Sleuth: The Week of June 15

Hot off the press!

New compact Nissan sports coupe will be first to market: The auto industry, perhaps unlike any other industry in the world, gets caught in the “me-too” game of making products. The Sleuth’s tipsters have reported back that Nissan is developing a new compact sports coupe that will compete with the upcoming and yet-to-be named sports car that Subaru and Toyota are developing. Nissan plans to release its car first, perhaps sometime in 2010. Think of it as a mini-350Z and based on a shortened version of the 350Z’s architecture with a 2.0-liter four cylinder as one possible engine choice. Let the small coupe race begin!

Hummer sales off 60 percent in May, GM looking to sell: India’s Tata Motors might have just acquired Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford, but it doesn’t look like it’s done buying up American-owner car companies. The Sleuth’s gumshoe hears that General Motors has approached both Tata Motors and cross-town rival Mahindra & Mahindra about their possible acquisition of GM’s Hummer brand. GM is considering the sale in the face of $4 a gallon gasoline. Hummer sales are down 36 percent this year, including a 60 percent drop-off in sales last month. So, Jaguar, Land Rover and Hummer as stablemates? Sounds like an interesting car company.

Porsche considering VW-based car: The Sleuth has been watching the Volkswagen-Porsche ownership tie-up with great interest and he expected that there would be more sharing in the future. Things are looking pretty interesting. The latest development is a Porsche-badged hatchback coming to market by as early as 2012 that would be based on the VW Rabbit platform. Many would see this as sacrilege for Germany’s traditional sports car maker, which earned its reputation as the maker of rear-drive, rear-engine cars. If the project does happen, it will most likely have many critics and repercussions. The last time Porsche and VW collaborated on a sports car was the Porsche 914, last produced in 1976 in the United States.

Volt officially has green light, driving prototypes coming soon: Although the Chevrolet Volt has obviously been under development for some time now, GM has officially given the extended-range electric vehicle the green light. Until now, the Volt was only considered a concept. Moreover, we can expect to see the road-going version of the car “in the very near future,” the Sleuth hears. Rumors are that the Volt will be unveiled at October’s Paris Motor Show as a production vehicle. GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz recently had the opportunity to drive a lithium-ion powered Volt test mule and reported the experience on the company’s corporate Internet blog. Lutz was still impressed with the Volt’s performance and he loved the instant torque of the electric motor, but lamented the fact that there was no roar of an internal combustion engine, even joking that GM’s “friends at XM Satellite Radio may have to start an Internal Combustion Channel.”

Next BMW 7-series goes for advanced Night Vision: The Cadillac DTS has never been considered a technological wonder, but it is beginning to look like it was a little ahead of its time. The DTS was one of the first mainstream production vehicles to offer night vision, a technology that has now spread to a few premium brands. Not to be left out on the next-generation of this technology, BMW will launch a new night-vision system in its updated 7-series. The setup will be able to detect human presence in front of the vehicle and then flash a warning symbol on the display. Moreover, it will be able to tell if a pedestrian is in the way of the vehicle. The new system will be so advanced that it will also be able to read speed-limit signs and warn drivers when they are driving too fast. Maybe it can tell you that you’re a bad driver, too?

Market indicators

Hydrogen fuel-cell advancements: High gas prices require creative solutions and the race to get a hydrogen-powered-vehicle on the road seems is picking up steam. Toyota, BMW, Honda and General Motors have redoubled their efforts to make fuel cells a viable option with Toyota recently announcing that it had developed a new system that is far more advanced than the automaker’s previous efforts. The new setup allows the vehicle — dubbed the FCHV-adv — to travel about 515 miles on a single tank of hydrogen and it can operate in conditions as cold as -22 F. More importantly, through changes to the vehicle’s fuel-cell unit, braking system and a few other tweaks, Toyota engineers were able to improve fuel efficiency by 25 percent, according to trade paper Automotive News.

Race for better nav systems: The next generation of Audi’s fotainment system will bow this fall in the all-new Q5 sport utility vehicle and the system promises to be smoother and more user-friendly than Audi’s current generation of electronics. At the heart of things is a high-performance graphics processor to ensure smooth transitions of the vehicle’s satellite nav system. It will also feature a three-dimensional landscape view that reproduces true-to-scale terrain and photorealistic depiction of points of interest. Audi is just the latest to announce a better infotainment system. BMW will improve its iDrive. Mercedes-Benz is also updating its user interface.