Toyota is reportedly set to recall its 2014 Highlander SUVs over a bug in the airbag control software.

The company has discovered a problem with occupant weight calculation, which may log the front passenger as lighter than their actual weight.

The problem can prevent the front passenger airbag from properly deploying in certain situations. The system can disable the airbag if it believes a child is in the seat, potentially leading to injury if the occupant is an adult, however the problem has not been officially tied to any injuries or deaths.

The problem will be fixed by updating the software for the airbag control module to properly calculate occupant weight.

The issue is said to affect approximately 50,000 SUVs globally, most of which were sold in the US market.

Volvo has revealed the interior of the all-new 2015 XC90 crossover that is scheduled to debut at next October’s Paris Motor Show.

The pictures confirm the next XC90 moves up a notch on the market with a luxurious cockpit that features acres of leather upholstery, real wood trim on the dashboard and on the center console as well as a large tablet-like touch screen that controls the crossover’s infotainment system. The steering is commanded through a three-spoke multi-function wheel, and the next XC90 packs a fully digital instrument cluster.

Volvo is keeping pictures of the exterior under wraps until the XC90 is formally unveiled next August but earlier spy shots give us an idea of just how big the crossover will be. Although the plastic cladding adds a few inches to the test mule’s dimensions, it’s clear that it was designed with carpool duties in mind.

Under that thick padding resides Volvo’s new design language previewed by the Concept Coupé that was presented at the Frankfurt Motor Show last September, and, more recently, by the XC Coupe concept shown at the Detroit auto show as well as the Concept Estate introduced in Geneva. Generally more angular than the current model, the crossover’s front end will feature T-shaped LED daytime running lights, a floating grille with horizontal slats and rippled hood. Out back, the upright tail lamps will remain but they will adopt LED technology.

From launch, the XC90 will be available with a fuel-saving plug-in hybrid drivetrain called Twin Engine in Volvo-speak. The setup will consist of a turbocharged four-cylinder engine rated at about 300 horsepower and a small electric motor linked to a compact battery pack. Together, the two power sources will put out around 442 lb-ft. of torque, enough to rival V8 powerplants, while returning what Volvo promises will be “class-leading” fuel mileage.

Conventional versions of the next XC90 will be powered by Volvo’s new Drive-E engine family which includes a turbocharged four-cylinder mill as well as a four-cylinder unit equipped with both turbocharging and supercharging technology.

The upcoming XC90 will be the first vehicle to ride on Volvo’s all-new Scalable Platform Architecture, or SPA in short. Similar in concept to Volkswagen’s MQB platform, SPA was designed to underpin many of Volvo’s upcoming models regardless of size or vehicle type. The S60, the S80 and the XC60 will all ride on the platform when they are renewed.

Additional details about the new Volvo XC90 will emerge in the coming months. Following its debut in Paris, the crossover is scheduled to go on sale across the United States next spring as a 2015 model.

A report coming out of Germany indicates Porsche’s oft-rumored entry-level model has been given the green light for a 2016 launch.

Tentatively called 718, Porsche’s entry-level model will take the form of a small roadster loosely billed as the successor to the 550 Spyder race car built in the 1950s. It will ride on a modified Boxster platform but it will be much lighter than its more expensive sibling thanks to noticeably smaller dimensions and the widespread use of aluminum in its construction.

The 718′s entry-level positioning won’t make it a low-cost car, and its cockpit will remain well-built and well-appointed. Bucket seats, a three-spoke steering wheel and comprehensive selection of analog gauges will be part of the package.

Power will come from a 2.0-liter flat-four engine that will send 286 horsepower to the rear wheels via either a manual or a dual-clutch DSG gearbox. Buyers after more grunt will be able to select a 2.5-liter version of the boxer mill rated at 260 horsepower, and additional variants will likely join the lineup over the course of the production run.

If the rumor proves true, the Porsche 718 could be unveiled at the 2016 edition of the Geneva Motor Show and go on sale in the United States and in Europe shortly after. In Germany, the roadster will reportedly carry a base price of €39,000 (approximately $53,300), €10,000 (roughly $13,700) less than the most affordable Boxster.

Mercedes-Benz has announced it will comply with the strict emissions regulations that will come into effect in Europe and in the United States by launching additional plug-in hybrid models. Company executives say they have the technology required to build electric cars, but they believe plug-in hybrids will greatly outsell EVs in the coming years.

“For C-Class upwards, the only way to go as we near 2020 and beyond is plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. We will have a plug-in S-Class in September, and later in the life cycle of the C-Class we will have one too. Mercedes Rear-drive Architecture will make it possible for us to go for plug-in hybrids across the range,” explained Thomas Weber, Mercedes’ head of development, in an interview with British magazine Autocar.

Weber added many car shoppers still see electric vehicles as a compromise because they offer a limited driving range and the charging infrastructure is not up to date in many cities around the world. All told, Mercedes predicts demand for electric vehicles will be largely driven by customers looking to buy small, lightweight cars like the smart fortwo electric drive and the B-Class Electric that are primarily designed to be used in urban centers.

The company has already started rolling out hybrid versions of the C-Class, the E-Class and the S-Class. The latest member of the family, the C300 BlueTEC Hybrid, uses a 2.1-liter four-cylinder turbodiesel engine linked to a seven-speed automatic transmission that works with an electric motor rated at 27 horsepower and 191 lb-ft. of torque. Power is stored in a lithium-ion battery pack. The sedan can sprint from zero to 62 mph in 6.5 seconds yet it returns 65 mpg in a mixed European cycle when driven with a light right foot.

Although Mercedes thinks plug-in hybrids are the right way forward, the company admits the take-up rate among car buyers heavily depends on how governments subsidize clean vehicles.

“It will be important what the governments in countries are doing to support this early phase. It comes down to subsidies [although] maybe without money you can have benefits such as parking for free, special lanes during traffic jams and so on,” concluded Weber.

Photo by Ronan Glon.

A report coming out of Malaysia indicates Caterham owner Tony Fernandes has put the company up for sale for £350 million, a sum that converts to approximately $589 million.

Fernandes wants to sell the Caterham Group as a whole, meaning the sale includes Caterham’s car-building arm, its Formula 1 team, an engineering division called Caterham Technology and Innovations as well as Caterham Composite. All of the company’s assets are also included in the sale.

Malaysian newspaper The Edge claims Fernandes is hoping wealthy businessmen in the Middle East will be interested in taking over the company.

Caterham has suffered several setbacks in the past few years. Once a niche British automaker, the company’s car-building arm was set to become a serious global player by launching a mid-engined sports car jointly-developed with Renault’s reborn Alpine division and two performance-focused models based on the Renault Clio hatchback and Captur crossover, respectively. Disagreements over the sports car’s design recently ended the alliance and consequently canceled the other two models, leaving Caterham on its own to finish the development and without a quick way to boost its annual sales with volume models.

Additionally, the group’s under-performing Formula 1 team appears to be headed for the chopping block as Fernandes has repeatedly warned he would stop funding the team if its results didn’t improve. The team didn’t score a single point in the 2012 and 2013 seasons, and it has yet to score in the first five races of the 2014 season.

Fernandes has not confirmed his intentions to sell the company.

Mazda likes to brag that on any given weekend there are more of their cars on road courses across America than any other marque. On the weekend of June 21-22, they’ll also be able to add Germany’s iconic Nurburgring circuit to that list.

In honor of the Mazda MX-5 turning 25 years old this year, the Hiroshima-based automaker will enter a race-prepped MX-5 in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring. For the effort, Mazdaspeed has teamed up with UK-based JOTA Sport to prepare the car and manage the race team.

The day-long enduro will see four drivers taking shifts behind the wheel: British journalist and MX-5 racer Owen Mildenhall, who has previously raced the event with Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi in a Lexus IS F; Nurburgring veteran Wolfgang Kaufmann; Roadster (the Japanese name for the MX-5) Party Race series winner Teruaki Kato, and Stefan Johansson, who had a stint behind the wheel of the Mazda 787B at Le Mans in 1990.

The MX-5 will be competing in the V3 class, a category largely unmodified except for safety equipment, suspension and wheel and tire enhancements. The car is based on a third-generation soft-top MX-5 with the standard 2.0-liter, 167hp inline-four. The day-long enduro will use part of the Nurburgring Grand Prix circuit and the legendary Nordschleife.

Nissan has announced that production of the Fairlady Z Roadster, sold as the 370Z Roadster in markets outside Japan, will come to an end on September 30 of this year. This likely means there will be no 2015 model year for the convertible 370Z. UPDATE: A spokesman for Nissan has told us “The announcement was for Japanese market only. There is no announcement regarding – and there’s no effect on – 2015 370Z Roadster production for any other market, especially the US.”

The two-seater, open-top version of the 370Z sports coupe was introduced to the Japanese market in October 2009. As of April 2014, domestic sales of the model totaled 798 units, according to Japanese media, a decent sales number for a specialty car in Nissan’s home market.

Nissan has said it will instead concentrate on evolving the standard Fairlady Z/370Z in a more performance-oriented direction during the model’s sunset years. The first evidence of this came just last week with the recently unveiled 2015 370Z NISMO, a performance model with enhanced aerodynamics over the 2014 version and improved handling in the high-speed range.

Throughout its life, the Fairlady Z/370Z Roadster utilized the same 3.7-liter V6 generating 350 hp and 276 lb-ft of torque as its hard-top counterpart. With an available six-speed manual or seven-speed automatic transmission, both offering with rev-matching downshifts, riding on a shortened wheelbase version of Nissan’s front-midship platform it has served its purpose well. However, it has been rumored that the next-gen Z-car will be smaller and lighter than the 370Z, the first time Nissan will have reduced the model’s displacement since the 240Z’s introduction in October 1969.

France’s Citroën has lifted the veil off of the facelifted DS3, a premium sub-compact hatchback based on the C3.

Visually, the DS3 features new headlights that blend LED and xenon technology into a single unit. Citroën says mixing the two technologies yields low beams that are 35-percent more efficient and high beams that are up to 75-percent more efficient.

Lights aside, the updated DS3 gains additional alloy wheel designs and paint colors as well as a host of new customization options.

Citroën has fitted the smallest member of the DS lineup with a system called Active City Braking that uses a short-range radar to automatically bring the car to a stop if it detects a collision is imminent. The system works at speeds of up to 20 mph. Additionally, all trim levels can be ordered with a rear-view camera at an extra cost.

Mechanically, the DS3 is offered with a host of new Euro 6-compliant engines including 100-horsepower turbodiesel HDi four-cylinder mill capable of returning up to 78 mpg in a mixed European cycle. Buyers who prefer gasoline engines can select a 1.2-liter three-cylinder unit that sends 82 horsepower to the front wheels via a semi-automatic transmission.

The facelifted Citroën DS3 is scheduled to go on sale across Europe next July. Pricing information will be published closer to its on-sale date.

Lamborghini and Milan-based coachbuilder Zagato have lifted the veil off of a one-off sports car dubbed 5-95. Commissioned by Swiss collector Albert Spiess, the coupe rides on a Gallardo LP570-4 platform but it boasts a bespoke Zagato-penned body.

The 5-95 leaves behind Lamborghini’s angular design language in favor of a more classic rounded shape accented by a large oval radiator grille, curved wheel arches and a truncated rear end that gives the car a shorter overhang. Circular tail lamps add a retro touch, while Zagato’s traditional double-bubble roof wraps up the look.

Zagato and Lamborghini have chosen not to publish pictures of what lies beneath the sheet metal, but the instrument cluster bezel visible in one of the photos hints the cockpit is standard Gallardo fare.

With 2014 marking the tenth season of Toyota Racing Development’s involvement with NASCAR, as well as its seventh year running in the pinnacle Sprint Cup series, the TRD division brought us back to the roots of Stock Car Racing in Charlotte, North Carolina. What started as a means of running moonshine in the quickest manner possible without hindrance from state revenue agents is now a high-tech racing industry with lasers, clean-rooms and cad-cam design.

Traditionally, the middle of May is NASCAR All-Star race time, giving us the perfect chance for a deep dive into the Charlotte, North Carolina-based operations of two of the brand’s top-tier teams, Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing, as well as a chance to talk with TRD officials about how racing improves the breed.

Joe Gibbs Racing is the team founded by former Washington Redskin’s NFL football coach Joe Gibbs, who was raised in the car culture of California, where he drag raced while growing up.

Settling in the roots of stockcar racing near Charlotte, JGR is comprised of 450 team members in a facility that covers 250,000-square feet, with race design engineers, fabricators, mechanics, CNC room, painters, graphic designers, physical trainers, a weight room that rivals many found in the NFL, and a build facility whose floor is clean enough to eat from.

Rolling chassis
With the NASCAR circuit drivers cutting their teeth on everything from tight oval bullpens as seen in Bristol, to the Super Speedways of Daytona and Talladega to the road courses of Sonoma and Watkins Glen, this is definitely not a one-size-fits-all type of sport. As such, the teams keep a handful of cars on hand, nearly always at the ready for the next race weekend.

In the case of JGR’s three Sprint Cup runners, each team keeps as many as 15 cars in stock, taking two to the track each weekend. While some are racing, others are in new- or rebuilding phases, while others still are utilized as test beds for the teams to try new parts or techniques before finding their way onto an actual racecar.

The cars are rebuilt after each race, with an average lifespan of 2-3 races. Damaged parts are removed and replaced or repaired as needed. A car is typically retired at the point there is damage to the chassis that compromises its safety. At that point, it usually shows up on the show car circuit or as a practice car, where crewmembers rehearse their pit stop duties. Finally, those vehicles that are beyond repair are sent to a recycling facility, where the car is destroyed under the watchful eyes of a JGR team official, to prevent other teams from learning through JGR’s experience. In this racing city, nearly everything has been copied twice already, as spying is relatively easy, seeing most of the teams are located within 30-miles of each other in the surrounding suburbs.

New engines, every two weeks
TRD builds motors for their NASCAR teams at their engine facility in Costa Mesa, California. From there, they are shipped to the teams about two weeks before installation in the rolling chassis, which are taken to the track for a particular race weekend. Based on a standardized 358 cubic-inch V8 engine, they are now in the second year of running electronic fuel injection, after more than fifty years using carburetors.

While all of the Toyota Sprint Cup teams receive their engines directly from TRD, Gibbs Racing has their own engine-build program for the cars they use to compete in the Nationwide Cup Series. JGR also offers build and lease programs for other competitors in the same series and the Truck Series, who may not have the same competitive resources. Such programs manage to keep busy the 450-team employees – including several former NFL players busy – as you can’t just rely on race winnings alone to support the operations.

An overview with Tyler Gibbs, Group VP of TRD
Toyota Racing Development is responsible for the brand’s motorsports efforts in North America. “Winning races is what we are here for. We have about 75,000 square feet in Costa Mesa, California, where we do all of the engine activity from design to development and testing which results in the engines we build for JGR and the Michael Waltrip racing teams.”

“The brand has a facility in Salisbury, that is responsible for nothing but chassis engineering. There, we have tire guys, vehicle kinematics guys, aerodynamicists, you name it. We have test rigs that any of our teams can bring their cars to, and drivers can use to support the racing activities. Between the two, there are around 250 employees total, with 15 or 20 people trackside each weekend.

“As for financial arrangements, the Toyota model is different than that of its competitors, in the sense that it does not necessarily provide large amounts of financial support but does provide a large amount of technical support. Instead of outsourcing to other companies, we handle it ourselves and then make sure the data is shared equally and built upon, rather than have simultaneous development going on with a bunch of different teams.”

“Toyota offers tire specialists, wind tunnels specialists and so on, so that when the teams go to tire or wind tunnel testing, the brand has support engineers that are there to supplement the work from Goodyear and other specialists,” said Gibbs. “We have a piece of equipment in Salisbury that takes a lot of data from the car but it’s hard to post-process that and use it in a meaningful way because it just generates so much data. So we help the teams by post-processing it and working through it with them. And that in turn, helps them build a better chassis down the road.”

Gibbs continued by describing the sensors that are part of the car: “The Sprint Cup cars have an electronics control unit (ECU) in them and NASCAR has a black box in the cars. The data from the black box is collected by NASCAR and some of it is made available to the teams but by and large, accelerometers are only used by them (NASCAR) during a race. We can only use that info during specified test periods.”

Secrecy and competitive advantages are always at stake between the two major Toyota racing partners, Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing, says Gibbs. “There are things that JGR or MWR has developed that we know about but we don’t share between the two because of the nature of the competition. There are other things that we work very openly with. But in many ways, we work in a manner that is complementary to both of them. It depends, but sometimes one team approaches us and says “hey we are a team (together) and so Toyota helps them develop something that is shared between both teams.”

Clearly MWR and JGR benefit from the technology and largesse of Toyota, but we wanted to know what Toyota receives in return, in addition to the natural marketing exposure that comes from one of America’s largest spectator sports. Gibbs’ immediate response stressed how the two teams put our brands out in front. In the case of Michael Waltrip’s cutup personality, “it’s Michael being Michael.”

“From a technical side,” Gibbs said, “we match up much closer today to the other teams from an aero perspective. But the more important part is from the safety side. This current generation of car was developed using a very sophisticated Toyota human computer model so we can run a “human” through a crash test where we don’t have to destroy things. The way the driver sits and so on, was set up by technology we had, and then you combine it with all of the data we received from NASCAR. So from our perspective, safety is the single biggest piece of technology that we take away from this.”

Racing improves the breed, but that doesn’t mean there is a high-performance pushrod V8 headed to production anytime soon. Gibbs thought the idea of that was unlikely, “owing to the emissions rules underway in the industry, and some of their efficiencies.

“Our competitors have it for the historical reasons (that they have always had a V8) so that makes sense. From our perspective, we have always had overhead cam (engines) so it doesn’t make sense for us to step backwards into making a production pushrod engine again.” “To the best of my knowledge, we are the only ones making a pushrod V8 within Toyota, worldwide,” he offered.

“We offered the ability to draw a new engine from a clean sheet of paper. How NASCAR works is they say, “here’s the rule book, follow that. Don’t be bigger than the biggest in the garage, and don’t be smaller than the smallest.” “Those were the ground rules, and that’s generally how NASCAR works. They’re looking for parity, but also for competition.” To which we add, they are looking for a show.

The engine is based on a 5.7-liter V8. They produce a pool of 100 engines per year. Over the course of that year, engines within the pool will see a total of 375-builds. At this point in the year, about 45 are at TRD in various stages of build, while 55 or so are either in transit, at tracks, shops, testing with teams, and so on. The engines arrive two weeks before an event, when the teams are in the process of building a pair of cars for a specific track. The engine typically arrives on a Friday and is installed early the following week.

We were curious between races, which parts are swapped out? Gibbs said, “that depends on factors including the times above certain RPMs, or mileage, but also on the characteristic of the part. “Pistons, valves and springs will definitely be replaced but the rest generally relies upon their mileage intervals.

“Each engine has a serial number so we know the mileage and rpm times for all the components when they come back in, and we know life expectancy and replace them accordingly. The heads are rarely mileaged but since that’s one of the main areas of development for all the teams, most of the guys are subbing them out way before they are worn out. But those same heads will then work their way down to the second-tier Nationwide or third-tier Truck series.”

We were curious to find if there was a common part that is shared between the racecar and the street car – Gibbs said that to the “best of my knowledge, there is not. It used to be with the truck series, that they shared a power steering pump, but that was the only part. Today, there may be a small electronic piece as part of another piece, but other than that, no.”

Despite Toyota Motor Sales moving to Texas, Gibbs was quick to point out that Toyota Racing Development has no plans to move from their engine build facility in Costa Mesa, California.

A few words with Michael Waltrip
The always-quotable Michael Waltrip was his typical chatty self in talking about his team’s prospects during the Sprint Cup All-Star race in Charlotte.”We won the Showdown last night, with one of the fastest cars. Toyota is able to adapt quickly to changes we need, and make changes for us rather quickly.”

We asked what to expect that night, and he said to watch for racecars coming off turn-four, which is 24-degrees of banking onto a very flat pit road. “They’ll make that corner right there at 150 (mph) and then hold their gas open for as long as they dare, and then try and get it stopped before their pit box. That alone is worth the price of admission.”

“The drivers know when the caution flags will fly, so tonight becomes a sheer speed contest,” he continued. “Normally there are tricks you can play, like changing just two tires or a splash and go, but tonight it will be just about sheer speed. Denny Hamlin feels he has one of the fastest cars here. On the other hand, the crew chiefs all have simulation software and they all have trends so they need to figure out how to set that car up based on what they think’s gonna happen, so in the end it comes down to who makes the best educated guess and does the best setup, which could be the car that wins the race. They’ll all get pretty close, and for a million dollars, racecar drivers will do just about anything.”

We were curious about his relationship with Toyota and how they manage to benefit each other. “The fans like and trust me, and when I started racing Toyotas, they felt that was okay. Toyota wanted to enhance the sport making it bigger and better, and that’s exactly what they have gone on to do since 2007. It was an endorsement from my family and me that racing Toyotas was going to be a good thing for NASCAR and the fans appreciated that. They also made it possible for me to have a team. They help me with engineering, with engines, and support our team so we have a serious chance to win. They made my chance of owning a team possible, and we wouldn’t have been able to do that without them. Hopefully my commitment to Toyota, and Toyota’s commitment to NASCAR has won a lot of people over that might not have chosen to go buy a Toyota before 2007.”

According to Waltrip, Toyota came in right as NASCAR racing became an “arms race.”

“Their engineering and support could really help our race cars go faster. I’m just thankful that Toyota’s my partner because as this arms race increases and we need solutions from a technological standpoint, they are the right partners to have. We’re just tipping the iceberg right now, and Toyota is racing against manufacturers that have had a 30- or even 50-year head start over them, and we have managed to close the gap nicely, and we feel very confident of how the future looks with them.”

Photos by Mark Elias. Engine photos courtesy TRD.