Fitted as standard equipment to the Grange, the Enhanced Driver Interface (EDI) system constantly streams real-time vehicle dynamics and performance information to the touch screen in the centre console.

The EDI system has been developed in partnership with industry specialist Motec while the graphics and display were designed in-house by HSV’s styling department.

“Our customers are passionate about driving, and this system is about delivering race bred technology in a new engaging way that is relevant to a road car,” HSV’s Managing Director, Phil Harding said.

“We are confident our customers are going to love the way they can access data, and interact with their car.”

Similar to the system in the Nissan GT-R, the HSV EDI system is comprised of 11 different sections of information: Driver, Race, Stopwatch, Data Logging, Stability, G Force, Dynamics, MRC, Gauges, Bi-Modal Exhaust, and Side Blind Zone Alert (SBZA).

The G Force page displays longitudinal and lateral G force while the Driver page displays a combination of driver inputs including RPM, gear selection, and accelerator and brake positions.

The EDI system gets very interesting when you switch over to the Race page where it utilises GPS technology to display track maps, record lap times, record fastest lap, as well as lap gain and loss with most Australian race tracks already programmed into the system such as Bathurst.

For simpler racing scenarios such as hill climbs or even just the daily commute to work, the Stop Watch page provides a simple way to keep track of time.

The Dynamics page is similar to the G Force page, although it uses sensors to identify and display oversteer and understeer.

A Gauge Selection page allows you to display your preferred gauges on-screen, with drivers able to choose from Instant Fuel Economy, Intake Air Temperature, External Air Temperature, Torque, Power, Manifold Pressure, Elevation, LPI Level (on LPI only), and Exhaust Pressure (on cars with Bi-Modal Exhaust only).

“One of the challenges with designing the graphics is in making the data accessible to the driver,” HSV’s Chief of Design and Styling Julian Quincey said.

“For instance, it is not terribly engaging to get a whole stream of data in the form of numbers or a line graph. If you are a race driver you get used to that, but in a road car it needs to be more intuitive.”

“Making the display intuitive was the most important thing for us during the development process, and it really required a whole new level of integration between design and engineering.”

A Fuel Economy page provides detailed information on fuel economy history, and for Granges with LPI will incorporate combined petrol and LPG fuel ranges.

The Bi-modal page allows the driver to select the exhaust modes, choosing from normal, idle off, and off.

Finally, a Side Blind Zone Alert page allows you to turn off your Side Blind Zone Alert if you choose.

HSV is yet to release official confirmation on when the  Enhanced Driver Interface (EDI) system will be available in the rest of the HSV range.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

The new HSV Grange nows packs the same 325 kW 6.2-litre LS3 V8 engine that delivers 550 Nm of torque (at 4600rpm) found in the new HSV GTS. Improvements come from a new hi-flow intermediate exhaust with bi-modal rear mufflers. Although power has improved (from 317 kW) torque figure remains the same.

“The Grange buyer traditionally wants the most luxurious, and technologically advanced Australian-made performance car there is,” said HSV Managing Director Phil Harding.

“Grange has always fitted that description well, but the new styling, increased power and extra technology makes WM3 a compelling proposition for a luxury car buyer that is passionate about driving.”

From the outside the Grange gain Daytime Running Lamps (the last of the HSVs to gain this) and “shockwave-inspired” exhaust tips, plus a redesigned front and rear bumper.

Moving inside the Grange gains Satellite navigation, rear reversing camera as well as HSV’s Enhanced Driver Interface (EDI). EDI will incorporate the car’s computer systems and deliver all sorts of performance orientated data to the driver. Once activated, the driver can find information covering G force, power & torque, accelerator and brake position, and stability control. Now you can see how many Gs you pulled going around the race track!

Perhaps HSV is going the way of the Nissan GT-R?

Additionally the Grange gains Side Blind Zone Alert, which is essentially an Australian version of  Volvo’s BLISS system. It will warn the driver if a car is passing through or sitting in its blind spot.

The more interesting ‘option’ on the Grange is the relatively expensive $5,990 option for the Liquid Propane Injection (LPI) system which HSV says reduces emissions and running costs.

Pricing is still to be determined for the WM3 variants but HSV says it will be close to the WM2 prices (currently $87,990).

Stay tuned as CarAdvice will bring you a road test and review of the HSV WM3 Grange in the coming weeks.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

Ford released the 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor late last year but potential consumers have been complaining that it is too small.

Now, due to popular demand, the company has launched a five-seat version of the truck.

The car, or truck, is all about heavy-duty. The suspension offers 28.4cm of travel at the front and 30.7cm travel at the back. The shock absorbers aren’t your typical Kmart brand either, they’re Crusty Demons of Dirt approved FOX Racing Shox.

You’d expect there to be a fairly heavy-duty engine too, and there is. It’s a 6.2-litre, 306kW, 588Nm V8… sure to pull you through any torque-related resistance you care to throw at it; tree stumps, mud packs or large clumps of any other terrain.

Underneath, there’s a collection of protective plates that will bash up against, and pulverise, any other pieces of Earth that may continue to try and hinder the truck’s progress.

The new SuperCrew is some 12 inches longer than it’s smaller, extra-cab, two-door brother, leaving plenty of room for five blokes. Apart from that, every other aspect of the truck is carried over from the 2010 two-seat Raptor.

There is a whiff of civility thrown into this otherwise I-go-anywhere-I-feel-like package though. There’s a reverse camera, leather seats (probably made of recently-killed crocodile) and a comprehensive USB/iPod compatible in-car entertainment system.

As far as we know, the truck will only go on sale in America with no known plans for an Australian release. Best to contact your local American importer if you really want to get your hands on one of these bad boys.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

This is one of the latest videos. The car is a classic BMW 2800 CS. This model paved the way for the legendary BMW 3.0 CSL homologation special; the beginnings of the BMW M3.

It’s interesting to know there are enthusiasts out there that have kept their cars for so long, even in a world of merging technologies and enticing options. The example below has over 650,000 kilometres under its belt.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

The futuristic, aspirational design even takes some design cues from the BMW EfficientDynamics Concept.

There’s no roof, in case you didn’t notice, the windscreen just goes all the way back to the rear window. We’re not sure how rigid this design would be though as there appears to be no cross-bar bracing the upper left of the car to the right.

Featuring the latest mirror-less trend, the side-mounted cameras/sensors pick up any blind-spot details the driver may want to see. And in this world of thin-as-paper laptops and TVs, they rid the somewhat cumbersome and dated mirror technology leaving the car with a much much sleeker look.

The boot lid is very interesting and a bit of a mystery. Is it covered in blue tinted glass or is it simply painted to match the long roof? The LEDs that run up the rear pillar are also quite interesting and would be great in traffic as motorists could see the driver’s brake lights from many angles.

The high waistline gives the car a retro chop-top look whilst also presenting high chunk/solid factor; note the lack of door handles. The wheels are also very beefy and modern, and they don’t look unreal like so many other futuristic concept wheels.

The entire car is a design that stems from Subaru’s own Hybrid Tourer Concept and taken further into the future. All in all, it’s a stunning, clean interpretation with loads of attention to detail.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

At the very least this confluence of events has managed to answer the perennial ‘chicken/egg’ question – they both occurred contemporaneously. A real-life, literal, example of autogenesis…

The spin-doctoring has started, too. They’re already calling it ‘bio-ethanol’ – as if there’s another non-bio kind of ethanol on offer. (Over-used terms of the early 21st Century: ‘bio’, ‘eco’, ‘green’, ‘enviro’… the list goes on.) Ethanol’s purported green credentials are being widely touted – and, frankly, the jury’s still out on that. And, as you’ll see below, the whole green fuel debate is really a sideshow – albeit a high-profile one.

Most of the ethanol in Australia is produced from wheat. Some comes from sugar as well. Proponents of the stuff – usually the companies that manufacture it – say it’s very green, being based on a renewable (or at least re-grown) resource as opposed to a fossil fuel. Critics, on the other hand, say the ‘net energy balance’ of ethanol – the energy you get out of it minus the energy you have to put in to produce it (from growing the crop to milling and distilling it) is tantamount to a waste of time.

The truth, or otherwise, of these positions, is probably geography-dependant. And it’s certainly feedstock-dependent. In Brazil, where ethanol production is steeped in sugar cane, the stuff is probably a better deal. But in the absence of a PhD in bio-science, however, how is the ordinary person to know if the new E85-capable Commodore is really a good idea, or just an example of the once-mighty GM trying to reclaim some moral high ground after losing its way meteorically in the lead-up to the recent global financial collapse – merely by latching on to a convenient-to-implement option?

It could be either – GM is committed, either way – to moving half of its total production to flex-fuel capability in the near term.

The fact is, ethanol probably won’t be a truly ethical, viable and green option until a feedstock-flexible process utilizing mainly waste is productionised and widely implemented. That’s where bespoke bugs turn waste products (agri-waste, industro-waste and domestic garbage) into ethanol after it’s rendered down to gas in a furnace and the waste heat is employed elsewhere. That’s probably a decade off, or more.

This whole ‘green/not green’ debate is beside the point anyway. There’s a great reason to get behind the rise of bio-fuels, and it boils down, simply, to this: we can make the stuff here. Unlike crude oil.

Most people don’t get this, but our way of life in Australia is intrinsically joined at the hip to liquid fuels – we burn 30 billion litres of the stuff annually. That’s about 75 million litres a day, or 1000 litres every second – and most of it, overwhelmingly, is imported.

In general, oil-rich nations are geopolitically unstable. Some aren’t, but most are. The biggest arm of the US military – the US Central Command – is located in the Middle East for a reason. And one guess what its mission is – to ensure America’s supply of oil is uninterrupted, despite political hiccups like the one in Iraq spanning two bad Bush presidencies.

Often, the world’s oil is located smack-bang in the middle of despotic regimes that hate the west fundamentally (but don’t mind receiving its money in exchange for their oil).

It’s not altogether a pleasant realization when you join the dots on this and figure that our way of life is basically wedded to the ongoing imperative to continue to trade with crackpot countries that really don’t like the US – or its limpet-like partners in the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’.

There are elephants in the room, too – elephants called China and India, which are only just developing a prodigious thirst for ‘black gold’ at a time when they’re effectively coming to a party late, only to find the keg half empty. The consensus view on ‘peak oil’ is that it’s happening around about now. Inconveniently, as Al Gore would say, there is no more significant crude oil reserve left on earth to find. The whole planet has been comprehensively searched and scrutinized for oil, both on the ground and from space via remote sensing.

Evidence of this? Investment gurus Goldman Sachs has noted there’s no investment globally in additional oil refining capacity, nor oil tanker capacity – probably because we’re already ripping it out of the ground as fast as it can be produced.

Economics 101: demand is rising, and supply is apparently fixed – so have a guess which way prices are headed in the medium term.

How invested is our way of life in oil? Well, the short answer is: very. There is probably nothing in your home or office that does not owe its existence in that place to petrochemicals. Every kilojoule of food on your table at dinnertime owes its existence on the plate, on average, to the 10 kilojoules of hydrocarbon energy that got it there.

The groceries you buy are fertilized with hydrocarbons, harvested by hydrocarbons, transported to Woolies by hydrocarbons, wrapped in plastic made from hydrocarbons, transported home by hydrocarbons and – you guessed it – often cooked by hydrocarbons. We don’t really rely on food any more; we eat ‘petrofood’. We wear ‘petro-clothes’.

Economists and organisations like the CSIRO use the term ‘energy security’ to describe our national exposure to, and reliance on, foreign oil, but I prefer the term ‘energy vulnerability’. Because if that tap gets turned off, our way of life stops. It’s that simple. Cue Stephen King and Quentin Tarrantino…

Forget the environment – or at least, put it in its place – that’s a less certain argument with E85. The simple fact is that Australia has to get far more self-sufficient on the fuel front, just to protect society and the economy as we move into the future with oil being increasingly expensive, and its supply less certain.

E85 is part of that solution – but so is much more focus on our existing hydrocarbon reserves, like our wealth of gas resources. Compressed natural gas (CNG) is a viable heavy transport fuel right now, and LPG is already a goer on cars and light commercials. Both options are perversely proportionately unpopular ones. They’re currently statistically insignificant – and they need to be far more popular future fuels. This is simply the case because Australia is awash in both natural gas and LPG.

The bottom line is that the move to E85 for Australia’s most popular car is a very positive one – but selling it to the population on the basis of its intrinsic ‘green-ness’ is tantamount to selling our society a pup. It’s at least beside the point, and at worst indefensible. Mainstream Australia needs to stop sticking its head in the sand and wrap its consciousness around our energy vulnerability today – and then we need a politician right at the top of the heap with sufficient long-term vision to nudge the nation into a more energy-secure future. And, you know, finding a politician willing to see further than the end of the next electoral term is going to be harder than putting our national addiction to oil into long-term rehab. I mean, today – right now – there’s not a single federal MP who can see past the speculation about which team of unpopular, short-sighted losers enjoys the biggest parliamentary minority.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

The Chevrolet Cruze hatchback is being dubbed a showcar – not quite a concept but not quite production ready – and will make its debut at the Paris motor show as one of four world premieres for Chevrolet.

The final production iteration of the Chevrolet Cruze hatchback – or Holden Cruze hatchback to be more specific – will be built in several countries, including Australia by late 2011.

This has been a significant undertaking for the Holden design studio which has spent more than 12 months on the project working with GM designers around the world, lead by Holden Chief Designer Richard Ferlazzo.

“Our brief was to create an alternative body style to the traditional sedan that retained the same dynamic proportions that has made Cruze such a success around the world,” Mr Ferlazzo said.

“We are very proud of the result which will be tailored further for the Australian market and given an appearance consistent with the rest of the Holden portfolio next year.”

According to General Motors, the Holden Design Studio is just one of three facilities in the GM blogal design network capable of designing and building prototype concept vechiles for exhibitions and auto shows.

Having previously produced stunning concepts such as the Holden Efijy and Holden Coupe60, it is little wonder that Australia was chosen to head the design of GM’s next global model.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

It has been all of seven months since the all-new Volvo S60 was presented to the world, and already, the wagon version known as the V60 has entered production at the Torslander plant in Sweden.

From the photo above (top), it appears to be every bit is attractive as its four-door sibling, but we’ll need to see it in the metal for a proper opinion of the car.

The V60 is the last Volvo model to have been designed under Ford leadership and ironically, is the first car to be built under Chinese ownership.

Initial production targets are for 60 cars per day, rising to 100 cars and then by November, the company hopes to be rolling off 240 V60′s each day.

Due to the economic climate in most of Volvo’s volume markets, including Sweden itself, the annual production targets have been reduced from 90,000 to 50,000 cars, of which 90 percent is expected to be sold in Europe.

In time, the V60 will be offered with 5 petrol and 3 diesel engines although, initially, availability will be limited to the 3.0L T6 with 227 kW (304 bhp) and 440 Nm, as well as the 2.0L T packing 151 kW (203 bhp) and 300 Nm.

The model range will come with the latest Volvo technology including Corner Traction Control and Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

Please tell me you remember the movie ‘Ghostbusters’, otherwise I’m going to feel too much like an ‘old guy’.

Truth be said, the movie was released way back in 1984 and did some huge numbers at the box office, which led the way to two sequels, but please don’t ask me to recall all movies in the franchise.

I’m more interested in ‘Ecto 1’, that’s the name they gave to the company van, which was actually a 1959 Cadillac S&S Ambulance with a 6.5-litre V8 – king of the fuel guzzlers.

Little wonder why too, with dimensions such as 6.1 metres (20 ft) long, 1.98 metres (6.5 ft) wide and weighing in at 2.55 tonnes, this thing is a serious heavyweight.

If you can afford to feed it, then it’s yours for just AUD$126,000 (US$115,000) but unless it runs on LPG, you probably wouldn’t be able to get it registered.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.

There are plenty of rumours on the web, that a four-door sedan version of the Toyota FT-86 coupe has already been given the go ahead although, there is still no conformation from Toyota or project partner, Subaru.

Subaru’s version of the same car is said to be skewed more towards a performance machine as per this photo from Autocar, but both cars will clearly possess a good dollop of sports DNA.

It makes sense right? To build at least one other version of the car, just in case there is a greater demand for four doors over two.

Whatever versions we end up with, they both should be cracking drives, given the Subaru Liberty platform and drivetrain, which will most likely be the 152kW (204 hp) mated to a six speed manual gearbox or CVT unit in the base models.

Luxury versions of the FT-86 might even end up with Subaru’s 3.6-litre H6 powerplant, but again, this is speculation.

©2010 Car Advice | News | Reviews - http://www.caradvice.com.au - All Rights Reserved.