Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Mitsubishi readying Outlander refresh

Mitsubishi has a big secret to keep under wraps when it comes to the looks of its refreshed Outlandercrossover. Our spy shooters recently caught it testing in Germany, and the CUV had enough buckles, straps and snaps covering up the front end for the vehicle to fit in at an S&M party for cars. The rear was hidden just as thoroughly, too.

Given the areas that Mitsubishi's engineers are obscuring, it seems safe to assume that the Outlander is getting a heavily revised front end with redesigns for the grille, front bumper and possibly hood. The lights might be reshaped too, judging from these photos. The changes are just as hard to spot at the rear, but you can make out the shape of the taillights. They appear more rectangular than the current model, and the bumper looks more angular, as well.

This is likely our first glimpse of the of the major restyle for the Outlander that Mitsubishi execs told Autoblogabout in July. The interior is also getting an update to improve interior material quality, we were told. The revisions are supposed to coincide with the launch of the PHEV model in the US at roughly the same time.

Source: autoblog.com

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Take a close look at the guts of the Chevy Volt battery, powertrain

Just how intimate would you like to get with the powertrain in a Chevy Volt? If you're anything like YouTubeuser d55guy, then spending a half hour filming yourself taking apart the battery pack, motor, inverter and more for a look inside sounds like your idea of fun. After all, this way you get to see the cooling system, the heavy safety kill switch and count up the individual cells in the battery modules. Fun!

Turns out, we also enjoy languidly paced Volt dissection video goodness, and we think you might want to see it as well. So, we've embedded two videos below and if you don't have a better understanding of how the Volt is put together after watching them, well, at least you can't say we never tried to show you anything.

Given that what's really happening here is the organized 'destruction' of an expensive and potentially dangerous object, let's talk safety. There's a serious disclaimer at the beginning of the videos and on theYouTube description page, but we feel the need to repeat the gist of it here: do not try this at home. The creator of the video says he is a trained engineer and has been doing things like this "for the better part of a decade," so he apparently knows what he's doing. With that in mind, watch it all below.

When you're done seeing the insides of a Volt powertrain up close, if you need more filmed EV dissection/destruction, check out this video designed for first responders approaching a damaged Tesla Model S.
 Source: autoblog.com