Jaguar XJ named as the best luxury car for 2010

The British motoring magazine Top Gear has named the Jaguar XJ as the best luxury car for 2010 ahead of its main rivals BMW and Audi.
Writing in the most recent Awards Issue of Top Gear Magazine, Editor at Large Jason Barlow described the XJ as a 'blast from the future', adding 'rarely has a new car slackened so many jaws'.
The Top Gear team lauded the lightweight aluminum architecture and described the XJ as the most efficient luxury car in its class. It has attained a 29-percent segment share during its first six months on sale, establishing itself as the British car of choice, especially among CEOs.
Since its launch the XJ has received more than 20 international honours, including 'Best Luxury Car' from China's Auto News, 'Annual Limousine King' from Quattroroute (Italy), Automobile Magazine's '2011 Design of the Year' and 'Best Executive Sedan' at the Bloomberg Awards (US).

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Renault Execs fired.

PARIS — The French government said on Thursday that it would seek to bolster industrial secrecy rules after the automaker Renault suspended three executives, including a member of its management committee, who are suspected of compromising the electric car technology on which the company is betting its future.

“There’s a broad danger for French industry,” the industry minister, Éric Besson, said during an interview with RTL radio. The phrase “economic war” is appropriate in this case, he added.

Mr. Besson said the affair appeared to be “serious, and again highlights the risks that our companies face from industrial spying.”
While few details about the case have been made public, the investigation appeared to focus on possible efforts to obtain Renault’s electric car technology.
Mr. Besson declined to elaborate, except to say that the government would be working with French companies to help protect their industrial secrets.
A spokeswoman for Renault, Frédérique Le Grèves, said she could not comment in detail because an internal review was under way. She did, however, confirm that three employees were suspended Monday after an internal investigation that began in August turned up apparent violations of Renault’s ethics policy.
“What they did was very severe,” Ms. Le Grèves said, adding: “It wasn’t just a case of them giving pictures to the media, for instance.”
Christian Husson, Renault’s general counsel and compliance officer, said all of the suspended employees had “extremely strategic positions” at the company.
Mr. Husson also said in a statement that the company had found a “body of converging evidence demonstrating that three group employees have committed misconduct that infringes Renault’s ethics, consciously and deliberately endangering the company’s assets.”
He said the case would “inevitably result in legal action.”
The company said it could not identify the employees while an investigation was under way. But a person with knowledge of the situation, who was not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that one employee involved was Michel Balthazard, senior vice president for advanced engineering and a member of the management committee, which is run by Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive.
The company declined to make Mr. Balthazard available. Mr. Balthazard, who has also been widely identified in the news media, could not be reached for comment via his work e-mail or through a phone directory search in the Paris region.
Neither Renault nor the office of Mr. Besson, the industry minister, would say whether the executives were caught actually passing information or whether an industrial rival or foreign country was suspected. But one country likely to receive scrutiny is China.
The United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which is appointed by Congress, said in a report in 2009 that Beijing had been “a major beneficiary of technology acquired through industrial espionage.” China has denied in the past that its intelligence agencies were engaged in stealing commercial secrets.
Renault is the second-largest automaker in France, after PSA Peugeot Citroën. Renault and its Japanese partner, Nissan Motor, are betting heavily on electric car technology for growth. The technology is made more attractive by the tax incentives many countries offer for purchases of electric vehicles.

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Mercedes Benz C class 2011 Revealed.

AFTER seeing images of the new C-Class leaked on the web, Mercedes-Benz has released official pictures.

Mercedes calls the "new" C-Class, due here mid-year, a "comprehensive modernisation", with redesigned front and rear, upgraded dash and interior materials.
More strikingly, the company claims a 31 per cent reduction in fuel consumption, thanks to an enhanced seven-speed auto transmission and an eco start/stop function.
It also has 10 new driver aids, ranging from Attention Assist and drowsiness detection to Distronic Plus proximity control.
"With numerous high-grade features in the interior that remind one of the new CLS, the C-Class sets completely new standards in its segment with respect to perceived value and quality," Mercedes sales and marketing director Dr Joachim Schmidt says.
More than 2000 new components distinguish the latest generation of the C-Class from its predecessor, he says.

Visibly, the changes are hardly dramatic, although the four- and five-door have a new aluminium bonnet, which contributes to weight reduction and lower fuel consumption.
The 2011 version of Mercedes' mainstay has a new fascia, with LED daytime running lights, LED indicators, a new front grille and a slightly redesigned rear section.
It's a case of visual evolution, not revolution because the main changes are mechanical, especially in the iconic C 63 AMG.
The 6.2-litre V8 is likely to be superseded by Mercedes' 5.5-litre bi-turbo unit . Its possible power of 380kW exceeds even the one-off Jaffa special made for the Sydney Motor Show.
Petrol and diesel V6s are also up for power increases, to 225kW and 195kW respectively.
Elsewhere, the need to lower the fleet consumption and emission average will see new BluTec diesel powertrains and engine stop-start systems, as well as more direct-injection models and the possible end of the five-speed auto in those models that retain it for seven-speed transmissions.
Rumours persist of the first C-Class hybrid.
The 2011 C-Class is expected to have its global premiere this month and go on sale later in the year.
Though it starts just south of $60,000 here, the C-Class was one of Australia's best-selling midsized imports last year.
In November it was second outright only to the locally produced fleet favourite Toyota Camry.
The four-door Mercedes has left behind not only obvious prestige rivals such as BMW's 3 Series and Audi's A4 but also high-quality offerings from Japan and other parts of Europe that start as much as 50 per cent under the tristar car.

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Honda user database hacked.

If you own a Honda or an Acura, you may want to check your email. Hackers have breeched the American Honda owners database.
Autoblog explains that “names, e-mail addresses and VINs are among the data that was compromised. In addition to the 2.2 million Honda owners affected by this information, 2.7 million Acura owners were also subject to this hack, though Honda reports that only e-mail addresses were stolen from owners of the automaker's luxury brand.”
For its part, Honda says they have “contacted all affected customers directly. If you did not receive an email directly, you are not affected,” and “No financial information was compromised.”
“Company officials say the list didn't include Social Security numbers, birthdates, bank information or other data that would leave people vulnerable to identity theft,” reports Inside Line. This hack could have been a lot worse for Honda owners.

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Sales stall for the world's cheapest car: Tata Nano.

India's launch of the world's cheapest car, the Nano, was expected to create a vast new market segment in the nation of 1.2 billion people, but reality has fallen short of expectations.

"We are at the gates, offering a new form of transportation to the people of India," said a proud Tata chairman Ratan Tata at the unveiling three years ago of the globally-hyped vehicle.
Tata, who spearheaded the Nano's development as a way to get India's masses off two wheels and onto four, was likened by some to Henry Ford, who revolutionised the US car market with the Model T.
But the Nano's fortunes have gone into a tailspin with last month's sales of the snub-nosed "people's car" plunging 85 percent from a year earlier to an all-time low of 509 units, despite a rapidly expanding vehicle market.
While the five-seater Nano, which hit the roads with a price tag of 100,000 rupees (2,500 dollars), has battled troubles such as fires in some of its cars and production delays, other small cars have boasted impressive sales figures.
In November, 33,000 of the next cheapest car on the market, the Alto from Japanese-owned market leader Maruti Suzuki, drove out of showrooms even though they cost twice the price.
In an effort to get the Nano back on track, Tata Motors this month offered a " Tata Nano Happiness Guarantee," more than doubling its warranty to four years from 18 months, and throwing in a maintenance contract for just 99 rupees a month.
The company, India's largest vehicle maker, followed up that sweetener with "fast-track" financing for buyers wanting loans to purchase the car, allowing loans of up to 90 percent to be approved in just 48 hours.
The Nano's woes began even before it rolled off the assembly line when farmers in communist-ruled West Bengal state, led by a charismatic opposition leader, protested that they had been forcibly ejected from their land to build the Nano plant.
Tata Motors, which also owns premier British marques Jaguar and Land Rover, was forced to abandon its nearly completed factory and shift to the western state of Gujarat, meaning production of the first 100,000 cars was badly delayed.
Recently, the car's image has been hurt by a series of fires, one of which was replayed frequently on Indian television, showing a Nano engulfed in flames. "Quality perception over safety of the car could be a concern," Mahantesh Sabarad, analyst at Mumbai's Fortune Equity Brokers, said.
There were no injuries as a result of the fires and a company spokesman insisted that the Tata Nano is a "safe car with a robust design."
Tata Motors has announced a free safety upgrade involving new features being added to the exhaust and electrical system. "The car needs a lot of image engineering," said automobile commentator Murad Ali Baig.
Another problem is that the Nano's price has gone up from the nice round launch figure of 100,000 rupees as a result of a rise in input costs, to 137,000 rupees for the basic model without airconditioning.
The cheapest Nano with an airconditioner is 160,000 rupees. "For the price of Nano, there are good second-hand cars on the market with air conditioning," Baig said.
Analysts say that Tata Motors, with its deep pockets, still has the capacity to turn around the fortunes of the Nano, which is just 3.1 metres long but has won rave reviews for its spacious interior.
"The really good thing for Tata is that those people who have the car are happy with it. Word of mouth is a slow process but I still think the car has potential," said Hormuz Sorabjee, editor of India's leading automobile magazine Autocar .

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