Latest news
-
President Obama is on cruise control toward his party’s nomination to run for reelection, but Tim O’Brien is hoping to capitalize on Obama’s old cruise-mobile — a 2005 Chrysler 300C4:54 pm on January 27, 2012
-
2:00 pm on January 27, 2012
Nice, France • The up! is a funky urban runabout that’s just hitting Volkswagen dealerships in Europe. At its launch, it will be offered as a three-door hatchback; however, a five-door derivative is to be shown at the Geneva Motor Show in March. It is part utility vehicle and part passenger car, but it is all about function and choice — there’s Take up!, Move up! and, of course, the loaded High up!, along with the up! Black and the up! White, the car tested.
At just more than 3.5 metres long, it qualifies as a compact, but there’s a surprising amount of room — enough that a cowboy can keep his 10-gallon hat on without making friends with the headliner. True, there’s not much rear-seat leg space if the front seats are fully rearward, and getting back there does require agility, but for a family of four or five, it works very nicely.
The utility side is found in the car’s cargo-carrying capacity. With the 60/40-split/folding-rear seat upright, it makes light work of 8.7 cubic feet of stuff, and it includes a hard privacy cover, which keeps prying eyes off any valuables stored back there. Folding the seats down opens up a generous 33.6 cu. ft. The fact the space is nicely squared off and the vertical hatch is wide and cut to bumper level makes filling it up an easy proposition.
Up front, the function continues. The cabin itself is very nicely finished. Yes, there is a lot of hard plastic, but it is nicely textured and it is butted together with the sort of precision one expects of a more expensive ride. The cloth front buckets are comfortable and the driving position is very good, as are the sight lines to the side and rear. Beyond that, there are some clever ideas. The portable navigation system, for example, not only gives directions with a marble-mouth British accent, it also houses a detailed trip computer and it allows the driver to display oil and coolant gauges, pair a cellular phone and access the audio system via the touchscreen or by telling the system what to do.
When it comes to the engine, the up! features a diminutive 1.0-litre three-cylinder motor that puts forth 75 horsepower and 70 pound-feet of torque. As they appear on paper, the numbers seem awfully underwhelming. A stopwatch backs that impression up! — zero-to-100-kilometres-an-hour runs take 13.2 seconds, which is verging on calendar-like. The up!-side, however, is that it feels so much more responsive and peppy. In fact, the only time the up! felt as though it could do with more motivation was when climbing some of the steeper hills north of here.
If there is a knock, it is the same as all engines with an odd number of cylinders — the engine note, especially as the tachometer sweeps toward redline, is rather coarse and grumbly. At first, it really did bother me. However, time behind the wheel saw the aggravation factor fade into the background. That stated, if the up! is going to make the trip across the Pond, it should arrive with a four-banger. It would add a little more top-end performance and eliminate the engine’s plaintive tone.
Much of the credit for the up!’s surprising peppiness has to do with the five-speed manual gearbox — the only transmission offered at this point. The throws are short, the clutch is light and the ratios squeeze the best out of the engine. The first four gears focus on acceleration, while fifth brings excellent fuel economy. The up! has an average fuel economy rating (based on the European test cycle) of 4.7 litres per 100 km. That is as good as many hybrids.
The up!’s ride and handling are also very good. The ride is comfortable and the handling is competent. The steering is also nicely weighted steering. When pushed down some pretty twisty blacktop, the up! stuck to the driver’s intended line without the sort of understeering characteristic I was anticipating.
The up! also shines when navigating the tight confines of a European city. It’s biggest asset is the extraordinarily tight turning circle. At one point, I was heading down a back alley that was getting ever narrower. Right about the time I was beginning to regret following the navigation system’s suggestion for a shortcut, the road opened to about the width of a regular lane — the up! was turned around in a heartbeat.
What the up! has going for it is a cute look, surprising utility and a great deal of refinement, all of which would seem to make it a no-brainer for Canada. Sadly, the up! is not likely to land here in the foreseeable future. It all has to do with price and the fact it is built in Europe.
Ideally, for the up! to succeed here it needs to start at a loonie under $14,000. That, as it stands, is a tall order. However, an optimist might point to the fact that Fiat is managing to push 500s out the door for silly money. I would take an up! over a 500 any day.
-
1:58 pm on January 27, 2012
Ford Motor Co posted a lower-than-expected fourth-quarter profit Friday due to disappointing results outside North America and rising commodity costs.
-
Ford reported a lower-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on Friday as operations outside North America fell short of expectations and commodity costs shot up across all regions.1:54 pm on January 27, 2012
-
Am I the only one who loves getting a sneak peek at Super Bowl ads? I think not. Audi has just released a 60-second commercial it plans to air during the big game in one of the prime commercial blocks: the first break after kick-off.1:23 pm on January 27, 2012
-
Audi on Thursday released its Super Bowl spots from Venables, Bell and Partners, San Francisco. In it, the car's signature headlights kill a bunch of camping vampires.11:49 am on January 27, 2012
-
Ford CEO Alan Mulally joined the automaker in September 2006 as the company was sliding towards a $12.6 billion loss for the year. Since then, it's been two more annual losses followed by three straight years of profit. That includes $20.11:08 am on January 27, 2012
-
9:00 am on January 27, 2012
Listening to the radio the other day drove home just how little is known about the Chevrolet Volt. The commentator, in an off-script moment, was lamenting the fact that electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt do not have the driving range demanded by the vast majority of commuters.
While this is true of pure electric cars (most max out at 160 kilometres on a good day), it is positively wrong when it comes to the Volt. Its advanced powertrain has the ability to motivate it for up to 600 km. How can that give anyone range anxiety?
The Volt is the first of what promises to be a slew of extended-range electric cars and, make no mistake, it is an electric vehicle as the electric motor does 100% of the driving. In simple terms, after charging the main 16-kWh lithium ion battery, the Volt purrs along using this power source for the first 45 km (Chevrolet says 60-plus km, but the reality is that cold weather takes its toll). From here on, the Volt relies on its 63-horsepower 1.4-litre four-cylinder gas engine. It drives a generator. In principle, it is much the same as diesel/electric locomotives — there is no connection whatsoever between the engine and drive wheels.
Furthering the economy/driving range cause is a buffer that’s contained in the main battery. This is used to store the electrical energy captured through regenerative braking and the excess power developed by the generator. It is this extension that allows the Volt to pull away electrically, and run to 50-plus km/h, even when the instrumentation says there’s zero kilometres of driving range left.
That’s the techy overview — the manner in which the Volt operates is far simpler.
Push the start button and a high-tech sound signals you are ready to go. Get on the accelerator and the Volt pulls off the line surprising crisply. I say surprising because the numbers at play are not exactly standouts — the electric motor produces just 150 horsepower, which is not much for a car that weighs 1,715 kilograms. The secret lies in the torque — the electric motor twists out 273 pound-feet from Rev One. The combination delivers a 9.8-second run to 100 km/h and an 80-to-120-km/h passing time of 7.4 seconds.
THE SPECS
Type of vehicle Front-wheel-drive mid-sized hatchback
Drivetrain Lithium ion battery, electric motor and 1.4L four-cylinder
Power 150 hp; 273 lb-ft of torque @ 1 rpm
Brakes Four-wheel disc with ABS
Tires P215/55R17 (optional winters)
Price: base/as tested $41,545/$44,135
Destination charge $1,495
Combined electricity/gasoline fuel economy L/100 km 3.9After driving to Detroit and back, a highway-based round trip of 700 km, I had averaged 5.9 L/100 km. At first blush, that’s not overly impressive. However, another 30 km in the city, where the battery and buffer pay the biggest dividend, and the end result was a 1,000-km average of 4.1 L/100 km. True, this does not take into account the cost of recharging the battery, but it is, nonetheless, the lowest average fuel economy I have ever recorded.
As for the rest of it, the Volt is near normal — there is seating for five and 10.6 cubic feet of cargo space beneath the hatchback. Where the Volt differs is that basically all functions are controlled by touch. The white-faced centre stack is iPad-like in that one simply touches an icon to access that feature. The seven-inch screen at the top of the stack functions in the same manner. The instrumentation is equally out there — to the left of the speedometer is a ball wrapped in leaves. Balance the ball at the mid-point of the scale and you are attaining the best economy. Accelerate and the ball drops, loses its leaves and changes colour and it does the opposite during regenerative braking. In the end, keeping the ball all leafy became like playing Angry Birds — it is addictive, but it’s a good thing in this instance.
Dynamically, the Volt is equally balanced. The suspension is comfortable without allowing too much body roll, the steering delivers decent feedback and the brake pedal has some semblance of feel — it is still mushy when compared with a conventional pedal, but given the regenerative side, it proved to be remarkably easy to modulate.
One of the problems with electric cars is the fact they are near silent in operation, which invariably means sneaking up on an unsuspecting pedestrian. Of course, one could use the horn, risk surprising said pedestrian and being told you are Number One. The Volt has a solution — pushing a button on the end of the left-side steering column stalk elicits a discreet three-note “look out” warning.
However, not all is perfect. If you want to maximize the driving range/fuel mileage, you must select the climate control’s economy setting. As long as the outside temperature is above 10C it works — the strategy relies on the optional heated seats to keep the occupants cozy. Below that temperature, your buns toast, but your toes freeze. This mandates using the less efficient comfort setting.
Second, the charge time without a 240-volt outlet is long — 12 hours using 110 volts. The other hitch is the rear window. It not only needs a wiper because of its very lazy lie, it splits the rearward view in two. Thankfully, there is a backup camera — a $795 option!
The Chevrolet Volt is, arguably, the most sophisticated car on the road at the moment — it is clean, efficient and the manner in which it uses its electric/gas combination to eliminate range anxiety represents the near-term solution to the electrification of the automobile. The fact the Volt drives like a normal car is its other endearing trait.
-
Ford said its pretax operating earnings in the fourth quarter fell 15 percent to $1.1 billion, in part due to widening losses in Europe, as the company posted its third straight annual net profit.8:25 am on January 27, 2012
-
Fiat says the fourth variant of its 500 model lineup will be called the 500L, with L standing for large.The five-seat subcompact will go on sale in Europe in the summer. A seven-seat model will arrive later in the year.7:12 am on January 27, 2012
