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LeTV's SEE Project will introduce new EV in Shanghai

It's very unlikely that many people here in the states will have heard of Beijing-based LeTV. Aston Martin, on the other hand? That's pretty stylish company. LeTV is working on an electric-vehicle project called SEE (Super Electric Eco-system). The concept version is slated to debut at the Shanghai Motor Show next April. LeTV says that that same month, the car will "roll of the production line," as well. That sounds awfully optimistic, to us, but we'll just leave that alone for now. The racing-car-shaped vehicle, which will have "high- and low-powered" versions, is about 11'5" long and 5'4" wide. That's about a foot shorter and a few inches narrower than a Mini Cooper. The twist, such as it is, comes from the fact that LeTV says it will develop the model with the help of both Aston Marin and BAIC Motor Corp., which adds a shade of legitimacy to the project. Aston Martin is in the process of launching its battery-electric Rapide sedan, which will have 800 horsepower and a 200-mile single-charge range, so that would ostensibly be a competitor to Tesla. The Rapide EV could run as much as $250,000. As for BAIC, is has been looking to expand its role in the plug-in vehicle sector since 2009, when it debuted a division called Beijing New Energy Automotive Co. Just last month, BAIC opened an electric-vehicle research and development center in California's Silicon Valley, the company's first outside China. You can take a look at LeTV's press release below. LeTV Partners With Aston Martin to Deliver Next Generation Electric Vehicles BEIJING and BANGALORE, October 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The most significant (monetarily) deal that came out of Angela Merkel's visit to India was that of a Euro 1 billion solar power fund solidifying India's stance to develop 100GW solar capacity by 2022. These are positive moves in a time when the focus on the effects of climate change are intensifying and how economies across the globe decide to combat the effects of it. One particular way in which India could benefit hugely from alternative fuels is from the perspective of vehicles. The nation recently joined the Electric Vehicles Initiative, a forum for global cooperation on the development and deployment of Electric Vehicles (EVs). With an interest in the Indian market, LeTV, a multinational company based in Beijing, announced its electric car plan on December 9th, 2014, when its founder, Mr.

Mercedes to offer SL, GL platforms to Aston Martin?

The agonizingly slow courtship between Aston Martin and Mercedes-Benz has been a regular topic of conversation ever since the 2009 Lagonda Concept debuted, riding on a Mercedes GL chassis. Beyond that one polarizing concept, though, nearly every other attempt to pair the two brands up in a major way has fallen through. Only the technical partnership between Mercedes and Aston for certain components from AMG, which was negotiated back in July, has held up so far.
That may finally be set to change, according to an excellent profile of the two brands' relationship from Automobile, which claims that two platforms will unite the Germans and Brits. The first tie up is, not surprisingly, a sports car.
As Aston Martin's VH platform - which underpins every car that comes out of Gaydon - continues to age, the pressure will well and truly be on Aston to find a next-gen replacement to underpin the successors to the Vantage, Vanquish, DB9 and Rapide. Automobile claims Mercedes has just such an architecture, in the form its new modular sports car platform. This new platform is slated for the next-generation SLK and SL and is still in its design infancy.

The mood at this year’s Paris Motor Show: Quiet

The Paris Motor Show, held every other year in the early fall, typically kicks off the annual cavalcade of automotive conclaves, one that traverses the globe between autumn and spring, introducing projective, conceptual and production-ready vehicle models to the international automotive press, automotive aficionados and a public hungry for news of our increasingly futuristic mobility enterprise. But this year, at the press preview days for the show, the grounds of the Porte de Versailles convention center felt a bit more sparsely populated than usual. This was not simply a subjective sensation, or one influenced by the center's atypically dispersed assemblage of seven discrete buildings, which tends to spread out the cars and the crowds. There were not only fewer new vehicles being premiered in Paris this year, there were fewer manufacturers there to display them. Major mainstream European OEM stalwarts such as Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Nissan and Volkswagen chose to sit out Paris this year, as did boutique manufacturers like Bentley, Aston Martin and Lamborghini. This is not simply based in some antipathy on the part of the German, British and Italian manufacturers toward the French market — though for a variety of historical and societal reasons that market may be more dominated by vehicles produced domestically than others. Rather, it is part of a larger trend in the industry. Last year, Mercedes-Benz announced that it would not be participating in the flagship North American International Auto Show in 2019 — and that it might not return. Other brands including Jaguar/Land Rover, Audi, Porsche, Mazda and nearly every exotic carmaker have also departed the Detroit show. Some of these brands will still appear in the city in which the show is taking place, and host an event offsite, to capitalize on the presence of a large number of reporters in attendance. And even brands that do have a presence at the show have shifted their vehicle introductions to the days before the official press opening in an attempt to stand out from the crowd. In many ways, this makes sense. With an expanding number of automakers, with diversification and niche-ification of models and with wholesale shifts that necessitate the introduction of EV or autonomous sub-brands, there is a growing sense that, with everyone shouting at the same time, no one can be heard.