We obsessively cover the auto industry…

Since the first 21-second teaser was obviously too much for you, Mazda has lopped a whole second off the second video tease for the Mazda6. This one shows some seriously swaged sheetmetal leading up to and running through the A-pillar. And that's really about it.

We know there will be influence from the handsome Takeri Concept Car and four-cylinder power, and after about 68 more of these teaser videos, we should know what the car itself looks like. Have a gander at the promo below.

German powerhouse tuner AC Schnitzer has spent some time fettling the new BMW 6 Series Gran Coupé, the result being a 360-horsepower 640i sedan with all the restraint of a Mako shark. The additional grunt adds up to 40 hp for the 640i and 47 hp for the 640d, with said grunt made more finely tuned as it rides on Schnitzer's own spring kit and wheels that range from 19 to 21 inches in diameter.

Eight-piston calipers up front should provide plenty of stopping power and trademark Schnitzer bits like the prognathous skirting and exhaust tips will let everyone know that this BMW means serious business.

Have a read of the press release and check out the video below, and try not to fear it in the gallery of high res photos.

Automotive News reports Nissan may turn to the company's social media followers to help plan future products. Erich Marx, director of interactive and social media marketing, thinks sites like Pintrest and Facebook could be used as specialized focus groups to help answer questions that the automaker's product planners and managers face.

Nissan already plans to ask its followers what sorts of vehicles and technologies they expect to see on the market in the next 10 years. Depending on how that goes, further and more specific queries could follow.

The report says Marx understands the online community isn't a place for throwing out confidential designs, but with over 1 million fans on Facebook and a similar number on Google+ and Twitter, he sees plenty of potential consulting power.

Early privately-owned drift cars were fitted with with either turbocharged engines from Nissan S13, S14 and S15 platforms (four-cylinder) or turbocharged powerplants like the Toyota 1JZ (six-cylinder). They were easy to work on, reliable, and they produced plenty of the wheel-spinning power needed for a smoky sideways show.

But today, as real money flows into the sport, the teams taking the podiums at the professional Formula Drift events are much more likely to use American V8 power - naturally-aspirated big-bore Chevrolet LS muscle that makes a tire-cording 700-plus horsepower. The torquey V8s give the drivers more control when they run side-by-side. As one puts it, "...the way Formula D now is, with tandem, you want to be on someone's door."

This video, shot by MPGomatic, takes a closer look at why the motorsport made the switch from low displacement/forced induction to big displacement/naturally aspirated power. It's posted below, and as they say, there's no substitute for cubic inches.

Here we have the second interesting tidbit about the Need for Speed movie recently fast-tracked by Dreamworks studios, after finding out it would be helmed by stuntman and Act of Valor co-director Scott Waugh: it's slated for a February 7, 2014 release.

Hollywood generally reserves that month for dramas, so action films released then don't face a lot of competition within the genre. None of the Fast & Furious movies were released in February, and if you're wondering, the sixth film in that franchise is due Memorial Day weekend, 2013.

Dreamworks wants to give Need for Speed a chance to get its own air, but the studio's February-release track record is pretty bad, with bombs like I am Number Four, Euro Trip, and Norbit. (A notable exception? Old School.) NFS director Waugh probably likes February, though. After all, Act of Valor was released that month, and it's the film that got him the job.

It isn't always kittens and cotton candy when a client splits with an advertising agency, especially at the end of a long relationship. If either side makes a statement at all, it's usually full of platitudes and the kind of celebrity divorce tone that leads you to wonder, "What happened there?"

There's none of that after Mini Canada separated from its agency of ten years, Taxi in Toronto – well, almost none of it. Instead, Taxi is taking its own 2008 Mini, the one it displayed in its boardroom, for one final publicity splurge by auctioning it on eBay and donating the proceeds to Toronto's Covenant House. It is an excellent way to go.

At the time of writing the bidding is up to $10,500 Canadian (about the same in U.S. dollars). Have a look below for a few samples of Taxi's work for Mini over the years, and head over to eBay to get in on the charity action.

Shopping trips become protracted. Friends and family call, wondering if you've been abducted. But it's a compulsion car enthusiasts can't help. Always on the lookout for interesting and exciting cars, any random parking lot can turn into a smorgasbord of "I haven't seen one of those in years!" You stand there taking smartphone pics of random old cars, confusing passers-by as you text and tweet your finds with a goofy smile on your face.

It's inescapable and unavoidable, so you might as well just celebrate the addiction. To that end, here are some of my most recent finds from a weekend shopping excursion. The cars stood out for a few different reasons, but mostly because they're increasingly rare.

When was the last time you saw a Ford Festiva that clean? Wouldn't you like to own that second-generation Toyota MR2? Check out that Acura Legend; elegant, mostly rust-free (surprisingly) and on its way to being a classic for a new generation. The capper, though, was the final-gen Toyota Cressida. Rare when it was new, it's even rarer now. What have you seen lately?

Plug-in vehicles perform police duties for Scotland Yard (Vauxhall Ampera) and the NYPD (Chevrolet Volt) and we've all seen the little EV parking-enforcement vehicles, so today's announcement that the Nissan Leaf will be used as a police vehicle in Portugal isn't surprising. What's interesting is that the eight patrol EVs are touted as a way for the fuzz to "arrive at the scene of a crime in near silence."

Portugal's PSP (Polícia de Segurança Pública) will use the all-electric hatchbacks mostly for the Safe School Program, Nissan said in a statement, but they are decked out and ready "to perform other police duties at any time" should the need arise. We'd assume chases won't be part of the mission, but other than that, we don't see any reason the eight electric Nissans will be treated much differently than the other 5,000 cars in the PSP fleet, especially since Portugal has been implementing a network of EV chargers, Level 2 and quick chargers among them.

We're in love with the Ural line. The bare-bones bikes have a rugged, no-fuss appeal, but they're also pricey. There's good reason for that: most of Ural's products are hand-built by master craftsmen. Take the video below as proof. Visitors to the Irbit, Russia facility responsible for constructing the bikes recently got to see just what goes into stitching a sidecar together. There are no robots swinging panels around or making precision welds. Just one guy, some metalworking equipment, and a little patience.

The gentleman in the video manages to assemble the sidecar in just under four minutes. That's a lifetime in manufacturing, but well worth it in our judgement. How many items in your care were assembled by skilled hands? How many will be around in 10 years? How about 30? If our experiences with Ural are any gauge, this robust sidecar is in for the long haul.

We've been hearing about automobiles being inspired by jets for decades. Saab even used it as a slogan for a number of years. But what exactly does it mean? Nissan recently paid a visit to the United States Navy Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron training facility to get a feel for the fighter jets they fly as well as how the pilots interact with their machines.

The result? Well, we still don't know what it means for a car to be inspired by jets... Nissan says its "personnel returned with a number of creative ideas and actionable items from both a design and product development standpoint," but the Japanese automaker declines to get more specific. Maybe the next GT-R will come with an ejector seat, or perhaps a joystick in lieu of a steering wheel. But probably not.

Even if we don't quite get it, that doesn't mean nothing good came from the exercise. Blue Angels airframe structural mechanic Eric Vandamme (who has the second best name ever) got the chance to drive a new Nissan GT-R, and he came away predictably impressed: "If I had the keys to the jet, I would trade you," he says. We know a GT-R doesn't come cheap, but we suspect Nissan would make out quite well in that fantasy transaction.

Want to watch a video produced by Nissan about the Blue Angels and how its engineers were inspired? Of course you do. Scroll below for the news broadcast-style story, where you'll also find a related press release.

The K1 Attack is from Slovakia, the Tushek Renovatio T500 is from Slovenia. The two countries don't share a border, but the two cars do share an origin: the T500 uses slightly redesigned bodywork from the K1 but is substantially reengineered underneath, one such example being the presence of a mid-mounted 450-horsepower Audi V8.

Autocar went to Slovenia to give it a spin and reviewer Matt Prior liked it, praising its engine response, chassis engineering, fit-and-finish and huge options list. In fact, for the company's first effort, it sounds remarkably polished and well-engineered. The biggest hurdle the open-top T500 could have to jump is its own price: at £300,000 (around $467,000), it's more expensive than the £195,500 McLaren MP4-12C Spider (around $300k), and its price exceeds that of the €255,000 Lamborghini Aventador ($400k) and the predicted €274,000 price of the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta (circa $425k).

But we're told two have already been ordered and paid for, and the Tushek folks make no claims about wanting to take over the world, planning to build just 30 over the next four years. Yet if that's the bar for the T500, we can only wonder what the Tushek Forego T700 is will be charged with. You can checkout Prior's T500 review in the video below.

We admit we have a profound weakness for oddball sport sedans. That includes everything from the fabled Lotus Carlton to the Merkur Scorpio and even unlovables like the second-generation Infiniti M. But few misfit performance saloons rub us the right way like those from Sweden – everything from the Saab 9000 Turbo to its 9-3 Viggen and Volvo's 850 T-5R and S60 R routinely catch our eyes in the classifieds. We love them all, but we've never been foolish enough to think that they were the equals of their German contemporaries. While some of them have been able to put up great in-period numbers, they always somehow fell a bit short in real-world flogging, hoping to make up the difference in rarity and eccentricity.

Now, however, there might finally be a swift Swede that doesn't fall into this trap, though it sounds like it might cost en arm och ett ben (an arm and a leg). According to Autocar, Volvo is in "serious discussion" with its favorite tuner to bring a production version of its utterly bonkers S60 Polestar Concept to market. Polestar, as you may recall, has already linked arms with the Gothenburg automaker to create a branded brace of more powerful Volvo models – including the S60 – but nothing as extreme as this 508-horsepower all-wheel-drive hero car. Unfortunately, Autocar suggests that in order to build a business case for this car, Volvo is ballparking a price of at least £100,000, or around $155,000. That's nearly $100,000 dearer than likely competitors like the Audi RS4, BMW M3 and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG.

Would such a costly and left-field machine find buyers? It sounds like a bit of a tough sell, but who knows? Nissan has apparently found a way to charge deep into the six figures for its galactically powerful Juke-R. For its part, Volvo reportedly already sold the original concept to an eager buyer for $300,000...

A group of Florida plaintiffs have come together to file a class action lawsuit against Mini. Their issue is with the reliability of the Continuously Variable Transmissions in first-generation Cooper hatchbacks from 2002-2006 and in Cooper Convertible models from 2006-2008. A cursory web search on the matter returns plenty of results from Mini owners complaining of the same issue, sudden failure of the CVT, and having mixed fortunes at Mini dealers when trying to get the situation resolved.

The Florida suit comes a year after a class action suit was filed against Mini in California for the same reason. As with the Florida case, the California legal action Brad Aarons v. BMW of North America, LLC sees "restitution, damages and other relief" for plaintiffs who were "required to spend approximately $6,000 to $9,000 (one-third to one-half of the original purchase price) to repair or replace their CVTs, or sell their vehicle without repair for a substantial loss...." Parent company BMW has not yet commented on the matter.

Reuters is reporting on a new study that suggests the cost of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles could plummet dramatically by 2025. Consulting firm McKinsey & Co. conducted the study, which indicated increasing oil prices and tougher fuel economy standards could force automakers to build more electric cars, thereby increasing the scale of lithium-ion battery manufacturing by significant margins. In addition, the research predicts consumer electronics companies like Apple may lend some technology advancements to reduce costs associated with producing the battery packs themselves. All told, the study expects to see prices fall from $500-$600 per kilowatt hour to $200 by 2020 and $160 by 2025.

For example, Reuters points out that the 23 kilowatt hour battery in the 2013 Ford Focus Electric is estimated to cost between $12,000 and $15,000. The McKinsey study claims that if fuel prices hold steady at $3.50 per gallon and batteries fall to the projected levels, automakers could begin to offer price-competitive electric vehicles.

The study also indicates battery manufacturers may begin to standardize cell construction and production, further reducing the cost of equipment needed to produce the packs.