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2015 BMW M3 and M4 priced at $62,000 and $64,200

When the BMW M3 and M4 debuted on Monday at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show, it was to much fanfare and excitement. At that time, though, we were missing a big piece of the M3/M4 puzzle - the price.
According to a report from our roundel-obsessed friends at Bimmerfest, the four-door M3 will star at $62,000, while the M4 Coupe is priced at $64,200. Those prices do not include a $925 destination charge. That's a pretty significant jump over the $56,275 starting price of the old M3 Sedan and $59,275 starting price of the last M3 Coupe, although we'd argue that these cars should easily outpace their V8 counterparts in terms of overall performance. In other news, a six-speed manual will come standard, while the seven-speed M DCT will be an optional extra.
Bimmerfest also came up with a timeline for the M3 and M4's arrival. We should expect the official announcement of pricing, along with the full order guides, released near the end of this month or in early February. Production will kick off in March, while customers will be able to begin placing orders in late April. We'll get our first crack at both cars in June, with deliveries beginning later that month.

Child cobalt miners: Automakers pledge ethical minerals sourcing for EVs

BERLIN - Leading carmakers including Volkswagen and Toyota pledged on Wednesday to uphold ethical and socially responsible standards in their purchases of minerals for an expected boom in electric vehicle production. Demand for minerals such as cobalt, graphite and lithium is forecast to soar in the coming years as governments crack down on vehicle pollution and carmakers step up their investments in electric models. To cover its plans for more than 80 new models by 2025, Volkswagen alone is looking for partners in China, Europe and North America to provide battery cells and related technology worth more than 50 billion euros ($59 billion). Talks with major cobalt producers, including Glencore, at VW's Wolfsburg headquarters last week ended without a deal. More than half of the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country racked by political instability and legal opacity, and where child labor is used in mines. On Wednesday, a group of 10 leading passenger-car and truck manufacturers announced an initiative to jointly identify and address ethical, environmental, human and labor rights issues in raw materials sourcing. The partnership dubbed "Drive Sustainability" consists of VW, Toyota Motor Europe, Ford, Daimler, BMW, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo Cars and truckmakers Scania and Volvo. The alliance "will assess the risks posed by the top raw materials (such as mica, cobalt, rubber and leather) in the automotive sector," said Stefan Crets of the CSR Europe business network. "This will allow Drive Sustainability to identify the most impactful activities to pursue" to address issues within the supply chain.Reporting by Andreas Cremer.Related Video: Image Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images Green BMW Ford Honda Jaguar Land Rover Mercedes-Benz Automakers Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Green Automakers Green Culture Electric Scania ethics mining

The importance of Angel Eyes, Ventiports and four round taillights

Just the other day, we told you about how Lincoln isn't really a luxury brand, according to Ford's head design man, J Mays. His argument was that Lincoln lacked the unique DNA to differentiate it from the rest of the market, although the arrival of the MKZ is beginning to change that. Now, we have this video from Autoline Detroit, where Jim Hall, an analyst for 2953 Analytics who was quoted in yesterday's Lincoln story, explains the influence of certain styling cues and how they impact the brands.
Using BMW (Angel Eyes) and Buick (Ventiports) as examples for small, simple touches that serve to distinguish the brand's vehicles on the road, Hall then points out how changing trademark styling features, as Chevrolet has done on the new Corvette Stingray, can hurt the vehicle's public perception. Take a look at the full video below for an interesting dive into what these styling features mean to their individual brands.