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VW suspends sales in South Korea ahead of government meeting

Volkswagen and Audi have announced they will suspend sales of 79 different models in South Korea ahead of a meeting with the country's environmental ministry. VW will halt sales starting on July 25, the same day that its officials are to sit down with the South Korean environmental ministry, which will likely punish the German company. The Wall Street Journal reports that Korea's response to the situation will likely come in the form of an outright sales ban on Volkswagen products by revoking certifications on 79 different models based on 34 different vehicle types. Affected models include the VW Golf, Jetta, and Tiguan and the Audi A3 and A6, the WSJ reports. Essentially, it looks like VW is merely trying to get out ahead of the South Korean government. If the revocation goes through, it'd likely lead to fines and a relatively large recall of around 79,000 vehicles, the WSJ reports. Despite the dreary forecast, Volkswagen reaffirmed its commitment to the South Korean market. "This decision doesn't mean that Volkswagen is pulling out of Korea, which is a very important market to us," a Korean rep for the company said in a statement. "We'll reapply for certification of our cars if the government revokes it. The process may take several months." While Volkswagen's diesel emissions testing scandal is part of the problem, South Korea is taking a harder line than a lot of other countries. Authorities indicted a Volkswagen exec on charges of submitting falsified emissions documents and noise tests last week, while separately, Korea's trade watchdog is considering criminal charges against execs, according to the WSJ. Banning VW Group sales in South Korea isn't quite as dramatic as if the company stopped sales in China, the United States, or Germany, but it's still going to sting. VW Group products (including Bentley) represented around a third of European cars imported by South Korea last year. News Source: The Wall Street JournalImage Credit: Stefan Wermuth / Reuters Government/Legal Green Audi Volkswagen Emissions vw diesel scandal

Watch this Audi RS6 go 208 mph... on ice

In and effort to promote the high-speed grip of its new Hakkapeliitta 8 winter tire, Nokian threw a set of its new rubber on a race-prepped Audi RS6 and got moving - very, very quickly. In fact, on March 9 on top of the very frozen Gulf of Bothinia near Oulu, Finland, Nokian's test driver Janne Laitinen set a new world record for the fastest speed recorded driving on ice. If you'll recall, this isn't the first time that Audi and Nokian have played this game, either.
Using the guidelines set forth by the Guinness Book of World Records for such things, Laitinen averaged 208.602 miles per hour (335.713 kilometers per hour) over the course of two runs on natural, untreated ice. Another constraint is that the ice speed record must be done using commercial available tires, which is obviously great PR for the new Hakkapeliitas. The press release doesn't make any mention of how the RS6 was prepared to reach such high velocities, but the images of the car make it clear that this is no stock machine. Scroll on below to see the impressive video evidence of the Audi's record run.

Researchers halfway to cutting carbon fiber costs by 90%

Carbon fiber has been utilized for decades to build racecars, as a means to cut weight while maintaining strength. But until recently, the space-age material has been largely absent from the street on anything but supercars because of the expense to use it. Recently, BMW signaled a major shift in that trend when it starting using carbon fiber reinforced plastic panels on the i3 and i8. This relatively small scale start might be just the beginning; the German company believes that a breakthrough to inexpensively manufacture the lightweight stuff is just on the horizon.
MAI Carbon Cluster Management GmbH counts BMW, Audi, Airbus, the German government and many other organizations as supporters, and it's researching how to make carbon fiber cheaper to produce, according to Automotive News Europe. The company thinks it can reduce costs by 90 percent in the near future. "We've certainly reached a halfway point on our cost-cutting target for suitable carbon-fiber parts," said project head Klaus Drechsler to Automotive News Europe.
Unfortunately, it isn't entirely clear just what MAI Carbon is doing to make such a huge leap possible. However, a recent post on the company's website talks about a new form a carbon fiber using a thermoplastic matrix that could be cured in less than three minutes. That's compared to about 90 minutes in the traditional process with an autoclave.