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BMW against Merkel's female board member quota in Germany

There may soon be more women in power positions in the world of German business under a proposed law from Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government. If passed, the law would force large, publicly traded corporations to have female members make up at least 30 percent of their supervisory boards (which are responsible in part for business strategy) by 2016. In addition, all companies would have to increase the female proportion on their management boards, which conduct regular business. The law seems likely to pass next month. "We've decided to do this and it will happen," said Merkel in a speech about the new rule, according to Bloomberg. Women currently have just six percent of management board seats in the country. Big businesses in the country aren't on board with proposed law, including automakers. "BMW as a company doesn't believe in quotas," said spokesperson Jochen Frey to Bloomberg. "While we hold that opinion, we want and strive for diversity in our workforce in terms of gender, ethnicity and age." Currently, 25 percent of Bimmer's supervisory board is female, a bit higher than the national average in Germany of 22 percent. German car companies are hardly alone when it comes to having a paucity of women in positions of power. Honda only added its first female member to the automaker's board of directors earlier this year, and Toyota and Nissan showed similarly low numbers. A 2013 list from Fortune ranked many of the most powerful women in the auto industry as coming from North America.

BMW 2 Series caught uncovered during shoot

Before we know it, the BMW 1 Series will be no more in the United States. Well, sort of. The current six-year-old coupe and convertible will be replaced by the fancy new 2 Series you see here, spotted completely uncovered during a photo shoot, with the 1 Series nomenclature being reserved for the hatchback and GT models that might not ever make it Stateside.
The roofline of the new 2 Series doesn't appear to have to changed all that much from the current 1 Series coupe, but the front and rear fascias have indeed been smoothed out. (Truth time: As much as your author adores the 1 Series, he's always found its rear end to be, well, weird.) It looks good, seen here in M235i guise, with large wheels, slimmer headlamps and large air intakes on either side of the front fascia.
The 2 Series is expected to come to the States, likely in M235i and 228i variants, though rumors suggest that we won't get a non-M 235i model. The M235i is expected to be powered by the N55 turbocharged inline-six that we currently enjoy in the 335i sedan, producing something like 320 horsepower. The 228i, unsurprisingly, should use the 2.0-liter turbo-four from the 328i, making around 240 hp. Both engines will almost certainly employ eight-speed automatic transmissions and six-speed manuals.

Weekly Recap: Toyota wants cars to be your 'close friends' around 2020

Toyota confirmed plans this week to launch autonomous technology in its production cars around 2020. The automaker's version is called Highway Teammate, and it's one element of a broader mobility strategy that includes vehicles communicating with each other and the grid. "Toyota believes that interactions between drivers and cars should mirror those between close friends who share a common purpose, sometimes watching over each other and sometimes helping each other out," the company said in a statement. That sounds utopian, and perhaps a bit cheesy, but it's an acknowledgment that autonomous driving requires more than technology developed in a vacuum. Toyota is looking at its research in a broader context, and dubs its overall strategy the Mobility Teammate Concept. Highway Teammate is the first step. Its test vehicle is a modified Lexus GS, which uses road-mapping data and external sensors to merge or exit highways, change lanes, and maintain safe distances during driving. It's operated on the Shuto Expressway in Tokyo. Toyota has been working on autonomous tech since the 1990s, with the goal of providing mobility for older people and the disabled, as well as lowering the frequency of traffic accidents. Toyota's push comes as an early adopter, Nissan, is hedging on its own deadline to implement the autonomous tech by 2020 due to a lack of firm laws governing self-driving cars around the world. Conversely, Volvo took the landmark step of being the first automaker to accept liability for when its cars will operate in autonomous mode, and urged the US government to set federal guidelines to regulate the technology. OTHER NEWS & NOTES 2016 BMW M4 GTS: Your water-injected, turbo-boosted demon BMW is unleashing its most powerful M4 ever, a 493-horsepower special edition that's road legal yet bred for the track. The company is making 700 copies for sale around the world, and 300 of them will come to the United States. The twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter six-cylinder revs to 7,600 rpm and uses a water-injection technology to cool the intake air and lower the compression temperature. BMW says this allows it to wring more power out of the inline six. The car also uses carbon-fiber reinforced plastic for the roof, hood, engine compartment strut brace, drive shaft, and rear spoiler to reduce weight. The M4 features BMW's organic light-emitting diode taillights, which are said to be an industry first.