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The worst rally driver you've ever seen

Fast cars and excellent driving skills might be the easy answers when asking how to succeed in rally racing, but after watching this video, a good teammate is obviously an important aspect of this sport, too. During the 2013 Rally of Coimbatore in India, driver Samir Thapar and his co-driver, Vivek Ponnusamy, didn't seem to be on the same page as the two attempted to navigate the course in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.
We'd probably hear drastically different stories if we talked to Thapar and Ponnusamy about this particular event, but you know things are bad when "stay on road" and "turn the wheel" are commands given by the co-driver (and yes, that's a man running for his life in the screen shot shown above). As it turned out, though, it seems like the Ponnusamy was justified in his concerns to take care of the racecar. Race results show that despite winning three of the seven stages, this team ultimately ended the race with a DNF.
Scroll down to watch the video, and even though it's been edited down from almost 40 minutes to less than four, we get the idea that it wasn't a pleasant experience for driver or co-driver.

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is world's first production plug-in hybrid CUV [w/video]

Though Mitsubishi first showed us the form of its 2013 Outlander in Geneva a while back, the company saved its plug-in hybrid crossover for this week's Paris Motor Show soiree.
Mitsubishi is quite proud to offer what it says is the world's first production PHEV utility vehicle, a new model that makes use of established technologies within the company. Learnings from the company's i-MiEV electric car have worked there way into a vehicle that can travel up to 55 kilometers (34 miles) on lithium-ion battery power. Two electric motors independently power the front and rear wheels of the Outlander, while the gasoline-powered engine can be used as a generator for the motors, or to power the vehicle directly. The target combined fuel economy for the Outlander PHEV is 61 km/liter, or roughly 143 miles per gallon.
The Outlander PHEV will be introduced in the Japanese market in the first part of 2013, with European and North American markets to follow on. There is no word about an on-sale date, but while you're pondering the possibilities, check out an official video by scrolling down and peruse our high-res image gallery.

DoJ fines Japanese parts firms $740M in massive automotive price-fixing scandal

Nine Japanese suppliers have pleaded guilty in US court over charges of price fixing in the automotive parts industry, resulting in the Department of Justice doling out a total of $740 million of fines, according to a report from Bloomberg. The scandal, which has resulted in General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Chrysler spending up to $5 billion on inflated parts and driving up prices on 25 million vehicles has sent the DoJ hustling into investigations. "The conduct this investigation uncovered involved more than a dozen separate conspiracies aimed at the U.S. economy," Attorney General Eric Holder (pictured above) said during yesterday's press conference.
As the investigation stands, the DoJ has issued $1.6 billion in fines against 20 companies and 21 individual executives, with 17 of the execs headed to prison. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Scott Hammond said, "The breadth of the conspiracies brought to light today are as egregious as they are pervasive. They involve more than a dozen separate conspiracies operating independently but all sharing in common that they targeted US automotive manufacturers."
Big-name suppliers indicted in the investigation include Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Hitachi Automotive and Mitsuba Corporation. A list of fines and other corporations named in the investigation is available at Bloomberg.