Car bomb explodes in Thailand – Click above to watch videos
A squad of explosive experts were called on to a dangerous scene in Thailand’s Narathiwat province near Bangkok today. According to MSNBC, a trio of roadside bombs detonated, killing two and wounding 13. A group of explosive experts were called in to defuse the third of those bombs, but it exploded, injuring seven officers.
The horrific incident was caught with both still photography and video. The footage shows a bomb expert cautiously approaching the suspected when an explosive device – believed to have been planted there by Islamic insurgents – was triggered.
The videos are graphic, but they also show the protective ability of the bomb squad’s gear. The bomb squad expert who approached the vehicle was injured, but survived. to watch the pair of video clips.
2010 Mazda3 – Click above for high-res image gallery
It’s taken seven years and ten months, but has hit an important milestone in the production of its highly regarded compact car. On April 26, 2011, at its Hofu Plant in Yamaguchi, Japan, the three-millionth 3 rolled down the assembly line.
For those keeping track of such things, this makes the Mazda3 the fastest-selling nameplate in the automaker’s current lineup. Over 1.1 million units have been sold in North America to date.
In addition to the Hofu plant, the Mazda3 is also built at the Changan MazdaAutomobile (CFMA) plant in Nanjing, China, and AutoAlliance in Thailand. Congrats on the achievement, Mazda, and here’s looking forward to the next seven years and ten months of .
The next-generation pickup will be available for sale in Thailand later this year, and the assembled media at the Bangkok International Motor Show received an early look at what the midsize truck will look like. The unveiled pickup, which General Motors is officially calling a “show truck,” features a 2.8-liter diesel engine and very attractive sheetmetal, along with showy (and probably non-production) touches like 20-inch wheels and a stylized body-colored tonneau cover.
While we covered the , we weren’t able to see it with our own eyes. That changes now, though, with video of the live event. to watch the wild and crazy unveiling, which includes a pair of trucks scaling the backdrop wall, followed by a light show that reminds us of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The video is a bit choppy at first (and not of the highest quality), but you can skip ahead to the unveiling at the 4:30 mark, followed by a question and answer session with management at 8:45. Hat tip to Chermarn!
Behold, the next-generation . Sort of. has yanked back the sheets on what the company is calling a show truck at the Bangkok International Motor Show. Despite the ’show’ label, the mid-sizer is poised to go on sale in Thailand later this year packing a 2.8-liter turbo-diesel engine, though there are no firm details as to what we can expect in terms of either power or efficiency. GM did say that the Colorado won’t leave buyers lacking for enough towing capacity, though. Odds are we can expect tricks like the 20-inch wheels and body-color tonneau cover to be nixed as the truck makes its way closer to production.
Still, the vehicle is plenty sharp and looks to have the mechanical guts to give the global a run for its money. But will GM offer the Colorado we see here in the States? That’s a tough question. The automaker has made it clear that the Shreveport, Louisiana plant that manufactures the aging Colorado/GMC Canyon isn’t long for this world, though we have heard rumors that the automaker isn’t planning on killing the pickup all together. Here’s hoping we’ll see this truck or something similar in the States sometime soon. for the full press release.
The Golf R is Volkswagen’s new poster child for hot hatchery, and if you’ve ever fallen in love with a GTI, be prepared to be absolutely smitten with this little number.
What is it, when is it coming and where will it be sold?
The Pagani Huayra has finally shown its face in motion.
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Next-generation Chevrolet Colorado teaser – Click above for high-res image
let a sneak peek at its new global-platform Chevrolet Colorado slip ahead of the truck’s official debut at the Bangkok Motor Show in Thailand. The show starts March 25, so GM is giving us just enough to get the gist of what our next-generation Chevrolet Colorado/ may look like.
The General says it picked Thailand for the truck’s debut because the Southeast Asian market is becoming a huge player for the automaker, and people in Thailand are buying pickups at an alarming rate. In 2010, pickups accounted for 43 percent of vehicles sold in Thailand.
The truck will be built in Thailand for global consumption, but will most likely carry over Stateside as the new Colorado/Canyon, and is being prepped by GM of Brazil for the American market. for The General’s official press blast.
According to Automotive News China, the shady side of the People’s Republic is set to sell $45 billion worth of counterfeit auto parts this year. Those include high-volume pieces like spark plugs, brake pads and steering components as well as oil seals and airbags. All told, the report says that China is responsible for a hefty 83 percent of the world’s counterfeit parts, leading the top three producers by a wide margin. The report goes on to state that Taiwan and Thailand are responsible for five percent of the pie each, while Japan and Malaysia weigh in with two percent each of the counterfeit market.
In many cases, authorities are ill-equipped to handle the sheer volume of rip-off artists. In one instance, a facility that produces knock-off oil seals gets shut down once a year only to re-open at full capacity. That plant had the capacity to produce seven million fake oil seals per year in 2008. Now that number is up to 10 million.
In the case of the seals, the manufacturer uses low-grade rubber and metal to cut costs, and as a result, the fake pieces carry a price tag that’s less than half of the genuine article. They’re also almost guaranteed to fail.
Meanwhile, legitimate Chinese companies are beginning to fit their boxes with radio frequency ID tags to distinguish their products from the fakes.
may have given up on the here in the United States, but it looks like has big plans for the mid-size pickup market. According to PickupTrucks.com, The General is currently hard at work on the next-generation of both the and the . The current generation Colorado/Canyon is slated to end production by mid-2012, and from what we hear, GM is likely to base the next-gen pickup on the GMI 700 body-on-frame global small truck platform. Those bones are set to get an unveil at this year’s Thailand International Motor Show in Bangkok.
PickupTrucks.com reports that GM had originally planned to dead-end Colorado and Canyon production altogether after this generation, but those plans seem to have changed. Even so, it looks like it’ll be at least two and a half years before the newest versions of the General Motors mid-size pickup shows up, which means there may be a bit of a gap in production between the time the old line dies and the new one gets up and running.
Honda New Small Vehicle Concept – Click above for high-res image gallery
is set to pull the sheets off of a the production version of its new sub-compact concept at this year’s Thailand International Motor Expo. Originally seen in concept guise at the New Delhi show earlier this year, the is set to take markets in both India and Thailand by storm with its $10,000 price tag and adorable stature. Honda has a long history of showing off “concepts” that are little more than production versions with fancy bodywork, and that appears to be the case here. From what we can tell, the retail hatch will be nearly identical to this show queen.
More details on the concept are likely to surface after the New Small Vehicle gets a full unveil later this month. Right now, we don’t know what Honda has planned in terms of drivetrains or whether or not the company will share the new model with the rest of the world.
Barring a last-minute hitch, it looks like and will soon be that have bound them for the last four decades. Though the U.S. maker has yet to issue a formal confirmation, it’s negotiating a deal that would have it sell off most or all of the remaining 11 percent stake it holds in its Japanese affiliate.
It appears that Mazda is as eager as Ford to go its own way.
No, it isn’t a bitter divorce. Ford and Mazda will likely still maintain some ties – in Thailand, for example, where their suburban Bangkok plant has just begun producing an all-new generation of compact pickup trucks, including the . But the two makers are already unwinding their manufacturing alliance in booming China.
And, perhaps most importantly, they’ll likely curb future product development programs that helped both companies squeak through the hard times of the not-too-distant past. One of the earliest examples of that alliance was the old Ford Escort, the U.S. maker’s first attempt to build a so-called “world car.”
More recent examples include the B-car platform that eventually went on to become both the and . Conventional wisdom is that these are virtually identical subcompacts – but as I was reminded during back-to-back drives this past week, there’s a surprising amount of difference between the American and Japanese production vehicles. Though they may have started out working together, the two companies soon branched off, yielding some surprisingly different results in terms of design and, more importantly, driving dynamics.
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Paul A. Eisenstein is Publisher of , and a 30-year veteran of the automotive beat. His editorials bring his unique perspective and deep understanding of the auto world to Autoblog readers on a regular basis.
According to the man who runs the world’s largest producer of natural rubber, demand for the gummy stuff will exceed supply for “at least another two years.” The drop in production is said to be due to both droughts and heavy rains, but the result for you is an increase in the price of tires: both Bridgestone and Goodyear have raised their prices already.
According to Bloomberg, there was a rubber surplus of 237,000 tons last year, whereas this year there is expected to be a shortage of 60,000 tons. The drop in supplies and inventory has raised the price of rubber, and as investors move to take advantage of the rise in the commodity price, rubber is being pushed to a near-record $4 per kilogram. Climate-hampered tapping seasons in places like Thailand, Indonesia and Russia mean that actual harvests haven’t met predictions.
Bridgestone, Goodyear and Cooper Tire raised their prices once this year and have just announced they’ll do it again in October. The uncertainty of the economic recovery over the next two quarters could keep more increases from coming soon after, but according to insiders and observers, there will be price pressures on rubber-based goods for some time.
