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European car sales up 8% in February

Three weeks ago an analyst increased projections for European car sales this year, expecting them to climb three percent compared to last year instead of 2.7 percent. That number is a postive sign after years of hard times but it turns out February was especially good, overall European sales climbing eight percent on a wave of southern European recovery and discounts - and this comes after five months of gains including January's 7.2-percent jump over the year before.
The only country of Europe's five largest markets to post a decline was France, just as it did in January, Germany, the UK and Italy posting solid double-digit numbers, Spain rocking the charts with an 18-percent increase because of a government program to encourage trade-ins.
The only brand to miss the wave was Volkswagen, dropping 0.8 percent as it watched the double-digit growth at sister brands Audi, Seat and Skoda lift the Volkswagen Group sales up by seven-percent. Peugeot overcame flat sales at Citroën to improve the group by 3.5 percent, BMW and the Mercedes-Benz/Smart combo rose by four percent, the Fiat group jumped 5.8 percent, Ford was up 11 percent, the Renault Group 11.5 percent, General Motors 12 percent and the Toyota clan by 14 percent.

Volkswagen drops first teaser of next-gen T6 Transporter

The history of Volkswagen's line of boxy Transporter vans goes all the way back to 1950, and the early models' shape likely ranks in fame with the Beetle. VW Commercial Vehicles is now teasing the next step in that legacy with this sketch of the new T6. Judging by this shot, VW is sticking with the van's familiar, square shape. Although this sketch makes the front end look a bit more curvaceous and possibly with a shorter overhang than the current T5. Finding out the truth won't take long because the T6 will debut on April 15, and it will go on sale in the UK by the end of the year. These days the US commercial van segment is rapidly expanding with new models filling the market. Autoblog reached out to VW spokesperson Mark Gillies to find out if the latest Transporter might come across the Atlantic. "LCVs are under consideration, but there are no plans" to bring the T6 to the US at this time, Gillies said. Related Video: Show full PR text VOLKSWAGEN COMMERCIAL VEHICLES REVEALS SKETCH OF FORTHCOMING SIXTH-GENERATION TRANSPORTER Ahead of its official world premiere on 15 April 2015, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles has revealed a sketch of the sixth-generation Transporter. When it made its public debut in 1950, few could have predicted the enormous impact the Transporter would have in revolutionising the commercial vehicle market, creating a timeless automotive icon in the process. Whilst the Transporter has evolved dramatically during that time the philosophy and vision that created the original still holds true. Getting the job done efficiently and reliably has been at the heart of the Volkswagen philosophy for the past 65 years. Its reputation for rugged reliability has endured over the decades to make the Volkswagen Transporter one of the world's best-selling light commercial vehicles. The sixth-generation Transporter will go on sale in the UK later this year. (ends)

VW decides against active-cooling system for e-Golf lithium battery

When the 2015 VW e-Golf was introduced at the LA Auto Show last year, VW said it would come with a water-cooled battery. During the Detroit Auto Show, when the car was trotted out again, VW released a new press release that stripped out the "water-cooled" language, but this change went unnoticed. During a recent VW event in Germany, a friend from Green Car Reports realized that the battery on display did not seem to have any water-cooling mechanisms. That set us off on a bit of a sleuthing and we have now learned that VW is not going to include any active cooling in the upcoming e-Golf. In fact, the company is entirely confident that this car - because of what it's designed to do - doesn't need it. "The need for a cooling system wasn't there" - VW's Darryll Harrison VW has been working on an electrified Golf for ages now, and so changes to the plan are to be expected. But battery cooling is vitally important not just to keep the car operating properly but because when things get too hot, there can be serious public relations problems. Nissan began testing a new battery chemistry for the Leaf in 2013 after an uproar from warm-weather EV drivers in Arizona who were experiencing worse-than-expected battery performance. The Leaf has always used an air-cooled battery, which is another way to say that there is no active cooling system (more details here). Tesla CEO Elon Musk once said this approach is "primitive." So, why is VW following the same path? We asked Darryll Harrison, VW US's manager of brand public relations west, for more information, and he told AutoblogGreen that VW engineers discovered through a lot of testing of the Golf Mk6 EV prototypes, that battery performance was not impacted by temperatures when using the right battery chemistry. That chemistry, it turns out, is lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) in cells from Panasonic. These cells had "the lowest self-warming tendency and the lowest memory effect of all cells tested," Harrison said. He added that VW engineers tested the NMC cells in places like Death Valley and Arizona and found they didn't warm very quickly either through operation, charging (including during fast charging) or through high ambient temps. "The need for a cooling system wasn't there," Harrison said.