Supercharger Pulley Edelbrock 15821 on 2040-parts.com

Audi shifts to eight-speeds for most models

A formal press conference probably won't happen until this summer, but we hear that Audi dealers have received their 2011 order guides, and it looks as though the company will be going from 0 to about 70 percent of U.S. sales being eight-speed automatic transmissions. Beginning this fall, the eight-speed will replace today's six-speed automatic in the A4 2.0-liter turbo sedan and wagon, the A5 2.0-liter turbo coupe and cabriolet, the Q5 2.0-liter turbo, the Q7 3.0-liter turbo, the Q7 diesel, the Q7 with the 3.0-liter supercharged V6 and the all-new A8 and A8L with the 4.2-liter V8.

Renault, Caterham form joint venture to build sports cars

Two lightweight two-seat sports cars, likely to be on sale in 2015 or 2016, will be the first output of a joint venture between French automaker Renault and U.K. sports car maker Caterham that was announced Monday. Renault will put its Alpine factory in Dieppe and its 300-person workforce into the 50:50 joint venture.

Toyota powering its US headquarters with Hydrogen Fuel Cell

Toyota’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell power supply at their US HQ It’s been a pipe dream for a long time; harness the planet’s plentiful supplies of hydrogen to produce power. That’s getting a lot closer with a number of hydrogen fuel cell cars coming to the real car market in the next few years, and no doubt as part of their mission to convince the world that hydrogen is the future, Toyota are demonstrating the potential by using a hydrogen fuel cell to produce power at their US HQ. Toyota has installed a 1.1 megawatt stationary fuel cell at its Los Angeles HQ which is capable of producing half its power needs during the heavy-load summer period.