2011 Volvo C30 Electric

How many among us are willing to pay more than $2,000 per month to drive an electric Volvo? Don't get me wrong, I think Volvo makes pretty good cars, and their latest models have an attractive design, but I can't imagine anybody paying that much for the C30 Electric.

The reason for this is because the total cost of the car will set you back $75,000, which is about three times more than the Nissan Leaf (after its tax credit), and taking into consideration that you will be leasing it, at the end of the contract you will still not own the car. Even more absurd is that this hefty price tag is bigger than what you would pay for the sexy Tesla Model S, which should hit the market next year at a base price of $49,900 (after the federal tax credit).

According to Lennart Stegland, who is the vice president of Volvo Cars Special, the Swedish automaker plans to offer the C30 Electric for lease at a price of 1,500 Euros (more than $2100) / month. Although the pricing has not been finalized, he added that the company will still lose money for every car leased, despite the fact that a $75,000 price tag is not attractive for most of us.

The Volvo C30 Electric will soon be tested on a limited basis in fleets, with approximately 400 units involved in that and the publicly available lease cars will be roll out starting with the first part of 2012.

I can't imagine someone paying that much for the car, except for huge Volvo fans or people that really like the looks of the C30. As far as I'm concerned, I'd take the Tesla S immediately.

Source: Autoblog Green via GreenCarReports

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Volvo C30 Electric, For Lease At $2000+ A Month

S. Vettel managed to win the first race of the 2011 F1 season after he dominated both the qualifications and the race. He had no problems today maintaining his lead and proving once again that Red Bull Racing has a very good car and an excellent pilot.

On second place finished Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren Mercedes and probably the biggest surprise in Melbourne was Vitaly Petrov in his Renault who managed to grab the third position. Ferrari had a disappointing race, Alonso only managing to finish in fourth place, while his college Felipe Massa had to settle for the 9^th position.

Another pleasant surprise was Sergio Perez in his Sauber who managed to finish the Australian GP on the 7^th place at his first race in Formula 1.

The race was pretty interesting and we hope that the entire season will be just as good as the inaugural race.

Here are the complete results:

POS	DRIVER	NATIONALITY	ENTRANT	LAPS	TIME/RETIRE
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Germany	Red Bull-Renault	58	1h29m36.259
2.	Lewis Hamilton	Britain	McLaren-Mercedes	58	22.297
3.	Vitaly Petrov	Russia	Renault	58	30.560
4.	Fernando Alonso	Spain	Ferrari	58	31.772
5.	Mark Webber	Australia	Red Bull-Renault	58	38.171
6.	Jenson Button	Britain	McLaren-Mercedes	58	54.3
7.	Sergio Perez	Mexico	Sauber-Ferrari	58	1,05.8
8.	Kamui Kobayashi	Japan	Sauber-Ferrari	58	1m16.8
9.	Felipe Massa	Brazil	Ferrari	58	1m25.1
10.	Sebastien Buemi	Switzerland	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	57	1 Lap
11.	Adrian Sutil	Germany	Force India-Mercedes	57	1 Lap
12.	Paul di Resta	Britain	Force India-Mercedes	57	1 Lap
13.	Jaime Alguersuari	Spain	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	57	1 Lap
14.	Nick Heidfeld	Germany	Renault	57	1 Lap
15.	Jarno Trulli	Italy	Lotus-Renault	56	2 Laps
16.	Jerome d’Ambrosio	Belgium	Virgin-Cosworth	55	3 Laps
R	Timo Glock	Germany	Virgin-Cosworth	49
R	Rubens Barrichello	Brazil	Williams-Cosworth	48
R	Nico Rosberg	Germany	Mercedes GP	22	Damage
R	Heikki Kovalainen	Finland	Lotus-Renault	19	Water leak
R	Michael Schumacher	Germany	Mercedes GP	19
R	Pastor Moldonado	Venezuela	Williams-Cosworth	9

Photo: GPUpdate.net

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S. Vettel Wins Australian GP

2011 GMC Terrain

For such a big car, it is almost amazing how it can have a highway fuel efficiency of 6.1 liters / 100 km, one of the best in the crossovers segment. They managed this great figure by using eco-friendly components. The automaker used recycled plastic from water and soft drink bottles in the rigid plastic grille frame behind the car's chrome-trimmed grille.

The GMC Terrain uses an acoustic insulator that was made by using cotton and polyester recycled from varied consumer products, including carpets and jeans. This material insulates the dashboard, cargo area, carpet, along with other body sections, as well as parts made with more petroleum-based raw material.

Although this may sound pretty boring, all these little things add up and it really is fascinating that a big car like the Terrain can be that fuel efficient. Reading one of their press releases, I've found out that all of their models are at least 85% recyclable by weight, with recycled steel accounting for the most significant contribution.

Last year they managed to recycle or reuse 2.5 million tons of waste materials, which is enough to fill 6.8 million extended-cab pickup trucks that if they were parked end-to-end, would stretch around the entire world.

Source: GMC

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GMC Explains Terrain’s Great Fuel Efficiency

2011 Buick Enclave

Although rollovers are among the rarest of car crashes, the engineers over at Buick thought that providing maximum protection against them is a good idea, and I totally agree with them as in my opinion a car can never have too much safety features. The 2011 Buick Enclave managed to grab a five-star overall vehicle safety from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and it was also awarded with a "Top Safety Pick" by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

The Enclave has been fitted with the StabiliTrak electronic stability control with traction control, rollover mitigation, anti-lock brakes and Panic Brake Assist – all helping the drive avoid such crashes. The sensors are able to predict in a fraction of a second whether a rollover is likely to happen. If it indeed senses a rollover, this system will send a signal to deploy the front seat safety belt pretensioners and head curtain side airbags in order to protect the passengers. These pretensioners will reduce safety belt slack, while the load limiters moderate the load of the safety belt on the occupant in a crash.

From NHTSA's Traffic Safety Facts report that was conducted in 2009, rollovers accounted for 2.2% of all car crashes, while fatalities from these crashed amounted to 35.4% of all traffic deaths.

Source: Buick, NHTSA

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Buick Enclave's StabiliTrak Explained

Back in 2007, the Chevrolet models fitted with 4-cylinder engines represented 23% of the retail sales in the United States, less than either the more powerful V6 or V8-equipped models. So far this year the number has increased to 46%, making 4-cylinder fuel-efficient power units a priority for Chevrolet customers.

It seems that buyers are moving out of V8-powered SUVs into V6-powered crossovers like the Traverse, and from V6-powered cars and crossovers into 4-cylinder models that are more fuel efficient, like the Cruze, Malibu and Equinox, according to Rick Scheidt who is Chevrolet's Vice President in the US.

This shouldn't come as a surprise taking into consideration that the price of fuel goes up and this trend will most likely remain in the months to come.

Source: Chevrolet

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Chevrolet Buyers Moving To More Fuel-Efficient 4-Cylinder Engines

Click here to view the embedded video.

This week BMW uploaded a video where they show us their Experimental Vehicle Shop (Plant Zero), located somewhere amongst the array of buildings at the company's Research and Innovation Center in Munich, Germany. In this video you can see where first-off prototypes are built and assembled by hand.

Those so-called "zero" prototypes are made from a solid block of aluminum and the entire development process is not meant to create the best car available, but also devise the most efficient and accurate methods to produce the car on the company's  assembly lines – all highly robotized and digitized.

In this video appears a secret prototype for what will probably be a future vehicle but the image is blurred so we cannot make out what it is – this is what I call a proper teaser. In addition, we also see an X6 prototype and find out why BMW enjoys using that swirling white-on-black camouflage over black plastic and metal body panels.

Pretty interesting stuff if you ask me. But I do hope that the production version of that X6 prototype will look better than the current generation of the model which is simply outrageous, in a bad way of course.

Source: BMW

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BMW's Plant Zero – Where The Secret Prototypes Come From

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The German automaker Porsche has launched a new ad commercial campaign in the United States that tries to attempt to change the company's image in the eyes of American customers. This new advert aims to show that a Porsche is much more than a sports car.

This TV ad shows the Porsche Cayman / 911 as a snowmobile, pickup truck, getaway car and my personal favorite, as a school bus. The main idea behind this clever ad is to show that the automaker's cars are also fit for day-to-day use.

Source: Porsche

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Porsche Shows Us The Versatility Of Their Cars Through A Clever Ad

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If you are curious to find out how a wheelie is done, you have arrived to the right place. BMW wanted to know more about motorbike stunts and they asked four time stunt riding world champion Chris Pfeiffer and he explained it.

Kids, don't try this at home!

PS: This is part one of the series. More clips will be uploaded pretty soon. Stay tuned.

Source: BMW

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Chris Pfeiffer Explains How To Do A Wheelie

2011 Porsche Cayenne

If this isn't your first time on rpmGO you probably know that we are not big fans of the Porsche Cayenne. The reasons that we don't like it are simple: it's too big and too ugly. I never had the opportunity to drive one, but I'm sure it's a pretty damn good car, just like all Porsches are.

2011 Porsche Cayenne

My main problem is with how it looks. You all know that Porsche's designers are probably the laziest people in the world if we look back at the company's previous models which all look almost identical. This time they really got it wrong with the Cayenne. It looks like a very fat 911 and has a very bulky appearance. Every time I look at it I think of a guy that a while ago was very fit and know he spends his evenings eating bonbons in front of the TV.

As far as the design of Porsche models, the only one that I like is the Cayman, although even that one looks pretty much the same with the rest of the automaker's lineup.

I know Porsche cares much about tradition, but sooner or later they'll have to change their designers. I might be wrong taking into consideration the success of the Cayenne or the Panamera, another ugly car. This is simply my opinion; feel free to disagree with me.

I have to admit that the new Cayenne looks a little bit better than the first generation, but it still resembles a lot with the 911. Another reason why I don't like it because I'm not a big fan of SUVs, except for the Mercedes ML-Class, but this is just a matter of tastes.

What do you think about the design of the Porsche Cayenne? Good, bad or in between?

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Cars We Hate Part 3 – Porsche Cayenne

2011 Porsche 911 Limited Edition Gelderland

Porsche Centrum Gelderland, based in the Netherlands, is celebrating this year its five-year anniversary and with this occasion they have announced a special edition of the iconic 911 model, dubbed Gelderland. There are going to be only 5 units from this limited edition series and will be available in coupe, convertible and targa versions.

2011 Porsche 911 Limited Edition Gelderland

Each car will be identified by a unique number that will be found on the dashboard and the sill of the vehicle. In addition, the buyer will also get a special edition IWC Big Pilot watch that has been fitted with the same color as the paint and leather from the 911's cockpit. It also has a special dial featuring a red number "5", a reference to the anniversary. This watch will also get a unique number and the Porsche Centrum Gelderland logo engraved on the back.

2011 Porsche 911 Limited Edition Gelderland

We don't have any information about the price tag of the car, but we do know that the watch has a whopping price of about $56,000. The car is on display this weekend at the Porsche dealer in Hesteren.

Source: TopSpeed

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2011 Porsche 911 Limited Edition Gelderland Revealed