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Recharge Wrap-up: Zero takes electric motorcycles to cop expos, Chevy Volt powers dealership's Internet

Zero Motorcycles will be at three law enforcement conferences this month, including COPSWEST Training and Expo, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Law Enforcement Vehicle Test and Emergency Vehicle Product Expo and International Association of Chiefs of Police Expo. Zero will display its recently debuted 2015 line of electric motorcycles at the events including the new FXP, a police-duty version of it FX "Stealthfighter." Zero also offers the MMX, SP and DSP for police and military use. Learn more about the events in the press release below. Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn told European regulators that more stringent emissions standards too soon will be a major problem for automakers. He says that such moves could prove "fatal" for an auto industry that is still working to develop cleaner vehicles. "Every gram of CO2 that we save in our European fleet costs our group almost 100 million euros," says Winterkorn, "100 million that we have to invest in advance, without knowing when these investments pay off." He says that already creating emissions targets beyond those set for 2020 could harm European automakers competing globally. Read more at Automotive News Europe. When a Detroit Chevrolet dealership lost its Internet connection, it turned to one of its Chevy Volts for a temporary fix. After the regular connection at Buff Whelan Chevrolet went down, it plugged in a Volt showroom model equipped with 4G LTE, and used its connection to resume business. The car can handle up to seven connected devices, so the team used a Malibu to connect the rest of its computers. When a customer asked why the Volt was on, the team explained the whole situation, leading to one impressed customer. Read more at Automotive News. Zero Motorcycles To Attend Law Enforcement Conferences 2015 Police and Authority Motorcycles to Appear at IACP SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Oct. 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Zero Motorcycles, the global leader in the electric motorcycle industry, announced today that it is attending three leading law enforcement conferences in October: - COPSWEST Training and Expo. October 6-9, 2014. Long Beach, California. - Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Law Enforcement Vehicle Test and Emergency Vehicle Product Expo. October 16, 2014. Fontana, California. - IACP Conference and Expo. October 25-28, 2014. Orlando, Florida. "These events provide a great opportunity to present our patrol motorcycles and accessories.

Cost-cutting measures put VW Beetle in jeopardy

Volkswagen is on a mission to cut costs. That means producing more models across its various brands based on the same platforms and powertrains, but the latest word from Germany has it that it will also mean cutting some of the VW brand's less successful models. First on the chopping block, according to German publication Der Spiegel, is the three-door version of the Polo, which will reportedly cede its place to the five-door version exclusively. The elimination of that model alone is said to save VW a good 200 million euros, putting it on its way towards reducing the brand's costs by a targeted five billion euros. The Polo isn't the only one in danger, though. The Eos, as we know, is not due to be replaced, but the future of the Beetle could be in jeopardy as well. The Beetle may be one of VW's most iconic models, but is hardly its most successful in terms of sales. With the 2014 annual report due to be released shortly, the last full-year sales figures had Volkswagen selling 109,517 Beetles in 2013. That may be more than four times the number of Scirocco models it sold, but hardly puts a dent in the 871,413 Jettas, 824,629 Golfs and 725,291 Polos it sold during the same year.

Brand new cars are being sold with defective Takata airbags

If you just bought a 2016 Audi TT, 2017 Audi R8, 2016–17 Mitsubishi i-MiEV, or 2016 Volkswagen CC, we have some unsettling news for you. A report provided to a US Senate committee that oversees the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and reported on by Automotive News claims these vehicles were sold with defective Takata airbags. And it gets worse. Toyota and FCA are called out in the report for continuing to build vehicles that will need to be recalled down the line for the same issue. That's not all. The report also states that of the airbags that have been replaced already in the Takata recall campaign, 2.1 million will need to eventually be replaced again. They don't have the drying agent that prevents the degradation of the ammonium nitrate, which can lead to explosions that can destroy the airbag housing and propel metal fragments at occupants. So these airbags are out there already. We're not done yet. There's also a stockpile of about 580,000 airbags waiting to be installed in cars coming in to have their defective airbags replaced. These 580k airbags also don't have the drying agent. They'll need to be replaced down the road, too. A new vehicle with a defective Takata airbag should be safe to drive, but that margin of safety decreases with time. If all this has you spinning around in a frustrated, agitated mess, there's a silver lining that is better than it sounds. So take a breath, run your fingers through your hair, and read on. Our best evidence right now demonstrates that defective Takata airbags – those without the drying agent that prevents humidity from degrading the ammonium nitrate propellant – aren't dangerous yet. It takes a long period of time combined with high humidity for them to reach the point where they can rupture their housing and cause serious injury. It's a matter of years, not days. So a new vehicle with a defective Takata airbag should be safe to drive, but that margin of safety decreases with time – and six years seems to be about as early as the degradation happens in the worst possible scenario. All this is small comfort for the millions of people who just realized their brand-new car has a time bomb installed in the wheel or dashboard, or the owners who waited patiently to have their airbags replaced only to discover that the new airbag is probably defective in the same way (although newer and safer!) as the old one.