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Seat Leon Sport Cross concept leaks before Frankfurt debut

Seat's big Frankfurt Motor Show debut has been teased/leaked ahead of its official debut. The teasers are, of course, directly from Seat and show the new Leon Cross Sport Concept in a pair of sketches. You can check those out below. The leaked stuff, available up top, is far juicier, though. The shots originally came from AutoForum.cz, Auto Express reports, and look to be stock images of the three-door hatchback. In short, it looks like a Seat Leon, which is to say the MQB-based Spaniard is a more attractive Volkswagen Golf. In concept form, though, this new Leon is something of an anomaly. It wears the steroidal sheetmetal of the high-performance Cupra, especially with the large wheels and prominent quad exhausts, but its boosted ride gives it much more of a soft-roader character. Think of this, then, as a high-riding Golf GTI. It'll be a lot more potent than the beloved hot hatch, though. According to Auto Express, the Leon Cross Sport will use the Golf R's 296-horsepower, turbocharged four-cylinder engine and Haldex all-wheel-drive system. That should mean that there'll be some very real off-road performance behind the soft-roader looks. We'll have much more on the Cross Sport Concept when it makes its debut at Volkswagen's huge Group Night event later today. Stay tuned.

Audi to keep hiring workers despite VW diesel scandal

Even while Volkswagen contemplates delaying or canceling projects to pay for costs related to the massive diesel emissions scandal, its stablemate Audi is hiring, according to Reuters. Audi certainly isn't immune to the diesel scandal, with around 2.1 million affected vehicles worldwide including 13,000-14,000 in the US, but the scandal so far isn't affecting staffing levels. "We are sticking with plans for strategic growth and are continuing to hire new employees as planned," Audi board member for human resources Thomas Sigi said in a German newspaper, according to Reuters. Sigi even suggested paying a "respectable" bonus to workers next year. Audi has some big projects on the horizon, too. Among them, the company intends to launch a production version of the E-Tron Quattro Concept in 2018, and for performance fans a new TT RS appears to be on the way. The new A4 should be a big contributor to global volume when its worldwide rollout is complete. Rather than allowing the diesel scandal to hurt all of its divisions, the VW Group instead wants to concentrate the fallout (and costs) on the VW brand, according to Reuters. Those expenses could be huge. Volkswagen is budgeting around $7.3 billion just to repair the 11 million emissions-cheating vehicles. Worldwide, maximum estimates put the whole mess at $87 billion. Related Video:

French probe alleges 2 million PSA cars had engine cheats

PARIS — A French investigation into alleged emissions cheating by PSA Group found that suspect software had been used on almost 2 million vehicles sold by the maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars, Le Monde reported on Friday. Paris-based PSA denies any use of fraudulent engine software, a spokesman said in response to the newspaper report, which sent PSA shares sharply lower. The stock was down 4.4 percent at 17.78 euros as of 1019 GMT. So-called "defeat devices" restrict exhaust output of toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) under regulatory test conditions while letting emissions far exceed legal limits in real-world driving. In February, PSA became the fourth carmaker to be referred to French prosecutors by the country's DGCCRF watchdog over suspected emissions test-cheating, after Volkswagen, Renault and Fiat Chrysler. PSA's engineering chief acknowledged at the time that emissions treatment in the group's diesels was deliberately reduced at higher temperatures to improve fuel efficiency and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in out-of-town driving, where NOx output is considered less critical. According to Le Monde, an internal PSA document obtained by DGCCRF investigators includes discussion of the need to "make the 'defeat device' aspect less obvious and visible." However PSA insists there is nothing fraudulent or illegal about its engine calibrations. "PSA denies any fraud and firmly reaffirms the pertinence of its technology decisions," the company said on Friday. Reporting by Laurence FrostRelated Video: Image Credit: Getty Government/Legal Green Volkswagen Citroen Peugeot Emissions Diesel Vehicles dieselgate volkswagen diesel