A Daimler executive and German supplier Bosch have criticized Tesla Motors’ proprietary ‘Supercharger’ network, arguing in favor of standardized infrastructure.

“The future [of an electric charging infrastructure] lies in standardization,” Daimler’s R&D chief, Thomas Weber, told Automobilwoche. “As with gas stations, we need a charging system for all manufacturers, not least because it reduces the cost of the infrastructure, but it is also more convenient for customers.”

Tesla has continued to expand its charging network, which allows its customers to quickly refill their batteries for free. The company currently has 14 stations in various locations throughout Europe, including Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands.

The highest number are in Daimler’s home market, where Tesla promises to place a charging station within 200 miles of half the German population by the end of March and 100 percent by the end of the year.

The 120-kilowatt technology enables drivers to fill their battery to half capacity in approximately 20 minutes, up to 80 percent in 40 minutes and completely top off a drained car in 75 minutes.

Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner argued that it will not be a realistic approach for every automaker to make its own charging network. He suggests “the technology exists” to build standardized chargers across Europe, however companies “just need to want to implement it.”

Most mainstream automakers have been slow to embrace electric-only vehicles, partly due to the charging limitations. Universal charging stations are available in many cities throughout Europe and elsewhere, however most installations take much longer than Tesla’s technology to fill a battery.

Details surrounding General Motors’ botched recall continue to surface, revealing when the company became aware of a widespread problem and how its lawyers treated families of accident victims — with alleged threats and denials — around the same time.

Earlier reports have indicated that GM’s own engineers spotted trouble with the defective ignition switch as early as 2001, before the production cars even began rolling off assembly lines. Journalists and customers later reported similar issues in 2004 as sales began and accident numbers continued to climb.

Engineers subsequently initiated several investigations over the next few years without taking action, however on May 15, 2009 the company is known to have verified data from “black box” modules recovered from wrecked cars. They found that the ignition switch was in the accessory position in half of the cases, disabling the airbags at the time of impact, according to New York Times research.

Despite the apparently clear link in 2009 between the ignition switch and disabled airbags, potentially on a wide scale, the company still did not move to recall the affected vehicles.

Potentially confusing GM’s own internal investigations at the time, the company’s engineers quietly changed the switch design in 2006. The revision was put into production without changing the part number, against standard industry practice, and unbeknownst to other divisions within the company, according to an Automotive News report. It is unclear if any higher-level executives were involved in this decision, though documentary evidence of such oversight has yet to be submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Despite the internal change to fix the faulty switch, GM’s lawyers are said to have aggressively dealt with several families of occupants killed in accidents that were blamed on a defect.

Driving in South Carolina in 2009, Allen Ray Floyd lost control of his 2006 Cobalt and was killed in the accident. The accident occurred on July 9, just one week before the ‘old GM’ became the ‘new GM’ and automatically became protected from previous liabilities.

“They sent us a letter in September telling us to drop our case or else they’d come after us,” said the family’s attorney in the case, William Jordan. “We looked at the prospect of going into bankruptcy court and duking it out with them and looking at the language of the bankruptcy legislation, and it just seemed to be such a big undertaking.”

Later the same year another driver, Benjamin Hair, died when he lost control of a Pontiac G5 and struck a tree and the airbags failed to deploy. Despite the changed part and internal investigations, his family was allegedly told there was no defect to blame for the accident.

The company is currently facing several lawsuits over its actions. Legislators have called on the federal government to step in and quash the liability shield that was established in 2009, though this will likely require formal litigation in court.

With Jaguar’s XK coupe and convertible range slated to drive off into the sunset this summer, rumors are beginning to emerge concerning what form a successor could take.

According to an Auto Express report, Jaguar will replace the XK with a coupe variant of its next-generation XJ full-size sedan. Stylistically, the car is expected to blend cues from its four-door sibling and the smaller F-Type to create a muscular, yet elegant design.

While unconfirmed by Jaguar, the rumored XJ Coupe would be consistent with comments from the automaker’s design director, Ian Callum, who has suggested that a larger, more luxurious grand touring coupe could take the place of the current XK. Such a strategy could help differentiate the model from the sporty F-Type, which has severely cannibalized XK sales.

If Jaguar ends up green-lighting the XJ Coupe, it likely won’t arrive before 2017 at the earliest, or two-and-a-half years after the XK is discontinued. Besides the need to wait for the next XJ sedan, that gap would also be necessitated by Jaguar’s need to focus on developing other, higher-volume models, namely the XE compact sedan and C-X17-inspired crossover.

Photo by Mark Elias.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has announced that Audi’s new A3 sedan has earned the agency’s Top Safety Pick+ honors.

Redesigned for 2015, it is said to be Audi’s first model to earn a Top Safety Pick title and the first ever to pass the small-overlap front crash test with a good or acceptable rating.

The small-overlap evaluation, introduced in 2012, is considered the agency’s toughest trial. Vehicles are driven into the edge of a solid barrier at 40 mph, highlighting limitations to certain crumple-zone designs that may otherwise perform well during head-on collisions or moderate-overlap impacts.

“In the small overlap test of the A3, the structure held up well, with a minimal amount of intrusion into the driver’s space,” the agency said in a statement. “The dummy’s movement was well-controlled, and injury measures taken from the dummy indicated a low risk of injury.”

The ‘+’ designation requires a vehicle to demonstrate some form of crash-prevention technology. The A3 features an optional automatic-braking system that successfully avoided a crash in the IIHS 12-mph test.

The all-new A3 is scheduled to arrive in showrooms next month.

Chrysler’s SRT division has reportedly decided to kill its Le Mans racing program for the Viper GTS-R.

The move has been announced just one week after the company confirmed plans to temporarily shut down its Viper production facility in Detroit amid poor sales entering 2014.

“We regretfully and respectfully decline to participate in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans,” SRT chief Ralph Gilles said in a statement published by Automobile.

The timing of the Le Mans announcement has naturally fueled speculation that the company is attempting to tighten all expenditures associated with its flagship sports car, which is believed to have sold less than 100 units in the first two months of the year.

The decisions mark ongoing uncertainty in Chrysler’s Viper strategy. The sports coupe was discontinued in 2010 in its fourth generation, then revived last year with an annual sales target of 1,600 units. The push coincided with two Viper GTS-R race cars re-entering Le Mans the same year.

In a follow-up statement, an SRT spokesperson denied that there was a link between the production halt and the racing program. Gilles also noted that the company will still be involved in factory-supported racing in North America.