Munich - The last of the current generation MINI convertibles has rolled off the production line at the Oxford plant in England with the white MINI Cooper S going to a fan in the United States, BMW, the owner of MINI, has announced.

Some 164,000 units of the car have been sold worldwide with most of the cars finding customers on the domestic market in Britain and Ireland followed by the United States, the car maker said.

Hamburg - Indian car maker Tata Motors, which is planning to produce the world's cheapest car selling at 1,700 euros (2,600 dollars), also has plans to produce an electric-drive version, according to a German press report.

The E-Nano would be built in cooperation with the Norwegian electric car specialist firm Miljoebil Grenland, the Hamburg-based Auto Bild newspaper said.

Wolfsburg, Germany - Volkswagen is working on plans to build a new cheap mid-engined sports car that is scheduled to be presented at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November, Germany's Auto Bild newspaper reports.

Drawings published by the newspaper show a car with large wheels and a long wheelbase.

Four cylinder engines with an output between 77 kW/105 hp and 118 kW/160 hp were possible for the lightweight car with a body weight of under 1,000 kilogrammes. Several components such as steering, brakes and electronics would probably come from standard VW vehicles to bring down the price, the report said.

Stockholm  - The trial of a German woman charged with beating to death two toddlers in Sweden in March drew to a close Tuesday with questioning of a forensics expert.

The accused, a 32-year-old student, has denied she attacked the children and their mother in Arboga, central Sweden on March 17.

She has told the court that she visited the small town of Arboga at the time of the murders to visit archaeological sites.

Berlin - German investor confidence rebounded in August, a key indicator released Tuesday showed, despite concerns about the outlook for Europe's biggest economy and volatile financial markets.

Drawn up by the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research, the ZEW index for this month posted a surprise 8.4-points increase to 55.5 points.

Analysts had predicted that the index would fall to minus 62 points in August. The ZEW July index dropped by 11.5 points to minus 63.9 points in July.