Car Concept

Volvo Tandem

Hyundai Brings Future

Hyundai's tasty Blue Will concept car turned up at the Detroit NAIAS this week for its first showing on American soil. We got to take a close-up look at the Korean company's blue-sky plug-in hybrid and were impressed by some of the details - headlamp surrounds made from recycled PET bottles, a full undertray for sleek aeros, a glass roof impregnated with solar cells, drive-by-wire steering column and a thermal generator to turn waste heat from the combustion engine into electricity.

GMC Granit Concept

Combining an urban-industrial design aesthetic with flexible functionality, the GMC Granite ‘urban utility vehicle’ concept was introduced at the 2010 North American International Auto Show in Detroit today. “We think of the Granite as the automotive equivalent of an urban loft apartment,” said GMC's Cross-Brand Design Director Dave Lyon. “The exterior has an unmistakable industrial look, but the interior is warm and personalized.” Though the Granite is the smallest GMC ever, it has been designed to feel bigger with a large cargo space and its flipping/folding seats and four doors, hinged on each side to open like a set of French doors. There’s no pillar between the front and rear doors, making the Granite easier to enter, exit and load, even with bulky items. . Power comes from a 1.4L turbocharged engine matched with a six-speed transmission.

Porsche

Peugeot 200th Anniversary

French mobility company Peugeot is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year and in achieving the milestone, has announced grandiose grand plans. It's the world’s second oldest car manufacturer (behind Daimler), the tenth largest car manufacturer, and with trucks, cars, motorcycles and bicycles, has the broadest range of mobility products in the world. In prep for its 300th year, it has updated the Lion logo it has been using since 1858, vowed to turn the brand into a style icon, adopted a new signature (Peugeot MOTION & EMOTION), stated its intention to move three places up the world’s auto maker ladder (to seventh) by 2015 with a massive new model offensive, announced a fascinating new credit/online/rental mobility service entitled Mu by Peugeot and took the wraps off a superb new hybrid 4WD and four-wheel-steering sports car – the SR1.