The Auto Mover

The passenger vehicles sales grew 20.58 per cent between April and August this year with 5, 19,842 units being sold when compared to 4, 31,116 units in the same period last year. However, passenger car sales rose 16.01 per cent in the local market in August to 83,844 units from 72,272 units in August 2005, according to the recent data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Hero Honda’s market share that stood at 51.6 per cent in April-August 2005 has fallen to 47.3 per cent in the equivalent period this year. This is due to rivals initiation new models and closing in as well as a general shift towards 125 cc motorcycles.

Frankfurt- New car registrations in Germany went into overturn for the third month in a row in August, dipping 1 per cent actually from the previous month to 245,000 units, the German Automobile Industry Federation (VDA) said Tuesday. In July and June the decline was 2 per cent and 5 per cent correspondingly, when compared to the month before, the VDA said, citing high petrol prices, unemployment and impending tax increases for the downturn.

Car exports in August rose 5 per cent to 238,500 units, while new orders from overseas ascended 29 per cent from the year-ago level, mainly as a result of increased demand from Russia, China, South Africa and the new EU member states, the VDA said.

Despite the slump in the summer months, the VDA said it predictable new registrations for the year to get to a total of 3.4 million, just about more than the 3.34 million recorded in 2005.

DETROIT, Mich. -- The Ford Motor Company, in union with Hydrolytic, Inc., announced today that they have created, in an unparalleled engineering feat, a water-powered car that can also end America's dependence on foreign petroleum for vehicle propulsion.

The prototype vehicle, recently code-named the H-20, runs entirely and solely on pure water. "The H-20 gets great water mileage," said Ford automotive designer Brent Sigelbach. "The latest tests show it gets 42 miles per gallon on the highway and 36 in the city, on the same as the gas mileage of a fuel-efficient Honda Civic."

Minor worries are all that are keeping the car from entering mass production today.

On Tuesday 5 September, the Automobile Association (AA) would present 13 young Army drivers with the Alchemy Gold certificate to endorse the high standard of automobile handling they have achieved during their driver training.

The soldiers have lately completed the Army’s driver licensing and vehicle operators course that sees student's graduate with a full Class 2 license and an extra qualification to drive the Unimog. The AA has assessed that the course achieves over 85 points in the Alchemy scheme, and be eligible all who successfully complete the course for Gold status.

"The Army is extremely conscious of the need for low risk drivers both for driving on our roads and meeting its operational requirements. The achievement of 85 points is not easy, and drivers are requisite to work hard to gain their points. International research confirms longer periods of supervised competency based driving, such as the current Army system, enables drivers to enter the driving environment with a much lower level of crash risk" says Peter Sheppard.