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We wish the Fiat Toro compact pickup would come to America

Ready for another round of wailing and gnashing of teeth? Then let the Brazilian-market Fiat Toro pickup commence the lamentations about our domestic lack of compact pickup trucks. Previewed by the FCC4 concept showed at last year's Sao Paolo Motor Show, and then this mule, the little double-cab is rumored to be based on the Small Wide 4x4 corporate architecture that supports the Jeep Renegade. At 193.5 inches long, the Toro is 26 inches longer than the Renegade, 20 inches shorter than the Chevrolet Colorado extended cab, and ten inches shorter than the 2011 Ford Ranger. The Toro is offered in three trims - Urban, Adrenaline, and Country - and two drive options. The Urban comes in a front-wheel drive configuration, and gets a 1.8-liter E-Torq Flex four-cylinder with 138 horsepower mated to a six-speed automatic. Adrenaline is also 4x2 only, but buyers will get a 2.0-liter Multijet turbodiesel with 170 hp tied to that six-speed auto or a six-speed manual. The top Country trim is the only one with 4x4 and it gets all the powertrain options: the 1.8-liter with the six-speed auto, or the 2.0-liter diesel with either a six-speed manual, six-speed auto, or nine-speed automatic. The manual can be specced with 4x2 or 4x4, the nine-speed only comes in 4x4. The turbodiesel has up to 280 pound-feet of torque in other Fiat applications. Fiat Brazil says it can carry five in "the comfort of a luxury car." That might be a bit much, but it is tow-rated for 2,200 pounds and can be optioned with appealingly useful and decorative features like xenon headlights, LED DRLs, fog lights, bright underbody protection, Uconnect with a five-inch touchscreen, light and rain sensors, and a sunroof. The smaller Fiat Strada, a compact Brazilian-market pickup we drove in 2013 that 74 percent of you said Fiat should bring here, managed an easy 50 miles per gallon with a 1.3-liter turbodiesel with 94 hp and 148 lb-ft. The Toro wouldn't be that sippy with fuel, but we have a feeling it'd be more than pleasing to those still hankering for a genuinely small truck with some comfort features and a decent tow rating. We also have to wonder if such a machine, perhaps with the powertrain options of the Jeep Renegade, might help with Fiat's lagging US sales figures. Related Video:

Fiat contemplating sub-brand to compete with Dacia, Datsun

You can add Fiat to the admittedly short list of automakers considering a low-cost brand to rival Dacia. The inexpensive Eastern European brand from Renault-Nissan has performed on the balance sheet like a premium model line, and the money the alliance is taking off the table is encouraging other players to deal themselves in. Pretty soon Nissan's Datsun sub-brand will join the Dacia party, going on sale in Russia, Indonesia and India and will claim even more rubles, rupiahs and rupees for the parent company. Volkswagen recently said it will make a decision this year on a budget line for the Chinese market. With the euthanasia of Lancia and plans to move the Fiat brand upmarket, company CEO Sergio Marchionne wonders aloud to Automotive News Europe whether there could be room for a new budget brand underneath Fiat.
We're told that the initiative has been in the idea box for five years and even moved to the stage of name considerations, like Innocenti, but worries about profit kept it from realization. If such a range were to be developed, Marchionne says it couldn't be built in Italy and stay within budget, and the company is "analyzing its manufacturing capacity outside of Europe to see if a low-cost brand is viable."

Recharge Wrap-up: EV torque secrets, UC Davis maps future of biofuels

A UC Davis white paper maps out "Three Routes Forward for Biofuels," balancing investment risk with carbon benefits. The first option is "incremental," in which we tinker with the existing biofuel manufacturing infrastructure for small improvements over time. The "transitional" plan suggests integrating cellulosic production and other innovations with existing operations. The third route, called "leapfrogging," would mean building refineries based on new technology such as cellulosic and algae-based biofuels. The paper suggests ways the US could use these three routes together in different areas, and predicts the payoffs in terms of carbon emissions could be significant if the right people are willing to risk the capital. After all, financial advisers are always telling investors to diversify their portfolios to manage risk and rewards in the same way. Read more over at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. The Formula E Long Beach ePrix will offer free admission. The seventh round of the inaugural all-electric race season, which was moved from Los Angeles to the streets of Long Beach, will offer fans free grandstand and general admission. The race, which takes place on April 5, 2015, will use a 1.6-mile portion of IndyCar's Grand Prix of Long Beach. Read more at LA Times. Polaris is now offering its 2015 GEM electric vehicles, including the new street-legal eM1400 LSV. The passenger and utility vehicles come in two- to six-passenger configurations, many of which are street legal on roads with posted speed limits of up to 35 miles per hour. The eM1400 LSV utility vehicle seats two, offers 1,250 pounds of payload, 1,250 pounds of towing capacity, a top speed of 25 mph and a range of up to 45 miles. Its on-board charger plugs into any standard 110-volt outlet. Read more at Hybrid Cars and check out all the different configurations yourself at the Polaris website. In EVs, more torque does not always equal faster. Green Car Reports found this out when driving the Fiat 500e (with 147 pound-feet) against the similarly weighted Chevrolet Spark EV (with 400 pound-feet). The secret is, at least in part, in the gearing. The Fiat has a 9.6:1 reduction gear, making it quicker at lower speeds despite having far less available torque, while the Chevy uses a 3:1 ratio. The trade-off though, is in top speed. Furthermore, Chevy electronically limits the torque delivery at low speeds, as 400 pound-feet is a lot of launch for the little Spark EV to handle.