Stuttgart, Germany - A powerful Porsche sports car, minus the marque's unmistakeable bad-boy engine roar, may go on the market next year, with a German company to install nearly silent electric motors in the cars, a magazine reported Saturday.

The adapted Porsche 911 cars will be a product of the Alois Ruf customizing company in Stuttgart, the weekly Wirtschaftswoche said.

Detroit - US automakers are looking right into an abyss, and experts note that the US economy is facing its next health problem following the collapse of its financial sector.

After a downward slide that has already lasted years, and with losses worth billions of dollars, General Motors (GM) and Ford appear to be racing ever closer to the precipice.

The financial crisis threatens to cut off the funds of the heavily indebted manufacturers. The stock exchange has already discounted the staggering auto giants, as share prices fell even faster than sales figures.

TATA group’s ambitious Nano car project seems to grapple in yet another controversy on the land acquisition issue. The land in Chharodi village is again proving to be disputable and the concerned farmer family is fighting a legal battle against Anand Agriculture University (AAU) over ownership issue.

The case was filed in 2006 in which the third generation of Devisinh Waghela family claimed over 1,453 acre of the total 2,200 acre of land that the state government had acquired from the university.

Mahindra Renault Pvt. Ltd. (MRPL), a joint venture between Mahindra & Mahindra and Renault S.A. of France, has received an additional export order of 500 GLSx Petrol Logans for South Africa. 

This is the second order, which takes the total order size to 1000 nos. The latest order comes soon after the successful dispatch of 200 Logans to the country in September.

New York - The world automobile industry is being hard hit by the current credit crisis, it was reported Friday, with manufacturing giants Ford and General Motors (GM) singled out as facing difficulties financing their operations.

According to the report, which appeared in the New York Times, GM and Ford have been hit by the perfect storm of diminished cash flow due to falling sales and an inability to raise funds in the credit crunch.

Paris - The French government will provide funds to subsidize the development and construction of environmentally friendly automobiles, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday.

"We will earmark more than 400 million euros (550 million dollars) of state funds over the next four years," Sarkozy said in an address at the Paris Automobile Fair.

The money will be used "exclusively" to fund the research and development of "carbon-free cars, that is vehicles with the least possible emission of carbon dioxide, whether electric cars or hybrids," Sarkozy said.