Volvo’s Chinese arm has traveled to the Guangzhou Motor Show to unveil a long-wheelbase version of the S60 sedan called S60L.

The S60L is designed to compete in the lucrative stretched compact luxury sedan segment, a popular niche on the Chinese market that includes the BMW 3-Series Long and the Audi A4L. The S60L features a wheelbase that is 3.1 inches longer than a regular S60, allowing it to free up extra legroom for the passengers riding in the rear seats. Wheelbase aside, it is identical to the regular S60 sold around the world save for a discreet, model-specific L emblem affixed to the trunk lid.

Interior pictures are not available but the S60L likely gains a more luxurious interior with individual, leather-upholstered rear seats, available wood trim on the door panels and airliner-like tablets integrated into the front seatbacks.

Volvo has not made any changes under the hood, meaning the S60L is available with a wide array of gasoline-burning engines ranging from a 2.0-liter four-cylinder that churns out 200 horsepower to a 300-horsepower 3.0-liter V6. All engines are exclusively bolted to automatic transmissions.

Plans to lift economic sanctions in Iran may spark new investment in the Middle Eastern country’s automobile market.

Fiat and Pininfarina are among foreign auto-related firms that plan to attend the Iran Auto Industry International Conference being held later this week in Tehran. The event was actually planned ahead of last week’s lifting of sanctions, but organizer Sasan Ghorbani says that interest from foreign brands increased immediately thereafter.

“Everyone asks us, ‘Did you know that sanctions would be lifted days ahead of this conference?’” Ghorbani told Bloomberg. “To be honest, we didn’t.”

Some sanctions were lifted following a closed-doors meeting in Geneva, Switzerland late last week.

It’s not clear just what direction Iran’s new car market will take. Before European Union sanctions were put into place a few years ago, several European automakers – Fiat, Daimler, Peugoet-Citroen and Renault, in particular – both built and sold vehicles in Iran. Partnering with Iran Khodro, PSA, the parent company of Peugeot-Citroen, had carved out Iran as its second largest market behind France.

Today, numerous hurdles exist: The relative lack of a sales and parts distribution network and an economy weakened by years of sanctions are not offset by high demand.

Ghorbani went as far as to call Iran a “virgin market” even though it has some car-building infrastructure still in place.

A top Volkswagen executive has revealed that the Germany automaker has been surprised by the take rate for its diesel engine technology in the United States. Although popular in Europe, diesels have not historically been strong sellers in the U.S. market.

Diesel-powered passenger cars still make up just a fraction of the United States market, but through the first 10 months of the year the gasoline alternative has accounted for 22 percent of VW’s overall sales. VW is by far the industry leader in terms of diesel sales, accounting for 72 percent of the overall market.

In particular, Jonathan Browning, VW manufacturing boss for the American market, says the company was pleasantly surprised by the interest in the company’s Passat TDI clean diesel.

“Our going-in assumption, because we were going to have to conquest a lot of customers from competitors, was that those customers would be very wedded to petrol powertrains,” Browning told Autocar. “We thought the step to convert them to the Volkswagen brand was going to be a fairly substantial step in itself, and then it would be an even bigger step to convert to diesel.”

“Our original forecast was for 17 per cent of Passat sales to be diesels, but in fact it is running closer to 30 per cent.”

Thanks to that kind of interest, we can expect even more diesel-powered vehicles to surface in U.S. Showrooms in the coming years.

BMW’s revolutionary i3 electric city car has failed to achieve a top five-star rating in Europe’s Euro NCAP safety tests.

Although designed from the ground up on an all-new platform, the i3 could only muster a four-star rating in the Euro NCAP crash tests. The testing body gave the i3 high marks for it performance in frontal and side barrier crash tests, but the plug-in scored poorly enough in the side pole impact test to warrant a one-star deduction from it overall score.

“In the more severe side pole impact, dummy readings of rib compression indicated that protection of the chest was weak,” the agency said.

The i3 also failed to pass rear impact crash tests with flying colors.

“The front seats and head restraints provided marginal protection against whiplash in the event of a rear-end collision,” Euro NCAP said in its assessment of the i3.

Adding to BMW’s black eye, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, Infiniti Q50, Maserati Ghibli and Mazda 3 all managed to score five-stars in Euro NCAP’s latest round of testing.

Euro NCAP has different testing procedures than the NHTSA, so it’s possible that the i3 still could receive a five-star safety rating on these shores.

Honda has confirmed that it is working on a convertible version of its upcoming Acura NSX sports car. Honda first teased the idea of an NSX Spider back in April of 2012.

“We are looking at the convertible,” Jun Goto, Principal Designer of the NSX, told Autocar, “but we have a long way to go with it.” The NSX convertible is expected to launch about two years after the coupe makes its market introduction in 2015.

The NSX convertible is still in the early design stages, with Honda still deciding between a hard or soft top. However, it is believed that the NSX Spider will be a proper convertible and not a targa like the last generation of the car.

Like the fixed-roof version of the car, the NSX convertible is expected to be powered by a twin-turbocharged V6 mated to an electric hybrid system. It will also feature all-wheel drive.

The production NSX is tentatively scheduled to make its world debut at the 2015 Detroit auto show. Acura says the exterior styling of the production car will close match that of the concept, but that the sports car’s interior will actually be a little more radical for production.

Interior designer Yuki Inamori said: “We want to offer the customer something even more exciting than what you see here.”