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A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

Volvo agrees to transfer tech to new parent Geely

Following the acquisition of Volvo by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in 2010, we definitely saw this news coming. The two companies have signed an agreement that will give Chinese automaker Geely access to key technologies developed by Volvo, and in turn, the deal could help the Swedish automaker lower its production costs.
As a part of the "technological cooperation agreements" signed by both companies, Automotive News China reports that Geely will be able to tap Volvo for three much-needed technologies, including the use of a midsize platform, Volvo's proven safety innovations and interior air quality systems. The latter two technologies are important to improve the crashworthiness of Geely's cars, along with helping isolate vehicle occupants from China's often severe air pollution. The report says that Volvo tech will likely be used on a premium car brand that Geely is expected to create.
Volvo, on the other hand, is to benefit from the "local market exploration experience and cost control experience" of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, which is technical way of saying that Volvo will be able reduce its costs by tapping into Geely's established supply chain.

New Lotus SUV could be based on Volvo architecture

Last year, Chinese carmaker Geely upped its stake in Lotus to a majority, recently investing more money into the British brand. Now, talking with Automotive News, CEO Jean-Marc Gales says Geely has approved three new models: two sports cars and the third an SUV. The sports cars will be announced later this year, and they will reach production in 2020. The last time a properly new Lotus debuted was in 2009 with the Evora, so a decade later new products are certainly due. But what about that SUV? Autocar says that since Geely also owns Volvo, that makes it possible for Lotus to base the SUV onto the Volvo SPA platform, which is also used in the XC60 and XC90. The choice of platform would mean the SUV would have to be a four-cylinder model, but that's nothing new to Lotus. It could even use Volvo's "Twin Engine" hybrid setup, which would mean a power output of over 400 horsepower as stock, and that with Lotus' eagerness for lightness could be a potent combination. Autocar quotes Gales as saying, "It will go round bends like nothing else in its segment." The target weight for the approximately Porsche Macan-sized SUV is under 2,000 kilos (4,400 pounds), and the Macan weighs 4244 pounds in 400-hp Turbo guise. The Lotus SUV is projected to hit the market in "about four years," and it's very likely to be built in China instead of Britain, as the Chinese market is very enticing — especially for this class of vehicle. The vehicles will still be designed at Lotus' Hethel HQ. Related Video: