The website revealed, “Fire marshals at the show, quite reasonably, won’t let any car enter the building with more than a quarter-tank of fuel. The Gallardo attempted to enter with an undisclosed greater amount, however, and was refused. Makes good sense so far.”

According to the automotive website, “That’s when the story gets stupid.”

Instead of figuring a way to extract the fuel from the tank, taking it for a quick 50-mile spin, or just swapping it for another Gallardo, the display staff decided it’d be a good idea to just sit in the car and rev it to redline in neutral. Not so good for the car, but, in a pinch, excusable–perhaps.

The person behind the wheel soon grew tired of the limiter-popping, however, and decided to automate the process with a piece of wood lodged between the seat and the gas pedal.

It was then that the unthinkable happened — because of the auto show staff’s creative engineering feat, Motor Authority says, “Yes, a piece of wood…” [with an implied D'OH!]

“After sitting idle at full song for several minutes, the completely predictable, inevitable, and foreseeable occurred: it overheated and caught fire.”

That is not the right way to treat any car — let alone a hot one like the Lamborghini Gallardo (an exotic car capable of going 202+ miles per hour).

And for the record, the gas mileage on a Lambo Gallardo is roughly 20 MPG on the highway and 13 MPG when tooling around town conservatively… so exactly how long those jokers thought they could abuse the car that way before using up a tank of gasoline is all the more mind boggling.

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However, the company prefers to use the term "upgrade" instead of "recall" as it claims there is no safety hazard associated with the old starter motor.

The maker of the world's cheapest automobile said the installation of the new starter motor began in October this year and that it has already replaced the starter in 50,000 Nano cars.

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The Detroit Three are in much better financial shape than three years ago. General Motors and Ford are now profitable, and Chrysler appears poised to begin making real money soon. That success has lead to plans to spend billions of dollars on North American plants, but Automotive News reports that our friends to the north aren’t seeing much of the money.

Ford, GM and Chrysler are reportedly planning to spend at least $13.3 billion in the U.S. in the next four years, but investment in Canadian plants is dropping fast. In fact, there was only $1.2 billion in plant spending in Canada in 2011, down 62 percent versus the average of the last decade. A big reason for the decline in spending is the strength of the Canadian dollar and the relative weakness of the U.S. dollar.

Automakers are also spending more in the U.S. thanks to a new labor agreement with the United Auto Workers, which helps level labor costs compared to foreign rivals. Meanwhile, automakers and the Canadian Auto Workers are now working on a new contract for 2012. The CAW has so far fought many of the cost cuts that the UAW has accepted.

To make matters worse for our northern neighbors, Ford closed the St. Thomas plant that once built the Lincoln Town Car and Ford Crown Victoria, and GM ha reportedly announced plans to build two models in the U.S. that are currently being built in Canada.

We’re guessing that while the Canada announcements have been few and far between in the past year or two, that could change if the CAW makes a few concessions at the bargaining table in 2012. If not, auto jobs in Canada could be in real trouble.

Canada lagging behind U.S. auto recovery originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 08:01:00 EST.  Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lotus delivered an early Christmas present: Photos of the shakedown test of its new FIA rally-spec Exige. The test occurred this morning in Turin, Italy, where the Exige R-GT turned its first lap tracks in full rally trim.

The company announced the rally program earlier this year and plans to hit the the asphalt events on the 2012 FIA World Rally Championship calendar. The development of the car started in July, according to Lotus director of motorsport Claudio Berro. He said the testing met his expectations.

“The Exige S makes the perfect GT rally car,” Berro said in a statement. “It has an awesome 3.5-liter supercharged engine, and we’ve managed to balance the weight perfectly to meet the minimum weight regulations.”

The Exige R-GT is based on the new Exige S, with a six speed sequential gear box delivering power from the 3.5 liter supercharged Toyota V-6 to the rear wheels. The car features the FIA required 34mm air restrictors to limit power. With the addition of a roll cage and some well placed ballast, the car tips the scales just over the 1,200 kilogram (2,640 pounds) minimum weight required for GT class rally cars with engines larger than 3.1 liters.

The company says testing will continue through the start of the 2012 season. The Exige R-GT will start its racing career in late January with an appearance at Rallye Monte Carlo. It also will compete at the Tour de Corse in France and the Rallye Sanremo in Italy. All of the rallies are asphalt races.

The new GT class is combining the GT rally classes from several European countries under one set of rules. The goal is to create a less expensive class of rallying that would attract entries from several manufactures including Porsche, Aston Martin, Nissan and Renault to name a few.

The Lotus entry comes more than 30 years after it was part of the team that won the overall rally manufacturer title with the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus in 1981.

Photos: Lotus

Remember when your local downtown department store used to have elaborate window displays from Thanksgiving until the new year? Renault’s taken a page from that book, building a “Cabinet of Curiosities” along the Champs-Elysées that includes a presidential Twingo and a car covered in pasta. It’s not quite Santa and reindeer, but a tribute to tradition isn’t exactly what Renault had planned.

The tiny Twingo, a car that’s most often seen crammed into impossible Parisian parking spots, got a facelift for 2012. Apparently, Renault felt the cars needed a little more panache, so they handed a few Twingos over to a chef, a fashion designer, a British pop star and a German interior designer.

The results are predictable, yet entertaining: Michelin-starred Italian chef Davide Scabin gave the car the “Fusilli Jerry” treatment by covering the interior in pasta, French fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac gilded the dashboard and replaced the seats with French royal furniture, singer and entrepreneur Nicola Roberts turned the back seat into a recording studio and front seat into a dressing room, and German designer Nils Holger Moormann built a library complete with wood floors, a fireplace and a cozy sofa.

Each car is meant to show off the Twingo’s versatility while giving the low-cost car some much-needed personality. The previous generation of Twingo was criticized for being too anonymous when compared to the original, frog-eyed car the debuted in 1993. According to Renault, the recent redesign is intended to give the car a “cheerful” front end.

“Our generation demands a new low-cost luxury. We have to reconcile creativity and democracy,” said de Castelbajac, who designed his tarted-up Twingo with an eye for powerful politicians. “It should be a cast-iron rule for all candidates in the Presidential elections that they have to travel in a Presidential Twingo.”

If your plans include Paris this winter, you have until January 21st to see the repurposed Renaults.

Photos: Renault

The driver’s seat is fitted with 360 sensors that measure pressure according to a scale of zero to 256. Each reading is plotted to create a 3-D image — essentially a topographic map of your ass — used as a personal identifier. Anytime someone gets behind the wheel, the system analyzes the shape of their behind. If it isn’t your rear end in the seat, the car isn’t going anywhere.

The engineers behind the gadget say it was able to identify six different testers with 98 percent accuracy. We can’t read the report (.pdf) because it’s in Japanese, so we don’t know how the system might react to, say, having a wallet in your pocket or packing on a few pounds during the holidays.

Business newspaper Nikkei says the researchers hope to commercialize “a highly reliable anti-theft system” through a collaboration with automakers within two or three years.

Image: Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology

An Orion test vehicle dropped from a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft 25,000 feet over the Arizona desert descended with two parachutes instead of the usual three. It also descended with the parachutes at less than fully expanded size. According to NASA, the vehicle dropped at a brisk 33 feet per second, the maximum designed touchdown speed for the vehicle.

Orion began as the Constellation program announced by President George W. Bush in 2004. The Apollo-like capsule was designed to ferry four to six people to the International Space Station after the shuttle retired. Perhaps more importantly, it also was intended to “carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds.”

The Orion capsule has a diameter of 16.5 feet and weighs 25 tons. That makes it nearly four feet wider and four times heavier than the Apollo Command/Service Module.

The Constellation program ended in 2010, but the Orion capsule has been kept alive. Critics say the program is redundant with NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program that is funding several private companies to develop cargo and crew carrying space vehicles capable of docking with the International Space Station.

SpaceX, one of the companies working under the COTS program is expected to perform its first test docking with the ISS in February.

NASA says the first orbital flight test of the Orion, which is built by Lockheed Martin, will be in 2014.

Photo: NASA

Airline passengers will face the long lines, interminable delays and frustrating backups that come with holiday travel. Through it all, they’ll also have to decide whether to submit to one of the 500-plus x-ray or radio wave scanners found in airports nationwide and wonder about their safety.

Much of the debate surrounding the increasingly common security scanners revolves around their effectiveness and privacy. But the health implications are coming to the fore as the European Union bans x-ray scanners because of health concerns. Many EU nations will instead use millimeter-wave, lower frequency scanners.

Both types use a beam of electromagnetic energy to create an image of a passenger — sans clothing — in an effort to detect weapons and other contraband. Millimeter wave scanners use a portion of the spectrum close to microwaves, while x-ray scanners, of course, use the higher frequency x-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Both devices collect the scattered waves that reflect off the body to create an image.

The dose of radiation from the x-ray scanners is very low. But whether it is low enough to be harmless remains a lingering question.

A recent report by ProPublica and PBS uncovered concerns over the level of radiation passengers are exposed to. Although the dose is very low, the scanners still violate “a longstanding fundamental principle of radiation safety — that humans shouldn’t be x-rayed unless there is a medical benefit,” the report states. There also is the concern that repeated exposure to even low doses of radiation could be a problem.

According to the story, research suggests “anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the [x-ray backscatter] machines,” based on roughly 100 million passengers flying annually. The report also questions why the decision to deploy x-ray scanners was made by the Transportation Security Administration, not the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates drugs and medical devices that can affect public health.

The TSA argues the radiation poses very little threat to human health compared to the security provided by the devices.

“It’s a really, really small amount relative to the security benefit you’re going to get,” Robin Kane, the agency’s assistant administrator for security technology, told ProPublica.

In response to the ProPublica/PBS report, the FDA said the risk of getting cancer is just 1 in 400 million. The agency also clarified several points made in the story.

And as our colleagues at Threat Level noted, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory analyzed the Rapiscan 1000 x-ray scanner and published the leading and most often-cited study (.pdf) in October 2010. The 49-page report, released in a redacted form, says the machines leak virtually no radiation to TSA staff and nearby passengers and expose the person being scanned to a fraction of the maximum exposure level deemed medically safe.

“You would have to go through the scanner 1,000 times to equate to one medical x-ray,” said Peter Kant, Rapiscan’s executive vice president, summarizing the study. “You get twice as much radiation when eating a banana than when going through the scanner.”

But critics note the mechanical beam’s intensity level has not been published, making it impossible to evaluate the safety claims. Moreover, medical x-ray machines disperse radiation throughout the body, whereas the airport scanners penetrate to about skin level. That means there is a high concentration of radiation on a single organ — the skin.

Questions remain regarding the safety of the scanners and whether such tests were bungled, the manner in which they were placed into widespread use and just how effective they are. There also have been questions about the connection between Rapiscan, which produces the scanners, and former TSA boss Michael Chertoff. Chertoff’s consulting firm had done work for Rapiscan. Both companies deny anything inappropriate occurred.

Beyond the health concerns and the EU ban on x-ray scanners, France and Germany stopped using millimeter wave radio scanners because of numerous false positive results.

According to a separate story about the effectiveness of the scanners, of all the passengers singled out for closer scrutiny after being scanned by millimeter wave machines, pat-down searches revealed more than half of them posed no threat at all. The most mundane things, like sweat and folds in clothing, were among the things contributing to false positives.

Several tests of both types of scanners have shown they are effective at detecting items like guns and knives, but no more so than much cheaper metal detectors already in use. Other tests have shown explosives can be hidden on the body in a manner unlikely to be detected by those monitoring images generated by the scanners.

Passengers do not have a choice whether they are being scanned in a millimeter wave scanner, which resembles a phone booth with glass walls, or an x-ray scanner in which they stand between two large boxes. Airports often have one or the other, but they typically are not used for every security line.

There are roughly 250 x-ray machines and 260 millimeter wave machines in use nationwide. The TSA plans to deploy a total of 1,800 scanners by 2014.

Saab, the Swedish automaker “born from jets” to build quirky teardrop-shaped cars Kurt Vonnegut once labeled “yuppie uniforms,” has hit the end of the road after 64 years.

Swedish Automobile, the company’s parent, played its last hand today when it filed for bankruptcy in Vanersborg, Sweden. It said it “does not expect to realize any value from its shares in Saab Automobile” and “will write off its interest in Saab Automobile completely.”

Saab CEO Viktor Muller said the company’s fate was sealed when previous owner General Motors rejected a last-ditch bid for the company from Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co. Muller, the Dutch entrepreneur who once led supercar manufacturer Spyker, bought Saab from GM almost two years ago. He paid $74 million in cash and $326 million in preferred shares, but couldn’t line up the financing he needed to revamp Saab’s aging lineup and spur sales.

“This is the darkest day in my career, probably in the history of Saab. But we had no other alternatives,” Muller said Monday, according to Swedish media quoted by the Detroit News.

It was an ignominious end to a company that built cool cars known for understated exceptionalism.

Saab’s story started after World War II with a handful of aircraft engineers who wanted to create what they believed were the best cars available. The first model, the Saab 92, featured a two-stroke engine driving the front wheels. It was remarkably aerodynamic, a trait shared by the models to follow.

From those roots grew a company adored by a small but passionate band of enthusiasts who relished Saab’s early adoption of technology like turbochargers in the Saab 99 and overlooked anomalies like putting the ignition switch between the seats.

Though they were, um, unusual, Saabs had a reputation for being dependable and innovative. The company developed dual brake circuits to ensure drivers could stop even if the brakes were damaged. It mounted the ignition between the seats to prevent knee injuries in a crash. And it was the first to offer heated front seats and headlamp washers.

Perhaps the marque’s most notable model was the Saab 900, which appeared in 1978. It drew a cult-like following of owners with a reputation for smoking pipes, teaching English and wearing tweed. The 900 begat the 900 Turbo and then the 900 SPG, sort of a Swedish BMW M3.

General Motors took the reins in 1989 and tried to give Saab broader appeal. It updated the 900 in 1994, which helped, and offered interesting models like the 9-3 Viggen for the gearheads. But Saab was never more than an automotive footnote beyond Sweden, and sales peaked at 133,000 in 2006. Saab sold just 27,000 cars in all of 2009, by which point GM was frantically trying to stay alive.

Muller stepped in the following year with a promise to turn things around. The company teased us with a lineup that included the stylish 9-5, 9-4 and a new 9-3 penned by whiz-kid designer Jason Castriota, who promised to bring sleek, sexy styling to Saab. Castriota, who cut his teeth at Pininfarina, wowed us earlier this year with the wild Saab Phoenix hybrid concept.

It was all for naught, though, as Muller and Saab ran out of time, out of money and out of luck. It was perhaps an inevitable end for a company that had been all but dead since March. But Muller isn’t quite ready to pull the plug.

“Even if this may look like the end, it doesn’t necessarily have to be,” he said, according to the Detroit News. “It could be a new beginning and Saab could rise from the ashes like a phoenix.”

Photo: A Saab 92 leaves the factory back in the day. / Saab

By Mark Brown, Wired UK

The first of London’s next-gen double-decker buses is a hybrid that officials promise is “most environmentally friendly” and “the latest, greatest masterpiece of British engineering.”

Please keep your Lucas jokes to yourself.

The bus, unveiled Friday in Trafalgar Square, is the first designed specifically for London in more than 50 years. The Routemaster-inspired bus went from the drawing board to a fully functioning prototype in just two years. Transport for London awarded the contract for engineering design to Northern Ireland-based Wrightbus in January 2010. Wrightbus and London’s Heatherwick Studio have now finished the first prototype.

The shiny red bus has three entrances and two staircases to speed up boarding. There are huge windows that snake up alongside the stairs to increase the amount of light let in, an open platform at the rear and even a new seat design and fresh upholstery.

Transport for London claims the hybrid double-decker bus “will be the most environmentally friendly bus of its kind when it enters passenger service.” The engineering test vehicle uses a hybrid drivetrain developed by Volvo. It emits 640 grams of CO₂ per kilometer — less than half of that of current diesel buses (1295 g/km). In testing, fuel economy was also better than twice that of a standard diesel bus, clocking in at 11.6 mpg.

“It is the latest, greatest masterpiece of British engineering and design, and I am certain it will become a much-loved and iconic vehicle akin to the legendary Routemaster from which it draws so much inspiration,” said London Mayor Boris Johnson, who called for the new bus during his election campaign.

He also announced that the first bus, operated by Arriva, will begin carrying passengers on the busy Route 38 (Victoria station to Hackney) on Feb. 20.

Still, there was a spot of bother for hizzoner and Transport for London earlier today when the bus conked out on the highway.

According to the Evening Standard, the bus ran out of juice on the M1 motorway. A spokesman for the transit agency said a battery warning light prompted the driver to pull to the shoulder and recharge. At that point, another warning light came on, so TfL decided to investigate further. Authorities summoned a tow truck, but it ultimately was not needed.

The transit agency said the bus’ battery was designed to recharge during stop-and-go city traffic, not during a long highway haul.

“When the bus undertakes long, non-stopping motorway journeys, such as its journey to Bedfordshire this morning, it can lose charge and the driver is briefed to pull to the side of the road to allow the battery to recharge,” Mike Weston, London Buses Operations director, told the Standard. “After the battery had re-charged the driver was unable to re-start the engine. It was later established that the bus had run out of diesel. Once the bus was refuelled it carried on its journey. We will be speaking with the operator to ensure that this does not happen again.”

Eight prototype buses will enter passenger service in the first half of 2012. If the trial is successful, hundreds of them could be running around London in the coming years.

Photo: Transport for London

The lottery of who you sit next to on an airline flight can make travel interesting — or unbearable. Recognizing that its passengers’ experiences can be greatly influenced by those sitting next to them, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is introducing “Meet & Seat,” a service that allows passengers to choose seatmates based on their social media profiles.

In a nutshell, the service, which makes its debut early next year, lets you link your social media profile to your check-in information and choose a seating partner according to their profile. The service will be available to all, and both passengers must choose to participate in order to pick your fellow passenger. Those who enjoy simply putting clamping on a pair of headphones and tuning everyone out can avoid the experiment altogether, according to the International Business Times.

The newspaper naturally discusses the matchmaking potential of KLM’s service. According to the Times, a recent poll showed 45 percent of respondents confessed to flirting on a flight, and one-third of them met up with a fellow traveler after a flight. Eight percent said the encounters led to a relationship.

Everybody’s favorite news analysis animators at Next Media Animation in Taiwan were a bit more blunt. Their description of how KLM’s new service might work doesn’t include waiting for the airplane to land. Video after the jump.

Photo: KLM, Video: NMA/YouTube