Articles by Karla Pincott

It's not uncommon to see real estate developers add sweeteners to lure buyers, but a Dubai-based firm is taking the trend to a higher level by offering new cars with residences in their latest tower project -- and this time around a 2014 Lamborghini Aventador for each of the penthouses. Those taking the lesser properties will have to make do with a BMW or Mini Cooper, depending on the size of the purchase -- which will probably make for some confusion in nearby shopping centre carparks unless different colours are chosen for each. The developers, Damac, are making the offers as part of their apartment deal during the annual Dubai Shopping Festival promotion. And it's not the first time the company has dangled 'extras' as consumer lures -- including cars, boats, planes and even other real estate. Last year's shopping festival saw Damac offer penthouses with an Audi R8, while the three-bedroom apartments each had a free Audi A8 in the car spot, two-bedroom ones scored an A6 and the one-bedders a somewhat more everyday A4. And in previous years the extras have included other luxury cars, motor yachts, and -- for a very exclusive promotion in 2008 -- an Eclipse 500 private jet and Pelican Caye Island, one of the few private islands on the Turneffe Atolla in the Caribbean. “Damac Properties’ DSF promotion is always highly anticipated and we see some of the best results of the year during this time,” the firm's senior vice-president Niall McLoughlin said in a statement. And the strong response is hardly surprising. The apartments should sell like hotcakes with the kind of icing they're offering. And at least if the tower isn't completed on time, you can camp in your Lamborghini while you wait for the tradies to finish. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

Canadians are an inventive and quirky lot. Think about the sub-zero temperatures many of them choose to live in, their love of ice fishing, the insanity of their beloved beserker ice hockey. And even their takeover of that strangest of sports, curling -- yes, it was invented by the Scots, but Canada is now its stronghold -- in which people glide about slowly with what look like large granite dustbusters. On ice. It's the frozen factor that is the common one, obviously. So its little surprise that a bid to carve a working truck out of ice would come from, you guessed it, the Canadians. Also watch: Porsche formed from ice and flame video A tyre and battery company based in the busy province of Ontario decided to build an ice truck to highlight the ability of its products to operate at -40C -- an extreme level below freezing temperature for most of us, but not unknown in Canada where 1C is counted as a lovely spring day. Working with a local ice company in Ontario, Canadian Tire started with a real truck chassis -- welding the suspension solid so it couldn't move and crack the finished work -- and then carving the body out of 5000kg of block ice.  To prove it worked, they took it for a short run at speeds up to 20km/h in December -- with battery, engine and lights all working -- and are hoping they'll get enough reaction to have the truck qualify for a world record. Watch the drivable ute carved from ice video on our dekstop site. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

Infiniti will unwrap the Q50 Eau Rouge at Detroit motor show, but in the lead-up are trickling out images and details of the F1-inspired car -- based on the production Q50 mid-size sedan that will arrive here early this year -- but with only the roof and door profiles remaining from the donor in Eau Rouge form.The designers tapped the Red Bull racing team for the Eau Rouge, which is bristling with carbon fibre panels on a resultantly lighter body, widened and slung lower on massive -- but also light -- 21-inch wheels.The track-bred wardrobe influences include a carbon-fibre front splitter, side skirts, mirror caps and rear diffuser and spoiler, with Infiniti executive design director Alfonso Albaisa saying the focus was on aerodynamics and performance.“From our shared passion for performance with Infiniti Red Bull Racing grew a collective desire to produce a vision of what a high-performance Infiniti Q50 could look like,” Albaisa says in the press statement.“The design has a number of distinctive Formula One inspired touches.  In particular, the sculpted front wing assembly and the rear aerodynamic packaging take their cues from the RB9 race car."Infiniti hasn't yet given any details of what's under the bonnet -- and what sort of figures it could clock up -- but we're expecting at the very least a revised version of one of the Q50's mills with some extra power and torque squeezed out.With the Eau Rouge's performance focus, that's likely to be the hybrid system from the Q50 S flagship -- with some extra output above its 268kW/546Nm combined from a 3.5-litre V6 petrol engine and an electic motor -- rather than the 157kW/320Nm 2.0-litre petrol four, 245kW/365Nm 3.7-litre V6 or 125kW/400Nm 2.2-litre turbodiesel.Infiniti is also making a strong social media play with the Eau Rouge, and we'll get to see more or less of the car depending on the amount of likes, tweets, shares and other responses, which will start forming an image of the car in a 'virtual garage'. The more responses, the more quickly the car will build and the more we'll see -- presumably circumventing the customary leaking of images.

Following on from the birds-eye view of its coming 2+2 coupe concept teased in December, Kia has released a second angle of the car, this time showing the front with a low-slung grille set in a glowing bezel, flanked by columns of LEDs serving as the headlights.Kia says the GT4 rolls on custom 20-inch wheels with brakes cooled via vents in the front fascia, while a carbon-fibre front splitter adds downforce and some cosmetic aggression to the nose, which – with its front wheelarches looming behind – bears more than a passing resemblance to the attitude of the Audi R8.The car is a rear-wheel drive car – suggesting again it's spawned from Hyundai's Genesis coupe – and if it hits the showroom would give Kia a sporty halo model.  However this could also simply be a design concept to dip a toe into the responses for possible future ideas.The GT4 Stinger will be powered by a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder developing 235kW (33kW more than the 2.0-litre in the current Genesis Coupe) and is likely to carry the same eight-speed automatic.The GT4 name was briefly leaked on a Kia Facebook page a few days after the first tease – and then quickly pulled down --  but the Korean carmaker is holding back further details until the silk comes off the car in Detroit in January 13.The new Genesis Coupe is also being revealed in Detroit, following which it will arrive in Australian showrooms in its first right-hand drive version. 

When you think of solar cars, it's generally futuristic disk-shaped designs with tiny passenger pods ferrying a single person in technology events. But Ford plans to bring solar power to the everyday car, and is unveiling a concept that looks like any other vehicle on the road -- except perhaps for the solar panel roof. Set to be presented at the coming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, the C-MAX Solar Energi Concept is a plug-in hybrid multi-purpose vehicle that can theoretically fully recharge via the solar roof. Ford hasn't detailed the expected range of the car, but says a day of sun provides the "same performance" as a four-hour battery charge (8 kilowatts) in the equivalent C-Max Energi plug-in vehicle (not sold in Australia), which gets an electric-only range 34km, a total range of 1000km and an official economy figure equivalent to 2.4L/100km. The key to the new highly-efficient solar wizardry -- a collaboration between the car giant, Californai-based firm SunPower and Georgia Institute of Technology -- is a concentrator that works like a magnifying glass in amplifying the sun's power as it's collected by the roof panels. The car can also be plugged in to the electricity grid if necessary. “Ford C-MAX Solar Energi Concept shines a new light on electric transportation and renewable energy,” Ford global director of vehicle electrification and infrastructure Mike Tinskey said in a statement. “As an innovation leader, we want to further the public dialogue about the art of the possible in moving the world toward a cleaner future.” While the CES car is not headed for the showroom just yet, Ford will trialling it in everyday driving to determine if there's a business case to put it into production. Watch the desktop version of the Ford C-Max solar car video here. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

The Hyundai Elantra has been given a makeover for 2014, rolling into the showrooms as a Series II with freshened looks, some extra features, price rises of $400 and $1000 depending on model, and the axing of the mid-spec Elite in manual form. The body gets new bumpers front and rear, with new chrome grille (featuring darker chrome on the top-spec Premium), chromed beltline moulding, and foglights across the range. The Elite and Premium both get new alloy wheel designs -- 16-inch and 17-inch respectively -- and power folding door mirrors. The Premium adds has projection-beam headlights with surrounding LED daytime running lights. All models get a revised version of the carryover four-cylinder 1.8-litre engine introduced in June 2011, which now also gets new heat and noise underbonnet insulation. It produces up to 110kW of power at 6500rpm and 178Nm of torque and is mated to six-speed automatic with electronic sequential manual mode across all spec levels, with only the base model Active retaining a six-speed manual transmission.  The Elantra has already been awarded the full five-star ANCAP safety rating. Elite and Premium have ditched the the reversing camera display integrated into a small area in the rearview mirror, and now show it on a more conventional screen in the dash. Standard safety features include: six airbags, ABS brakes with EBD, Electronic Stability Control, Traction Control System (TCS), and a sophisticated Vehicle Stability Management (VSM) system. The Elantra gets three-year capped price servicing, a five-year unlimited kilometre warranty, and three years of satnav map upgrades. Hyundai Elantra Series II prices Hyundai Elantra Series II Active (man) $20,990 (+$400) Hyundai Elantra Series II Active (auto) $23,190 (+$400) Hyundai Elantra Series II Elite (auto) $26,790 (+$1000) Hyundai Elantra Series II Premium (auto) $30,190 (+$1000) This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

Driverless cars are no longer a matter of sci-fi speculation -- they're coming, and it's just a case of how popular they'll become. The future looks grim for those of us who like to drive, if the latest research is accurate. An industry study 'Emerging Technologies: Autonomous Cars — Not If, But When' undertaken in the US suggests they may have such a strong response that all cars will be autonomous by 2050, and we'll reach a figure of nine per cent by 2035. The study by industry consultant firm IHS Automotive predicts that global sales of driverless cars will hit 230,000 in 2025 -- accounting for one per cent of total new car sales -- but rise exponentially to reach 11.8 million per year, or nine per cent, ten years later. IHS says there will be a total of 54 million autonomous cars on the road by then, eclipsing the sale of electric cars which the study says will continue be hindered by the high cost of battery technology. Those figures are for cars in which the driver can still take control if they wish, however the study also predicted that fully automated and completely driverless cars -- allowing no human input at all -- will start appearing on the roads by 2030. The extra cost for self-drive technology is predicted to plummet, with the study saying the $7,000-$10,000 sticker price hike in 2025 to have dropped to $5,000 by 2030 and about $3,000 by 2035. Google has already famously sent autonomous cars travelling across the US, and a large number of car companies are already working on the technology, with Nissan planning to have a car on the road by 2020. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

Fiat has announced it has signed a deal to buy out the rest of Chrysler, paying US$3.65 billion ($4.09b) for the 41.46 per cent holding owned by the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union's Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association trust.Chrysler will make a separate payment of US$700m ($784m) to the VEBA trust, which is set up to cover health care benefits for retired UAW members.Fiat says the deal -- expected to finalise before the end of January -- means there would no longer be a need to raise extra capital with a public stock launch. A public launch was a move CEO Sergio Marchionne was keen to avoid, but which was threatened by the UAW last year after their dissatisfaction with the price Marchionne was offering at the time.“In the life of every major organization and its people, there are defining moments that go down in the history books,” Marchionne said in the official statement. “For Fiat and Chrysler, the agreement just reached with the VEBA is clearly one of those moments.”Since becoming CEO of Fiat 10 years ago, Marchionne has been keen on making the Italian brand a global giant with the acquisition of other stables. He said last year full ownership of Chrysler would make the joint brand the world's seventh largest.Fiat first bought into Chrysler in mid-2011, buying shares held by the United States Treasury as the Detroit brand floundered. However the tables turned with the recent European economic crisis, and in 2013 it was booming Chrysler sales that supported the Italian brand as it struggled to make sales in Europe.The operational joining of the two brands in Australia has seen a strong rise in sales for its cluster of brands over 2012, with Fiat up 598 per cent -- the little Fiat 500/Abarth itself up 331 per cent -- Alfa Romeo 156 per cent, Chrysler 134 per cent and Jeep 21 per cent. The only lagging brand is Dodge, down 22 per cent with a lack of product as models trail off.The local HQ declined to comment on the buyout deal but said they were pleased with the year's results so far."We are thrilled with the sales performance across the Fiat Chrysler stable this year," Fiat-Chrysler spokesperson Karla Leach said. "Our dealers have performed amazingly to smash nearly every sales record for the group in 2013.  Of note is the continued strength of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and the massive growth of the much-loved Fiat 500, and the sassy Alfa Romeo Guilietta."This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

German carmaker Porsche has just announced the results of their second film competition, in which they asked 10 filmmakers to represent the theme of 'Thrilling Contradictions' in a 60-second video.The winner was Ross Cohen, who at 30 years old is already known as producer and director of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival awarded film, Willowbrook, as well as lauded shorts Last Day and Tarantula Moonrocket -- the last two of which he also wrote.For the Porsche contest, Cohen turned in a beautiful piece called 'Fire and Ice' that uses some simple reverse work to let us see a Panamera rising up from a block of ice manipulated by a blow torch.His prize includes a trip to the Chicago International Film Festival, and the winning piece being shown as a pre-movie advertisement in cinemas.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott

Japanese carmaker Nissan will take the wraps of a new sports sedan concept on January 13 at Detroit motor show, but for the moment the shadowy teaser rendering above is the only real information we have about the car."The Sport Sedan Concept previews a new energetic design direction that amplifies Nissan’s legendary approach of applying sports car principles to a sedan," the accompanying press statement says somewhat unhelpfully.However, with the aging Maxima sedan due for a makeover soon, the concept could be a pointer to styling for its coming facelift. Particularly since there's some resemblance to the Nissan Maxima Concept rendering (below) teased at the 'Nissan 360' overview event -- particularly the sweptback headlight design.Along with the trapezoid grille on the Sports Sedan Concept, we could be seeing the birth of a new family face for the Nissan line-up. However anything of a true performance nature is unlikely to make it onto the mild-mannered Maxima sedan in the showroom.Nissan is also taking the IDx Freeflow and IDx Nismo concepts from November’s Tokyo motor show for a second airing at Detroit, suggesting even stronger moves towards gauging the response for a possible production plan.