has space for four.