Super Luxe Cars

According to an unnamed “insider,” Citroen is considering launching a separate brand just for eco-friendly vehicles. Earlier this year, the quirky French automaker announced a new high-end brand that would bring premium features to its existing vehicle platforms. Similarly, the first production vehicle under the green brand would echo the C-Cactus concept from the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2007 but be built atop the automaker’s C4 platform.

Expect some innovative uses of materials, as previewed on the C-Cactus project, along with a fuel-saving powertrain of some sort. Options include going fully electric, using a hybrid powertrain or using a small three-cylinder diesel engine that would put out less than 100 g/km of carbon emissions. Sounds great, but let’s just hope they don’t keep too much of the melted-candle look of the concept.

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The BMW Z10 ED — Efficient Dynamics — is a green supercar that’s out to get the Audi R8. Tech specs are hypothesized to be a high-pressure turbocharged inline six cylinder with 400 hp that would use either a mechanical valve system or BMW’s VANOS system, and run through a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission. Along with electronic stop/start aids, there would be technology to turn exhaust gasses into electricity. With the use of plenty of carbon fiber and aluminum, the car is meant to weigh no more than 3,080 pounds.

Even though it hasn’t stopped Ferrari and Lamborghini, lead BMW designer Adrian Van Hooydonk thinks it might be hard to sell the Z10 with a supercar body in a global recession. Most importantly, though, he wants the car to be a symbol of the future, and to offer an “exciting dynamic experience.” We can’t imagine the sketch is anything go by, unless he also wants the car to try and eat you.

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EDAG has presented its new “Light Car – Open Source” concept here at the Geneva Motor Show, and while it outwardly appears to look like any other nondescript electric bubble car, there’s a lot of innovative content on the inside screaming for attention.

It’s hard to know where to start: The use of (O)LED technology as both driver-configurable exterior lighting units and as a television screen-like safety feature that alerts those behind of road conditions; its 100% recyclable basalt fiber chassis (said to be at once lighter and cheaper than carbon-fiber or aluminum); or the fact that this is an open-source effort, with EDAG taking the lead but freely opening up the car’s technologies to outside developers for improvement and modification.

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