Subaru VIZIV 2 Concept

According to Subaru, the new VIZIV 2 crossover concept is "introducing the future of All-Wheel Drive vehicles."

VIZIV stands for Vision for Innovation and Subaru is using it to showcase how advanced hybrid technology can be used with "Subarus All-Wheel Drive (AWD) while also indicating at a future design direction for Subarus production vehicles."

The powertrain uses a new 1.6-litre turbo-diesel DIT (Direct-Injection Turbo) Boxer engine and three electric motors, one to power the front wheels and one on each of the rear wheels which operate independently.

We are looking at a possible future generation of hybrid technology powered Subaru AWD vehicles.

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Belgium February 2014

I guess footballers in Belgium are really into plug-ins...

Changes Edition

Thanks to the precious contribution of our reader Piet, we have the EV ranking in Belgium.
A record 178 plug-ins were sold in February, with an EV Share of 0,36%, a good departure from the 0,17% that we had in 2013.

In a fragmented market, where the YTD leader has just 20% share, changes are commonplace, this month the BMW i3 jumped out of nowhere to win the Best Seller Title with 41 units, followed closely by the Tesla Model S (34 units) and the surprise Panamera Plug-In, #3 in February (31 units) and leader in the YTD ranking, making Belgium the first market where Porsche is the Best Selling EV Manufacturer. Who would image a couple of years ago that the words "Porsche", "Electric" and "Best-Seller" would be written in the same sentence?

Looking at the rest of the YTD brands ranking, last year winner, Renault, vanished from the map (#6 with 8% share), while BMW climbed from 4% in '13 to 17% share, enough to grant it the Bronze medal, behind Tesla (19%) and Porsche (20%).

Pl	Belgium	Feb.	YTD	%	'13Pl
1	BMW i3	41	49	17	7
2	Tesla Model S	34	55	19	2
3	Porsche Panamera Plug-In	31	60	20	12
4	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	22	27	9	19
5	Volvo V60 Plug-In	17	38	13	1
6	Nissan Leaf	9	17	6	3
7	Renault Zoe	8	11	4	5
8	Smart Fortwo ED	7	10	3	6
8	Renault Twizy	7	10	3	4
10	Peugeot iOn	1	1	0	14
10	Renault Fluence ZE	1	1	0	11
12	Volkswagen e-Up!		6	2	14
12	Mitsubishi I-Miev		3	1	10
12 12 12	Opel Ampera Citröen C-Zero Toyota Prius Plug-In		3 1 1	1 0 0	8 N/A 14
	TOTAL	178	293	100

Source: febiac.be; Manufacturers

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