German luxury carmaker BMW on Wednesday said it will bring the latest version of its sedan ‘ 5 Series’ to India this year in order to drive volumes and ward off increasing competition from compatriots Mercedes and Audi.

French auto major Renault on Wednesday said it was not going to end tie-up with Mahindra & Mahindra over their joint venture that sells Logan, stressing that the car will continue to ply on the Indian roads. The company said that it will announce details of reworked pact with M&M by April.

Toyota has finally planned to launch the diesel variant of the Corolla Altis. Currently Toyota car is being tested on Indian roads. The production of the Diesel Corolla Altis may begin by the end of this month. Toyota may launch the new car by April end or so. The new Corolla Altis may be equipped with a 2.0 litre diesel engine.

Bentley Motors, the British luxury carmaker unveiled its flagship grand tourer on Saturday. Bentley Motors launched the Rs 2.90-crore Mulsanne and announced plans to introduce two models priced over Rs. 1 crore to take care of the high-end super luxury car market in India.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd. (HMIL), the second largest car manufacturer and the largest passenger car exporter, in a bid to provide convenient finance options for its customers, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UCO Bank, one of the fastest growing nationalized banks in the country.

German carmaker Daimler is selling its entire stake in India’s Tata Motors for up to $429 million, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday. Daimler was offering 25.6 million shares in India’s largest vehicle maker at 737.4 rupees to 761.3 rupees each, a discount of 4 percent to 7 percent below the stock’s Monday close of 796.75 rupees, sources said.

February was the best in the car industry. Buyers flocked into showrooms to get cars for themselves. The budget was to be announced in a short while and people feared the rise in prices. Everyone got their share of profit. Car buyers to the makers, everyone was delighted. The year began on a happy note. Here’s a note on the top 10 cars as of January 2010. Oh yes, when I say ‘top 10’, I mean the highest selling cars.

Ford Motors Co. had started working on the small car, Figo in 2007 and the global unveiling was done in September last year. Ford India launched the Figo today in both petrol and diesel versions. Currently small cars account for over 72 per cent of the 1.22 million units sold in India. The Figo is based on the 'B' platform of cars which is Ford's new generation platform for small to mid-size cars around the world.

India’s Karun Chandhok will partner Brazilian Bruno Senna, nephew of the late Ayrton, at Hispania for the 2010 Formula One season, the Spanish team announced on Thursday. The team director Colin Kolles confirmed that the driver’s team line-up was now complete with the Indian Karun Chandhok all set at the wheel of the car for their first ever season.

Bernie Ecclestone has urged the Indian press and public to give Karun Chandhok time to settle into Formula 1 and get up to speed. Chandhok completed an eleventh hour deal with the new Hispania team, but will go to the Bahrain Grand Prix without any pre-season testing mileage.

Thanks to higher customs duties, Toyota Prius, which will debut in India by the end of next month, will now cost Rs. 28 lakh. Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) deputy managing director, Sandeep Singh, said they have 54 orders for the Prius from Indian buyers, after it was shown at the Delhi Auto Expo last month. At that time, its ex showroom price was pegged at Rs. 26.55 lakh.

Ford India has recently announced that it will launch its compact car Figo, which is colloquial Italian for “cool”, in the second week of March 2010. Ford Figo will be launched in petrol and diesel versions and will have four variants. The petrol Ford Figo will have a four-cylinder 1.2 litre, 16 valve Duratec engine that will give a maximum power of 70 bhp at 6,250 rpm and maximum torque of 102 nm at 4,000 rpm.

The image you see here is of the all new 2011 Nissan Patrol which was unveiled recently and is bound for the Middle-East to begin with. It clearly shows the shift of the design directions of the Japanese manufacturer, Nissan. The Nissan Patrol name is synonymous with ruggedness and is considered a legendary off-roader capable of going anywhere, anytime.

Mitsubishi has brought forth yet another facelift of Outlander and the front, keeping in sync with the car’s character, looks really aggressive and masculine. The Outlander has got the snout from the EVO X and it has certainly added an interesting dimension to its design. A host of improvements on Outlander’s exterior style language have the capacity to please anyone’s visual senses.

Fiat India which is in India on its second outing has truly swept the Indian car market of its feet, thanks to the launch of the generation next models of Linea and Punto. Fiat India has been associated with the Indian car market ever since the advent of the Premier Padmini days. But now Fiat India has come out in open with all guns blazing.

Tata Motors saw a 58-per cent growth in sales in February due to the revival in the commercial vehicles market and its expanding passenger car portfolio. The company registered vehicle sales at 69,427 units, up from 43,811 units last February. It has sold 5.67 lakh units so far this fiscal, registering a growth of 28 per cent over the same year-ago period.

Jaguar Land Rover turned in a profit of £ 55m in the last three months of 2009 after a loss of £60m in the previous quarter. The company’s owner, India’s Tata Motors, said the bounce back was thanks to stronger market conditions. Tata Motors added that its range of new models had helped its performance.

Team Lotus F1 on Friday lifted the covers of its new car T127 in London. Lotus team principal Tony Fernandes believes the iconic company's return to Formula One after 16 years can help unlock untapped revenue streams in Asia. Fernandes, who owns Air Asia airline, unveiled the Malaysian-backed team's car that will start the 2010 championship in Bahrain next month. "Formula One has been really inaccessible and seemed elitist," Fernandes said Friday at the London launch.

In the largest ever recall by any Indian car maker, market leader Maruti Suzuki on Tuesday said it was calling back one lakh A-Star, the company’s flagship export model, to replace a faulty fuel pump gasket.

Volkswagen, Europe’s largest car maker, on Tuesday launched its much awaited premium hatchback, Polo at a price of Rs 4.34 lakh for the petrol variant and Rs 5.32 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) for the diesel variant.

Korean car giant Hyundai on Wednesday announced the recall of over 47,000 units of its premium sedan ‘ Sonata’ from its home market as well as the US to rectify a door lock problem, but the move will not have any impact in India. “Since the launch of the Sonata in Korea last September, Hyundai Motor discovered a mechanical problem with its front door latches which, in very rare instances, will not close properly,” the company said in a statement.

Premium car maker Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) on Monday said it has appointed Takashi Nagai as the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the company with effect from April 1, replacing Masahiro Takedagawa, who will now head Honda’s Canadian operations.

U.S. carmaker Ford Motor Company’s Indian unit, Ford Motor India said on Tuesday that it would launch its small car in March and was expanding its dealership in the fast-growing market.

Car manufactures in India will be hiking the prices of their models. The price hike is a result of the increasing input costs and the need to switch to stricter emission norms from April next.

Land Rover has overtaken BMW as the country’s No.2 luxury SUV player in sales, helped by a passel of factors spanning a bigger bundle of models to competitive pricing to a more effective positioning in the market. The luxury marque that Tata Motors acquired in 2008 from Ford Motors and launched in India early last year sold 35 units compared to BMW’s 16 units in January, according to latest figures.

Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi clocked the day’s fourth fastest time of one minute, 19.650 seconds as the pre-season Formula One test session concluded in Jerez.

The 1997 world champion, Jacques Villeneuve, could be one step closer to a return to F1, after being linked to a drive with Stefan GP. Stefan GP still hasn’t been granted an entry to the Formula One championship this season but will test its car next week with, according to Autosport, Villeneuve at the wheel.

With most carmakers posting record sales in January, Tata Motors regained the No. 2 position behind market leader Maruti Suzuki. After a gap of about two years, the company has overtaken Hyundai Motors India, according to Tata Motors officials.

Magneti Marelli, a Fiat Group company, headquartered in Italy, a leader in automotive systems, components and services, announced its long awaited partnership with Carnation Auto, India’s first independent multi-brand automotive sales and service network solutions provider.

Tata Motors’ Nano may soon be IT-enabled to send out an automatic distress call in an emergency. A device with an embedded mobile SIM card inside the car would send out data, voice message or a written text, regarding the location, speed, impact and number of people to a helpline, based on the machine-to-machine (M2M) communication technology.