Piech has a new enemy: The taxman. Volkswagen’s planned takeover of Porsche could be a taxable event to the tune of €3b, writes the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
As the derivative-wielding duo Wiedeking and Härter are surely aware of, there are ways to circumvent this nasty detail. VW’s CFO reportedly has shown the ways. However, this needs cooperation on both sides. The Porsche side seems to be uncooperative and happy about the tax issues. If a solution can’t be found, then “the deal is off” the Süddeutsche quotes a source, notably sitting on the Porsche board. A Porsche speaker also said that “there is a problem.” Apparently, a welcome one.
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If only. Can anyone make head or tails (I call heads!) of this?
Kia Pride/Rio facelift – Click above for a photo gallery
Slowly but surely, Kia’s new corporate look is filtering through its entire lineup. We’ve seen it in play on the Forte range, the Soul, and the updated Sorento so far. Now you can add the entry-level Rio to the list. At least we think you can. The photo above shows the newly-facelifted South Korean domestic-market Kia Pride (the Kia Rio in the U.S. market), which is reportedly set to go on sale shortly. As you can see, the car boasts an revamped front fascia, sporting Kia’s dog-bone grille, new lighting, and a rehaped, Ford-like lower air intake. As for the car’s tail, we’ll have to wait and see — pics haven’t hit the web yet.
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Rhys Millen’s Hyundai Genesis Coupe at Pikes Peak – Click above for high-res image gallery
The 2009 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is in the books. Reigning king of the hill Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima again took top honors in the unlimited class but failed to break his own record with the new Suzuki SX4 hill-climb special. In fact, he fell 14 seconds shy of his record 2007 run with a 10:15.368. He did manage to beat Marcus Gronholm and Timo Alanne in one of Ford’s Rallycross Fiestas, which only managed an 11:28.963 as it crossed the line with its right rear tire in flames.
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While it is quite sad to see electric scooter maker Vectrix balancing on the brink of bankruptcy, it should also be remembered that there’s a silver lining to every cloud. In this case, quite a bit of silver. When the East coast company started to run into trouble late last year it had been in the midst of creating an extensive dealer network and had delivered bikes to stores all across the country. Many of those machines are still hanging around today, taking up space and waiting for customers with paychecks to take pity on them, while dealers are becoming more anxious to recoup something from their investment. As a result, eBay, that great surplus supermarket in the internet sky, has quite of few of the all-electric maxiscooters on offer with deep discounts.
For example, there is one listed in Hatfield Pennsylania, brand new in the box with a starting bid of $3,000 and a “Buy it now” price of $4,000. A far cry from the days when it required $11,000 to bring these babies home. Hit the jump for exclusive ABG video of a detailed run down of all the bike’s features.
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Corsa Ginetta-Zytek 09HS prototype – click above for image gallery
This weekend’s American Le Mans Series race at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut was an prominent undivided for the series that promotes itself as the leader in “Green Racing.” The Corsa Motorsports team debuted its Ginetta-Zytek 09HS hybrid LMP1 car at the in conclusion race in Utah before Le Mans. However, because the car had been running for just a small in number days, they only used the hybrid system in practice. Once the race started, it was switched opposite. Now that the team has had more time with the car, they opted to run with the system fully enabled at Lime Rock.
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2010 Ford Mustang AV-X10 “Dearborn Doll” one-off – Click above for image gallery
Last year, the Mustang AV8R netted big dollars at the Experimental Aircraft Associaton’s Gathering of Eagles charity auction. Building on that success, a factory-produced, one-off, aviation-themed Mustang will once again cross the block at this year’s auction, taking place during the EAA AirVenture in OshKosh. The 2010 Mustang AV-X10 sports a star-and-bar-emblazoned glass roof, GT500 19″ wheels, a GT500 rear spoiler, and GT500 lower rear fascia. From there, it’s trimmed out in a World War II fighter-inspired paint scheme. Orange trim fore and aft, a white “AV-X10″ tail stripe, and “Dearborn Doll” fuselage pinup art set this auction pony apart visually. (There’s even orange “propeller tip” trim on the wheel rims between their split-spoke pattern, too.)
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The San Diego Comic-Con kicks off later this week, and taken in the character of is the case each year, there’ll be no shortage of giddy, costumed fanboys and girls roaming the halls. There’session no denying that more of the getups people wear to the con are pretty spot-on, but fans of Batman strength have being interested in this common, which looks to be tasteless accurate, as well similar to being somewhat functional.
Universal Designs is developing a set of motorcycle leathers that’s an exact replica of the Batsuit donned by Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight. Included in the leather-and-kevlar suit are the jacket, pants, boots and gloves. You even get the ninjatastic arm gauntlets. How cool is that?
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EV’IE – click above to enlarge
Don’t impediment the two recent plug-in carriage adoptions – a plug-in Prius in San Francisco and the new “electric pod” in London, which includes the EV’IE – fool you. Zipcar has no plans to go big into electric vehicles right now. Speaking to Reuters, Zipcar CEO and Chairman Scott Griffith aforesaid that, “We don’t indigence to put new barriers up at a time when car sharing is really moving into the mainstream.” Those “new barriers” include electric vehicles that can’t meet Zipcar customers’ demands.
On the one hand, as Griffith notes, Zipcar seems to be the perfect room for passing to introduce EVs to more people. Zipcar users acquire already shown their willingness to try a unaccustomed and greener type of transportation, the average trip is under 25 miles and takes four hours, Zipcar’s fleet is already akin to a communications grid and the vehicles need to be returned to limited locations where charging stations could easily be built. The problem, Griffith says, is that EVs aren’t ready for Zipcar users quite nevertheless. On big problem is charging time. What’s the point of having “always to be availed of” vehicles if those vehicles can’t be used because their batteries are depleted? A abstain from food charge or battery swap system is a requirement in the van of Zipcar can array heavily in EVs. Questions about drivers’ willingness to get a knowledge of how to deal with an electric car and the cost and maintenance of these vehicles also need to be answered before Zipcar says “yes” to EVs. Griffith said that his congregation wants to prevent push electric car adoption, but will only do so when more pieces are in passage.
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