1978 Vw Custom Bus on 2040-cars

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German carmakers recall 630,000 diesel vehicles in Europe

Mercedes, Opel, Porsche, and Volkswagen will recall over 630,000 cars in Europe, according to reports Friday. No diesel car has been able to get under the legal emissions limit in real-world driving, according to a German government investigation. While only Volkswagen Group has been using a specific "defeat device", other carmakers have been playing with their exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) systems. Depending of the manufacturer, the systems have been cut off at a certain temperature. In a specific test cycle the systems operate to fulfill the legal requirements, but in everyday use the limits are exceeded. According to the magazine Der Spiegel, the supplier Bosch is behind this programming and has provided it to all German automakers. The mentioned carmakers have announced recalls, but many other manufacturers are also mentioned by name in the report, including Alfa Romeo, Chevrolet, Dacia, Fiat, Ford, Hyundai, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Nissan, Renault, and Suzuki. PSA Group, which produces Peugeot, Citroen, and DS cars, declared yesterday that its offices were raided following an emissions investigation. Related Video: News Source: AutocarImage Credit: Getty Images Government/Legal Green Recalls Mercedes-Benz Porsche Volkswagen Opel Emissions Diesel Vehicles diesel emissions investigation

2015 Volkswagen Golf R [w/video]

Volkswagen hired a photographer to come shoot the handful of journalists that it brought to drive the 2015 Golf R at Buttonwillow Raceway north of Los Angeles. This fact, though unremarkable in and of itself, was something I hadn't noticed until I was well into my track time – probably ten laps deep on a day that would see me run twice that number. In any event, I noticed the intrepid shooter as he was sprinting from one side of the track to the other somewhere before Turn 2, while I was barreling down the main straightaway, still looking through Turn 1. In the roughly two-mile configuration of the track that I drove, Buttonwillow is a big, wide-open circuit, largely flat and with excellent overall visibility. On that layout, and just hours into my Golf R experience, I'd already become confident in endeavoring to push the limits of VW's latest blistering hatch. In fact, the easy nature of driving the thing quickly had me overestimating my pace. So when I saw the photog sprint across the tarmac I instinctively slowed way too much, way too early for Turn 1. Looking back at the incident after I'd pitted for the session, I laughed at myself, knowing I'd have had to be driving almost double my actual speed to put the camera guy in any real danger of being hit. But the experience crystallized what my full test of the R bore out: this is a car that makes you feel much faster than you otherwise would, at least in a competition setting. The 2015 Golf R is an uber hatch that will flatter those hyper-enthusiasts passionate enough to splash out on its steep price tag, but without threatening sales of core models like the GTI and its ilk. That's a good thing for the VW fanboys, to be sure, and, I'd argue, a great thing for the strength of the German brand overall. {C} The R felt both placid and comfortable while I clicked off highway miles in search of the racetrack. My test in California had at least two things in common with the First Drive feature that Steve Ewing brought us with the Golf R in Sweden. First, we both drove European specification cars (though mine didn't suffer from the same sticker abuse that Steve's did). Second, we were both somewhat limited in terms of driving the car in varied, real-world situations. My street route consisted almost entirely of tracking California's I-5 north out of Los Angeles; which any Angelino will tell you is a less-than-riveting mode of travel.

Volkswagen's De Silva says next Scirocco will be 'completely different'

From our perspective, the reborn Volkswagen Scirocco is a handsome (if squat) little thing. Yet design-wise, it's always struck us as uncomfortably close to the Golf three-door hatchback with which it shares its basic underpinnings. That aesthetic kinship may be part of the reason why Volkswagen has steadfastly refused to import the Scirocco to North America, seeing as how the Golf doesn't regularly set the company's sales charts alight, and it's less expensive.
But that visual similarity might be about to change, says Walter De Silva, who recently told Australia's Car Advice that, "It must be completely different... we don't want to repeat the bodystyle of the Scirocco, we want to change that." Further, the Volkswagen Group's design boss says that the next-generation car isn't terribly far along in development yet - "at the moment, it's only a studio [project]... it's not defined." It's probably just as well, as the new seventh-generation Golf arguably borrows some of its design from the current Scirocco anyway.
So we should expect a much bolder, more differentiated design, right? Well, yes, no and maybe. Back in September, De Silva himself was quoted as saying that the era of flamboyant styling has passed, and that future VW designs will be simpler to better reflect the times and preserve resale value. So... how different could it be?