RUMOUR HAS IT...
FIRE HALTS AUDI OUTPUT
You might have to wait a little longer if you want the new Audi A5 we drove for our cover story this week. A fire at a key supplier has brought Audi’s flagship Ingolstadt production plant to a halt.
Audi has simply run out of the parts it needs to keep building the A4 sedan and wagon and the A5 coupe, Sportback five-door hatch and the cabriolet. While it withstood a similar problem at a plastic finish producer late in 2016, the Ingolstadt plant was brought down by a crisis at the supplier that makes the cladding for the front firewalls of the cars, Audi says.
At least 8,500 of the plant’s 43,000 workers were to take most of the week off, with Audi losing out on building at least 5,600 cars. The A4 and A5 ranges will continue to be built at Audi’s neighbouring plant at Neckarsulm, whose supplies were not affected by the fire.
TRACKHAWK ON THE WAY
Fiat Chrysler SA has confirmed that it is planning to bring the new Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk to SA. Sitting above the SRT model, the Trackhawk will be an all-out road racer with over 522kW courtesy of the Hellcat engine from the Dodge Charger and Challenger. Four-wheel drive will help the Trackhawk reach 100km/h
RUSSIA EYES PRODUCTION
Final development is taking place on Russia’s new Kortezh, a range of vehicles that will be built, under the instruction of President Vladimir Putin, only for government people. Some 5,000 each of the sedan, limo, SUV and MPV will be built with
UBER PLAN TOPPLED
Uber’s trial of self-driving vehicles was dealt a blow after one of its autonomous Volvo XC90s was tipped on its side during a crash involving two human-driven vehicles in the US. The crash, which took place last Friday, forced Uber to immediately halt its self-driving trials pending an investigation.
On Tuesday Reuters reported that the company was resuming its trials after the investigation revealed that the driver of one of the other vehicles involved in the crash “failed to yield”. The Volvo was in full self-driving mode at the time of the crash.
SHINING NEW STARS
Development teams are seriously busy at Mercedes at the moment. Not only is the company readying a new AClass, but also the new CLS, SClass and updates to the GLE. The new S-Class should debut in September and will feature extensive revisions to the front and rear styling. It will adopt the Intelligent Drive system from the E-Class and the plugin hybrid version is expected to get wireless charging.
Meanwhile, our sources confirm that the new GLE SUV will get styling changes to improve its aerodynamics and thus its efficiency. Changes will be made to the engines with the aim to cut consumption across the range by 20%. Expect the GLE in SA in 2018.
Bigger news for Merc can be found in the new CLS. Under the bonnet, the CLS will ditch its V6 engines in favour of inline six units and the 2.1 turbodiesel will be replaced by a 2.0l. The CLS will get the dual screens of the E-Class and Merc will ditch the Shooting Brake version altogether.
GETTING IT RIGHT
We would like to correct an error in our first drive story on the Nissan Navara in Motor News of March 21.
We incorrectly stated that the Navara shares a platform with the Fiat Fullback and the Mitsubishi Triton.
This is not the case and we apologise for any confusion this might have caused.