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.