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| Prototype Opel Flextreme travels more than 430 miles without recharging |
| The new electrical GM car |
From Frankfurt, Germany
Special
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Rick Wagoner (arrives), president of General Motors, it put itself to the frill of the new electrical car of the company, the prototype Opel Flextreme (to the right), in the Lounge of Frankfurt.
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The president of General Motors (GM), Rick Wagoner, left aside the plans of restructuring of the powerful American company and the problems with his trade unions to take part in the world throwing of several models of vehicles. Of all of them the one that more attracted attention was the prototype Opel Flextreme, the new electrical GM proposal.
Wagoner, with inocultable pride, put himself to the frill of a flaming Flextreme in the inaugural ceremony of the recent Lounge of Frankfurt. Then, in his speech, it pointed out that this new version of Opel marks a milestone in the development of the electrical motorcar. Also, he observed that thanks to his “completely new and ambientalmente friendly” concept of electrical propulsion E-Flex, most of the travelers will be in conditions to use every day this car in the highways of Europe without producing any emission of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Dynamic, versatile and with less than 40 grams of CO2 per km, Opel Flextreme Concept only needs to be loaded in a relatively short time across the plug after traveling 55 kilometers. If it is needed, the Flextreme can travel more than 430 miles to recharge non-stop or fill again the tank of his small motive turbocharger diesel.
In accordance with the European cycle of tests (ECE R101), one hopes that the emission of this unit should be minor than 40 g CO2/km.
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Two presenters of the manufacturer General Motors pose next to the new motor concept Opel Flextreme during his début in Frankfurt.
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Global diversification
Opel Flextreme uses an architecture E-Flex of GM and represents the strategy of the company to develop vehicles that reduce the emission of CO2 and dependency on the oil in the motorcar, in such a way that it supports the global diversification of the miscellany of energy. This also includes the use of principal networks of electricity as an energy source. In the heart of the concept there is an electrical engine that takes his potency of a big battery of lithium - ion.
The difference of the conventional hybrid systems is that the diesel engine of 1,3 liters of the system E.Flex is not connected to the wheels, but purely it produces additional electricity on board to load the battery and provides a major operation status. With a completely loaded battery, the Flextreme has a status of 55 km operation when it works purely with the electric power, and only it needs of a standard plug of 220 V to recharge the battery in approximately three hours.
The drivers in Europe do a common average of less than 50 km every 24 hours, so if they recharge the car during the day, they might handle up to 100 daily km without producing any emission of CO2.
The system E-Flex is not an only one GM vision, but it integrates completely into the products development. It allows to diverse propulsion systems to be mounted inside a chassis with electrical propulsion. The batteries of fuel or the propellents of bioetanol-diesel can be placed also like secondary propulsion units depending on the type of energy that is already available in the field of the driver.
The serial production of this vehicle is tied to of - sarrollo of technologies fix, fell like the batteries of lithium - ion of high performance. The Flextreme takes the new language of the design that did his début with the GTC Coupé in the Motive Show of Geneva.
Hamilton wins and Alonso retires in Japan
Happiness and sadness in the Formula 1 |
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Alonso shows his pain after leaving the competition for a shock. Nearby, the Briton Lewis Hamilton shows jubilantly the trophy for his Sunday victory for the Big Award of Japan.
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For Salvatore Zanca / AP
From Oyama, Japan
Lewis Hamilton stayed very close to writing a historical page in the Formula 1 and it can thank the bad weather.
The Briton gained on Sunday, the 30th the Big Award of Japan and placed itself to a step of the title, when two careers reduce so that it concludes the world cup, then that his principal rival, the Spanish Fernando Alonso, smashed in the competition disputed on wet track. Lewis Hamilton stayed very close to writing a historical page in the Formula 1 and it can thank the bad weather.
The Briton gained on Sunday, the 30th the Big Award of Japan and placed itself to a step of the title, when two careers reduce so that it concludes the world cup, then that his principal rival, the Spanish Fernando Alonso, smashed in the competition disputed on wet track.
It was the Hamilton's fourth victory in the period. It is joined in victories with Alonso and Raikkonen in the year.
“ I believe that this one has been for me the most difficult career or one of more difficult that I have run. The conditions were very variable”, affirmed Hamilton, who should have fought with the water, the fog and even the moisture condensation inside his helmet.
“ With the auto-ensign, I worried for close that were advancing the cars”, he continued, “and when it began to rain more, the career became eventful”.
Hamilton, who as Alonso is a McLaren pilot, has now an advantage of 12 points on the Spanish pilot in the championship (107 to 95), when only there are missing two careers (China and Brazil). It can gain the world pilots title in his beginner period during the Big Award of China, next week, if it ends with an advantage of at least 11 points on Alonso, the defending champion.
Bad luck of Alonso
The Finn Heikki Kovalainen, of Renault, was second, and his compatriot Kimi Raikkonen, of Ferrari, finished third, in a career affected by the rain, which chattered behind the auto-ensign and was replete with collisions and drafts during 67 returns.
Alonso can still gain the title, but he will need a lot of luck.
Precisely, the fortune left him in the circuit Fuji Speedway, when his racing car hindered and return smashed against the wall of the circuit in 42da. The semidestroyed car stayed to half of the track and Spanish was helped to go out.
Alonso remained behind a fence to see some returns more of the career, before leaving the place of the accident.
“ It is necessary to be realists. The championship is complicated”, Alonso declared. “We would need Hamilton's abandonment. It has not retired in the whole year and perhaps it comes now”. he said.
“ It is not necessary to lose the hope until mathematically you are out of the struggle”, pointed out Alonso.
Without precedents
Hamilton has the opportunity to turn into the first beginner who gains the title of the Formula one, and the victory in Japan represented one more step towards this historical championship.
“ This improves very much my confidence and my possibilities of being a world champion”, he said, and added: "Two careers are missing... The key is to focus in the following one and to do what could”.
Several mishaps
A constant drizzle fell down to the beginning of the career, in a track that was wetted from Saturday, the 29th. The career began with the safety car to eliminate the risk of an accident in the first curve.
The racing cars were dismissing a long water flood and they completed the returns almost a minute after the times registered on Friday, the 28th, when the track was dry.
The first mishap appeared in the second return, when the Brazilian Felipe Massa, of Ferrari, slid out of the track and should have gone to the supplying pits to change his tires. Raikkonen, his partner of racing team, did the proper thing.
The team had started the career with intermediate tires, but HE ENTRUSTS it it ordered to change for special others for conditions of very wet track, the used ones by all other racing teams.
“ Someone forgot to inform us this”, showed Raikkonen.
After 18 returns, the sky cleared up a little, the safety car went out and the competition was resumed.
The Scot David Coulthard, of the racing team Network Bull, was fourth, while the Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, of Renault, came I conscript. Massa remained sixth and the Pole the Robert Kubica the seventh.
Raikkonen has now 90 points and champion still preserves mathematical possibilities of being crowned.
MANY SURPRISES CAUSED in the motor-car industry the new numbers of sales, corresponding to September that has just concluded, spread by the proper manufacturers. The positive notes were this time for General Motors (GM), Sling and Nissan, which show an excellent recovery power in spite of the world economic situation, which is considered to be difficult by many analysts. The executive GM high places have many reasons to smile, even more when they have just overcome successfully a strike – raised after two days of paralyzation - that had caused serious losses of not having come to such a rapid agreement with the trade union UAW. The sales of his vans increased consisting 3,6 per cent in September, which they balanced the fall of 4,4 per cent that registered with his motorcars. But his new Cadillac CTS extracted the face for this type of vehicles, with an impressive increase of 73 per cent sales, neither more nor less.
FOR HIS PART, Chrysler announced a phenomenon different from that of GM: it increased his sales of cars in 18,8 per cent while that of his vans they diminished 11,4 per cent. Sling Engine also raised his deals during last month, with top sales both in cars (7,2 per cent) and in vans (12,5 per cent), considering his marks Sling and Acura. The company informed that the models Accord and the crossover CR-V contributed to that one "shot" in the acceptance of the buyers. To his shift, Nissan increased 7 per cent his sales, which took as a lever the big reception that found in the country his new sedan Altima.
THE NEGATIVE NOTES relapsed, for astonishment of the connoisseurs, into Toyota and Ford Motor. Especially for the Japanese manufacturer, who had beating record after record in the first eight months of the year in the whole nation. In September, his sales of cars declined 3,5 per cent while those of vans continued the same way (5,7 per cent less than the same month of 2006). Nevertheless, this fall turns out to be light if it is compared with that of Ford Motor, whose disaster worries the company, starting by his president, Alan Mulally. Although the sales of his cars were falling down regularly in the previous months, in this occasion (September) it reached 21 per cent compared to this month of the year 2006. Ford Motor imputed this situation to the drastic reduction of the sales to the agencies of rent of vehicles, but apparently this strategy has infected to other market niches.
IN THIS EDITION we present the vehicles of different marks and models that will be thrown to the market in the next months. Between them we have the new Mini Club, the ecological BMW Activates Hybrid, spectacular Lamborghini Reventón and the last version of the Jaguar XF. In our front note we show the flaming Opel Flextreme announced in the recent Lounge of Frankfurt, and with which General Motors places his decision to keep on making electrical cars for a better world. And Mazda joins this commitment with his novel Premacy Hydrogen RE, a vehicle constructed today for the immediate future.
Up to the next one,
Víctor Caycho
Publisher of Autoguide
E-mail: vcaycho@msn.com
www.hwc-md.org
| Strike gets up in record time |
| Everything returns to the normality between GM and his workpeople |
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Ron Gettelfinger, president of the trade union UAW, he announces the completion of the strike in General Motors, which lasted two days and September 26 ended in a positive agreement on both parts.
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For Tom Krisher y Dee-Ann Durbin / AP
From Detroit, Michigan
The trade union self-propelled and General Motors Corp they announced on Wednesday, the 26th of September that in his negotiations on the labor contract they came to a tentative agreement that finished immediately a national strike of two days.
A person informed about the contract said to The Associated small Press rather than the agreement – considered historical - moves of GM to the trade union the load of the medical attention to the pensioners and it would deliver to the workpeople bonds and fixed payments. The person asked for the anonymity because the contractual conversations are deprived.
The trade union United Auto Workers (UAW) announced that the agreement was achieved shortly after 03.00 hours, in full dawn of last Wednesday.
The contract must be checked in the following days by the local presidents of the trade union UAW and then submitted to voting between 73.000 GM workers. The agreement a precedent might sit for contracts in Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.
The attainment of the agreement meant the immediate return of the workpeople to the works in approximately 80 GM facilities in the country. The trade union had declared itself in strike at 11:00 of Monday, the 24th when the negotiations failed on a new labor contract, principally for differences on the plan of health of the pensioners.
The agreement
The agreement includes the priority GM topic in the negotiations: the transfer of most of his obligations – without funds - for 51.000 million dollars in the plan of health of the pensioners to a trusteeship of the UAW. The company would pay about 70 per cent of the commitments in the trusteeship, called a Voluntary Association of Benefit for Personnel or VEBA.
The trade union would invest later the money and would assume the responsibility of the plan of health for approximately 340.000 persons, between pensioners and spouses.
“ I like saying that we install a VEBA that will guarantee the benefits of our pensioners”, announced the president of the UAW, Ron Gettelfinger, in a press conference on Wednesday dawn in the general offices of the trade union in Detroit.
Gettelfinger expressed confidence in the ratification of the contract and thought that the voting might begin immediately.
“ Undoubtedly this was one of the more complex and difficult meetings of negotiation in the history of the relations GM-UAW”, admitted Rick Wagoner, president and executive director of GM, in a bulletin.
The strike affected also to plants of GM and providers in places where the workpeople are not represented by the UAW.
| Wider car comes to the USA to beginnings of 2008 |
| Clubman, the biggest Mini |
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Flaming Mini Clubman station wagon during his world presentation in the Lounge of Frankfurt, on Sunday, the 16th of September.
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From Frankfurt, Germany, and Madrid, Spain
Agencies
Until a few days ago it appeared in the International Lounge of the Motorcar in Frankfurt, but to meet in person the new member of the family Mini, the specializing press traveled up to Madrid, to take part in his international presentation and in the test of handling realized by the surroundings of the Spanish capital.
This new widespread variant (that takes models details like Morris Mini Traveller and Austin Mini Countryman, made in the sixties) tries to repeat the success of Mini Cooper, but now it offers like principal characteristics a major space for the passengers of the rear part and also for the baggage.
For it, the bodywork of the Clubman increased 24 cm more than the normal Mini (in whole it measures 394 cm) and his distance between axes grew 8 cm. Where it is more clear the size difference is in the projecting bottom that it measures 16 more cm.
As for the porter, according to the mark, the Clubman has a 260 liters capacity against the 160 of his short brother. Nevertheless, if the rear seats swoop down, a 930 liters notable capacity is obtained.
Esthetically, the Clubman is identical to the Mini up to coming at a height of the post B, where the things yes change. Of the right side it includes the system called “Clubdoor“ that consists of two doors, the principal one and the additional one smaller that open of conflicting form. Namely the rear can only be used when the front part is already opened. It is a system like the one that Mazda RX-8 uses. The target of these doors is to make simpler the access to the rear squares.
Other of the attractions of design and of functionality of the Clubman, is that instead of rear large door it is provided with a door of two sheets called “Splitdoor“. Inside, from the design, the disposition of control panel and managers, up to the handling position, remain equal than to the normal Mini.
The engines
Mechanically there shares the new generation of engines of the Mini. For Clubman S the propellent is to gasoline of four cylinders that Twin-Scroll Turbo includes and develops 175 HP. For the normal Clubman the engine of 120 is CV but with the system VALVETRONIC of the group BMW. In the impelled one by diesel there is a common-rail with turbocharger of variable geometry that develops 110 CV.
As the Mini, the Clubman also counts with the system Edict Start-Stop that extinguishes the engine automatically whenever the car stops, for example, in a semaphore.
Also the Clubman is equipped by ABS, electronic distribution of the braking (EBD), assistance of braking in curves (CBC), control of stability (DSC); and for Clubman S, there is like option, a differential autoblocante.
Faithful to the philosophy of the mark, the Clubman will have a lot of possibilities of personalización so much in his exterior as inside. For example, there will be 40 combinations of colors and a specific offer of accessories and additional team.
This elongated brother of the Mini will begin to sell in Europe next November 10 and as for his arrival to the United States, executives of the mark confirmed that his commercialization will start at the beginning of 2008.
| The X6 ActiveHybrid to the sale in 2009 |
| The first sports BMW hybrid does world premiere |
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Norbert Reithofer, executive president of the German manufacturer BMW, poses for the photographers along with the new model X6 ActiveHybrid during his world throwing in Frankfurt.
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From Frankfurt, Germany
Agencies
The last International Lounge of the Motorcar of Frankfurt had between his most resounding presentations the world premiere of the BMW Concept X6 ActiveHybrid, in which they get together a clearly top efficiency with the typical pleasure that, on having driven, provides a motorcar of the German mark.
In the throwing ceremony, the executive president of BMW AG, Norbert Reithofer, affirmed that this prototype “opens a new perspective about the typical mobility in the next years and decades: less I consume, less emission, but moreover to please of driving”.
Satisfied, he added that this revolutionary conceptual version is prompt to enter production and that the concessionaires will be able to sell it in 2009.
In what does the technology BMW differ with regard to other hybrids?
To this question, Reithofer answered in Frankfurt. “First – he said - we combine an engine of highly powerful and effective combustion with two powerful electrical engines, the only conjunction that allows us to make use of the efficacy of the hybrid technology in a much wider scale of speeds”.
On this matter, he told that the BMW Hybrid also is suitable to drive out of the big cities since it circulates actively in any street or highway.
“ Also, it reduces the fuel consumption up to 20 per cent compared to a related vehicle equipped with only one engine of combustion”, he made sure.
It supported that, on the subject of dynamism, the BMW Concept X6 ActiveHybrid shows to be clearly superior to the conventional hybrid cars. His consumption and his value of gas emission are even 20 per cent low that the results obtained with cars of conventional systems of propulsion.
The big dynamism of Sports Activity Coupé remains reflected authentically in the design.
Answer to the frill
The experiences that are experienced to the frill of a BMW Concept X6 ActiveHybrid correspond to the dynamic character that distinguishes all the models of the German mark.
On having accelerated, the answer is immediate and she is necessary, and the engine always keeps informed the driver, who perceives his functioning state with the sense of the tact and of the ear, as it happens in case of the cars equipped with an engine of combustion.
This prototype is an integral part of the strategy of development BMW EfficientDynamics. With this technology, the manufacturer has given the following step towards the continuous reduction of the consumption and of the emission.
Dynamism and efficiency
The innovative box Two-Mode transmits in a variable way the force across a bifurcador composed by sets of planetary cogwheels. The system includes, also, the electrical engine and the conduction in fixed marches.
This way, a new and intelligent combination is obtained between the dynamism and the efficiency of the engine of combustion and of the electrical engine.
The cooperation with General Motors and DaimlerChrysler in the center of development of Troy (USA) on the subject of hybrid solutions, redounds successfully to the active box Two-Mode.
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