A round-up of this week's motoring news in brief
Suite of Saab suitors slims
SWEDISH CARMAKER Saab said this week the field of potential bidders for the firm had been narrowed down to a few candidates, with a final sale to be agreed hopefully sometime in early summer.
Saab sought protection from creditors in February to buy time to find a new owner after parent General Motors said it would cut ties with the brand by January 1st next.
Fiat, which has agreed to acquire a stake in Chrysler, has said it wants to merge its car unit with GM’s European operations, which include Opel and Saab, to create the world’s second-largest automaker after Toyota.
Saab aims to win court approval for an extended period of creditor protection on May 20th.
20 London cars set to trial automatic speed limiters
AUTOMATIC SPEED limiters are to be fitted to 20 test cars in London as part of a six-month trial.
Limiters will also be fitted to a London bus and a licensed taxi, according to Transport for London (TfL), which runs the scheme.
Volunteers will test the Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) technology, which enables drivers to select an option where acceleration is stopped automatically at the prevailing speed limit.
Designed for any road within the M25 area, the technology can be disabled easily, and it reverts to an advisory status where the current limit is displayed as a driver aid. There is also a complete override which disables the system entirely.
The trial will monitor driver behaviour, journey times and the effect that driving within the speed limit has on vehicle emissions.
It is estimated that if two-thirds of London drivers were to use the system, London road casualties could be cut by 10 per cent.
A report will be submitted to London Mayor Boris Johnson, and the technology made available to external bodies. Southwark Council in south London has expressed interest in fitting ISA to more than 300 of its vehicles.
Chris Lines, head of TfL’s London road safety unit, said: “This innovative technology could help any driver in London avoid the unnecessary penalties of creeping over the speed limit, and at the same time will save lives. We know the technology works, and now we want to know how drivers in all types of vehicles respond to it.”
Suzuki sees 87% drop in profits
SUZUKI MOTORS escaped a loss in the final quarter of last year thanks to growth in its main Indian market, but forecast an 87 per cent drop in profit this year citing slumping global demand and a stronger yen.
The Japanese car firm that produces the Swift and the recently introduced Alto has been relatively shielded by its big presence in India, where it controls about half of the car market through local unit Maruti Suzuki India.
With its best-selling Alto, sales rose for the fourth straight month in April, in contrast with trends in the US and Japan, which have pummelled other Japanese carmakers such as Toyota and Honda.
While Suzuki is riding the popularity of small cars in its main Indian and Japanese markets, it is not without its worries.
Suzuki is relying on embattled General Motors for the foundation of its hybrid and fuel-cell technologies, which it may need to stay in the game as fuel economy standards around the world are tightened.
“We’re working on hybrids with GM, and I realise this doesn’t look good,” plain-spoken president and chairman Osamu Suzuki (photographed above) told a news conference.
“That doesn’t mean we’re going to switch partners just like that. It’s a complicated issue, but we’re going to do everything we can to come up with a viable solution,” he said.