Lamborghini predicts return to growth after H2 revenues fall 2.6%

Lamborghini, the Italian luxury sports car brand, remained cautious about 2010 when it posted a 2.6 percent fall in first-half revenues despite continued growth in Asia.

Lamborghini, a unit of Volkswagen's Audi brand, was severely hit by the recession last year, when sales fell 41 percent.

"2010 is a transition year for Lamborghini," CEO Stephan Winkelmann said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that market recovery and brand repositioning would help it return to growth.

The maker of supercars said revenues fell to 152.9 million euros ($199.9 million) in the first half when it sold 674 cars, down 18 percent.

Lamborghini cars range in price from 180,000 euros to 400,000 euros.

Car sales more than tripled in China, its second-biggest market after the United States, to 86 in the period. Lamborghini has said it expects to sell more than 100 cars in China in 2010.

First-half sales in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan more than doubled.

The carmaker said it was heavily investing in the carbon fiber technology, which boosts power efficiency and helps reduce weight and car emissions.

Lamborghini competes head-on with Ferrari, owned by Italian carmaker Fiat.

Special Dodge Challenger pushes Mopar gear

To boost its Mopar service and parts brand, Chrysler Group is selling 500 Dodge Challengers equipped with Mopar performance parts.

Chrysler says the Mopar '10 Challenger, with a cold-air intake and functional hood scoop, is the first Mopar edition of one of its vehicles. Sales start in August.

The automatic-transmission version will be priced at $38,000, and the manual-transmission version will sell for $39,000. Prices include shipping. Both will be powered by Chrysler's 5.7-liter Hemi V-8.

The car will be offered in black with three accent colors: blue, red or silver. The accent colors will appear on side stripes and the baseball-style stitching on the steering wheel and seats.

Bill Gates, venture capitalist invest $23.5 million in EcoMotors

EcoMotors International has received $23.5 million from Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates and investor Vinod Khosla for engineering and testing of its trademarked Opoc engine technology.

EcoMotors said in a statement today that the investment marks a key advance in commercializing its opposed piston-opposed cylinder engine. The engine maker plans to use the funds for completing testing and building demonstration units.

Further details about the funding have not been disclosed.

EcoMotors CEO Don Runkle said it is terrific to have the support of prominent investors. He also said EcoMotors' engines will be built in Michigan because of the state's resources and talent. Runkle is a former executive of General Motors and Delphi Corp.

EcoMotors, based in suburban Detroit, says the Opoc architecture allows its opposed piston-opposed cylinder engines to use 50 percent fewer parts than standard engines, while providing 50 percent more fuel efficiency. Runkle says the company is working on its sixth-generation engine and the new funds may be used for the next engine configuration.

Touting the tech

Gates, also co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a statement that the technology may be a stepping stone in advancing affordable, low-emission transportation.

Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and was a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers in California. In 2004, he founded venture capital firm Khosla Ventures of Menlo Park, Calif., to invest in various green technologies. The firm owns 47 percent of EcoMotors.

Opoc was conceived by Peter Hofbauer, former head of powertrain development at Volkswagen AG and now EcoMotors' chairman and chief technology officer, the company said.

Hofbauer designed the VW high-speed diesel engine that became the foundation for the clean diesel engine used in the Jetta and other VW vehicles, EcoMotors said.

PRESS RELEASE: Khosla Ventures and Bill Gates Invest in EcoMotors' Revolutionary opoc® Engine

Securing “Series B” funding from two prominent investors represents a major advance in the global commercialization of the opoc® technology.



TROY, Michigan, July 12, 2010 -- EcoMotors International CEO Don Runkle announced today that the Company has secured substantial Series B funding – sufficient to complete engineering and testing of the opoc® engine.



The two exclusive investors in EcoMotors' Series B are Khosla Ventures of Menlo Park, California and Bill Gates. The two principals, Vinod Khosla and Bill Gates, indicate their stakes in EcoMotors reflect a shared belief in the global potential of the opoc® technology and the impact it can have on transportation emissions because of its cost effectiveness.



“opoc® is precisely the kind of game-changing innovation that we at Khosla Ventures are passionate about,” said Khosla. “The only truly disruptive technologies are those that can provide not only payback in months but also economic and carbon benefits to large segments of the world's population without the need for subsidies or massive infrastructure investments. Among next-generation propulsion systems, the opoc® engine is broadly applicable and can provide lower carbon emissions than almost any other technology.”



“The opoc® engine can be an important step in providing affordable, low-emission transportation for the developing world,” said Gates. “EcoMotors has developed a promising technology that could help reduce levels of greenhouse gas emissions in a low-cost, globally relevant way.”



The revolutionary opoc® architecture of opposed pistons and opposed cylinders provides unparalleled benefits:



High Efficiency: The unique enginearchitecture – which offers true modular displacement capability — delivers up to 50% greater fuel efficiency compared with conventional engines of similar output, along with a corresponding reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Half the weight and half the size of conventional engines: Theopoc® engine provides unparalleled power density and flexibility in automobile and truck design as well as other engine applications.

Low Cost: With50% fewer parts than a conventional engine, the opoc® is less expensive to manufacture, to purchase, to operate and to tool up.

Established in early 2008, EcoMotors is quickly achieving critical mass in terms of changing the landscape of internal combustion power. Based in Troy, Mich., EcoMotors is commercializing the unique opoc® engine for use in cars, light trucks, commercial vehicles, aerospace, marine, agriculture, auxiliary power units, generators, etc. Anywhere conventional gas or diesel power is currently utilized, opoc® represents a better propulsion solution.



EcoMotors is led by Don Runkle (Chief Executive Officer) and Prof. Peter Hofbauer (Chairman and Chief Technical Officer).



opoc® was conceived by Prof. Peter Hofbauer – who formerly as Head of Powertrain Development at VW designed the original VW high speed diesel engine that became the foundation for the Jetta Clean Diesel that won 2009 Green Car of the Year honors. Don Runkle, as former VP of N.A. Engineering at GM, spearheaded the GM EV1 electric car along with countless other innovations.



EcoMotors is a Khosla Ventures portfolio company. Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in breakthrough scientific work in clean technology areas such as solar, battery, high efficiency engines, lighting, greener materials like cement, glass and bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, and other environmentally friendly technologies as well as traditional venture areas like the Internet, computing, mobile and silicon technology arenas. Vinod Khosla founded the firm in 2004 and was formerly a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins and founder of Sun Microsystems. Khosla Ventures is based in Menlo Park, California.

Spyker holds talks to build new version of 1950s Saab model

Spyker Cars NV, Saab Automobile's owner, is in talks with automakers to share technology and a platform for a new car based on a 1950s Saab model, CEO Victor Muller said.

“Discussions are already ongoing,” Muller said in a telephone interview on his way from Gothenburg, Sweden, to Saab's plant in Trollhaettan. “That will be on my plate for the next 100 days.”

The new small car would be tear-drop shaped, inspired by the Saab 92 model that was in production between 1949 and 1956, he said, declining to say with whom he's been negotiating.

Spyker, the Dutch maker of supercars, bought Saab in February from General Motors Co., completing a 14-month effort by GM to either unload the company or close it down.

Saab, which begins selling the new 9-5 model May 31, has spent the last three months restarting production and severing the GM ties.

“Saab is going to have to reignite interest in the brand, go back to its core values” of the 1980s and 1990s when it appealed to “creative” professionals such as architects, said Ian Fletcher, a European automotive analyst at IHS Global Insight in London. “Muller has to be optimistic.”

Saab sales goals

Saab aims to sell between 50,000 and 55,000 cars this year, of which 17,000 would be the new 9-5, Muller said. Next year Saab targets sales of 100,000 cars, including 40,000 9-5s and about 10,000 9-4X, a midsize crossover SUV to be built at a GM plant in Mexico starting in April 2011, he said.

Spyker, after considering the U.K. and Sweden, is leaning towards moving its stock listing to Stockholm from Amsterdam, Muller said, explaining just a fraction of its business remains in the Netherlands.

“I'm very optimistic about it,” Muller said of the Stockholm listing. “99.5 percent of our business is Swedish, is Saab, and we do feel that a listing in Amsterdam clearly is no longer logical in any way, shape or form.”

Saab aims to reach an agreement with a Chinese distributor within a couple months, he said, denying media reports this week that Saab and Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. have reached a distribution deal.

Ford said to be preparing to wind down 'forgotten brand' Mercury

Ford Motor Co. is preparing to wind down the Mercury line, created in 1939 by Edsel Ford, after sales plunged 74 percent since 2000, said two people familiar with the plan.

The automaker's top executives are preparing a proposal to kill Mercury to be presented to directors in July, said the people, who asked not to be identified revealing internal discussions. Mercury, losing two of four models next year, will be starved of products and promotion, the people said.

CEO Alan Mulally emphasized the automaker's namesake brand as he revived the only major U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy. The timing of Mercury's demise depends on how fast executives can persuade the brand's dealers, who also sell Lincoln models, to close or merge with Ford showrooms, they said.

"Mercury is a forgotten brand," said John Wolkonowicz, an auto analyst with IHS Global Insight. "Many Americans probably already think it has been discontinued. Mercury was too similar to Ford from the very beginning."

Mulally also is unloading Ford's European luxury brands, after the automaker failed to achieve a goal to have them generate one-third of automotive profits. Ford in March agreed to sell Volvo to China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Co. It sold off Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin in the last three years.

“We continue to evaluate all of our models and brands,” Mulally told reporters in Washington, D.C., Thursday. “We have no change in our position about Ford or Lincoln or Mercury.”

Mercury would join Pontiac, Saturn, Oldsmobile and Plymouth among the departed Detroit brands of the 21st century. Sales will end within four years, one of the people estimated. General Motors Co., as part of its U.S.-backed reorganization last year, sold or closed four of its eight brands sold domestically.

Established by Edsel

Edsel Ford, son of founder Henry Ford, established Mercury during the Great Depression as a mid-priced alternative to mainstream Ford and upscale Lincoln. Edsel's great grand-daughter, Elena Ford, now the automaker's director of global marketing, initially opposed discontinuing Mercury, which she was in charge of promoting prior to 2002, the people said.

Doing away with Mercury is supported by Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and other members of the founding family, who have 40 percent voting control of the automaker through a special class of stock, the people said. With Mercury accounting for 1.9 percent of Ford's global sales in the first quarter, the family has decided ending it is best for the business, the people said.

“Edsel Ford is revered in the family, and Mercury was his creation,” said Wolkonowicz, a former Ford product planner. “This is the end of an era.”

Bill and Elena Ford also declined to comment, spokesman Mark Truby said.

1978 peak

Mercury's U.S. sales peaked in 1978 at 579,498, when it had the slogan “The Sign of the Cat.” Deliveries fell to 92,299 last year. As the U.S. auto market recovers, Mercury's sales are up 23 percent this year through April, less than Ford Motor's overall gain of 33 percent. Mercury had 0.9 percent of the U.S. market through April, unchanged from 2009.

Mulally, since arriving from Boeing Co. in September 2006, put a priority on improving quality and expanding the offerings of the Ford brand to lessen its dependence on pickups and SUVs. He ended three years of losses at the automaker by earning $2.7 billion last year and has said 2010 will be “solidly profitable.”

As Mulally focused on the namesake brand, Mercury withered, the people said. Ford's ad spending on Mercury fell 88 percent from 2005 through 2009, according to researcher Kantar Media of New York. Last year, Ford stopped selling the Mercury Sable, a sibling to the Taurus. The Mountaineer, Mercury's version of the Explorer, is to go away next year as Ford rolls out a new version of the SUV.

Since Mulally's arrival, Ford stopped giving Mercury exclusive features and technology, the people said. That made Mercury less distinctive than comparable Fords, which tend to be priced lower.

“The reason Mercury failed throughout its existence is because Ford never wanted to spend any money on it,” Wolkonowicz said. “Ford always wanted to do it on the cheap and the results were what you'd expect.”

Milan #1

Mercury's top-selling model is the Milan, a sibling of the Ford Fusion, with sales up 53 percent this year. Mercury also sells its own version of the Ford Escape SUV, known as the Mariner, which has had a 22 percent sales gain through April. Ford is scheduled to replace those models in 2012 and 2013 and could drop the Mercury versions, Wolkonowicz said.

Mercury's second best-selling model, the Grand Marquis, is being retired next year as Ford stops producing a trio of large, rear-wheel drive sedans that also includes the Lincoln Town Car and Ford Crown Victoria. Mulally has emphasized more fuel- efficient models, such as the Fiesta and Focus small cars Ford is introducing this year in the United States. Neither has a Mercury counterpart.

“The Grand Marquis has the oldest buyer demographics in the industry with an average age of 70,” Wolkonowicz said. “There are still members of the Depression generation who will miss Mercury.”

Mercury's cultural heyday came in the 1950s, when hot-rodders favored its engines, which were larger and faster than those found in Ford models, Wolkonowicz said. Along with Lincoln, Mercury sponsored “The Ed Sullivan Show” on CBS in the 1950s and 1960s. Detective Steve McGarrett drove a black Grand Marquis in the “Hawaii Five-0” TV series on CBS in the 1970s.

As Mercury's sales plunged, so too have its profits, Wolkonowicz said. With one-quarter of the sales it had a decade ago, it's hard to rationalize the line's continued existence, he said.

“I'm not surprised to see Mercury go because they don't sell enough of them,” Wolkonowicz said. “It's been a case of benign neglect for years.”

BMW plans 3- and 5-series full hybrids

BMW AG plans to take its 5-series ActiveHybrid concept into production as early as next year and expects to introduce the dual-powertrain technology into its smaller 3 series.

"As early as next year, the new BMW 5 series will also be available as a full hybrid. And we are anticipating the hybridization of further models series, such as the 3 series," CEO Norbert Reithofer told shareholders at the carmaker's annual meeting in Munich.

As emission standards become ever stricter, BMW needs to lower the carbon footprint of its fleet in coming years as Brussels targets an overall level of around 95 grams of carbon dioxide by 2020 for new cars sold in Europe.

"We want to reduce our global fleet's carbon emissions by at least another 25 percent between 2008 and 2020," Reithofer said.

At the end of last year, BMW's European fleet emissions equated to 150 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer, down from 156g at the end of 2008.

First shown at the Geneva auto show in March, the 5-series hybrid can be driven entirely in electric mode -- like the Toyota Prius -- after the sedan's brakes recuperate enough kinetic energy initially generated by its petrol engine.

This would be BMW's second full hybrid on offer after the BMW ActiveHybrid X6 launched at the end of last year.

By comparison, the larger BMW ActiveHybrid 7 luxury sedan that went on sale this spring is a mild hybrid, meaning it cannot run on zero-emission electric propulsion alone.

Reithofer pointed to government incentives for hybrids as a key driver of demand, particularly in Japan. "Sales of hybrid vehicles (there) have skyrocketed. If you don't have a hybrid in your portfolio, soon you might not be selling any cars in Japan at all," he said.

VW makes ‘last attempt' to save Seat

Seat, Volkswagen AG's most unprofitable unit, aims to stem losses within five years and halt a flight of customers to rivals by expanding its model range and growing outside its Spanish home market.

“This is the last attempt for Seat as a brand, it would not be sensible to view things differently,” CEO James Muir said Wednesday in Hamburg. “If one would want to get rid of Seat, one would have to give the other party money to take it.”

VW named Muir, Mazda Motor Corp.'s former European chief, as Seat CEO last September after predecessor Erich Schmitt failed in his three-year effort to turn around the automaker. Concern about Spain's economy as a result of Greece's fiscal crisis may further hamper efforts to boost revenue from the unit.

Martorell, Spain,-based Seat's first-quarter operating loss of 110 million euros ($139 million) was more than double VW's two other unprofitable units, Bentley and commercial vehicles. Without a turnaround, Seat may endanger the German automaker's plan to become the largest automaker by 2018, analysts say.

“It will be difficult to turn Seat around,” said Marc- Rene Tonn, an analyst at M.M. Warburg in Hamburg. “Most of their sales stem from southern Europe where the crisis has hit small-car makers particularly hard.”

Falling new-car sales

Deliveries of Seat vehicles such as the Ibiza compact and Alhambra minivan fell 8.5 percent to 337,000 units last year. Spanish car sales slumped 21 percent in 2009, according to the Brussels-based European automakers association ACEA.

Spain's once-booming economy started contracting in the second quarter of 2008 and has taken six months longer than the 16-nation euro area as a whole to return to growth as households pay down debt. First-quarter economic expansion was 0.1 percent. Spain has the eurozone's highest jobless rate at 20.1 percent.

Standard & Poor's cut the country's credit rating on April 28, saying the government was underestimating its fiscal woes and overestimating growth prospects. Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said yesterday he will cut public wages this year amid pressure to rein in Spain's budget deficit.

“Seat is the undisputed trouble-spot in VW's brand portfolio,” said Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. “Solving the problems there may take years and a clear-cut remedy isn't in sight.”

Surpassing Toyota

Seat, which gets 56 percent of its sales from the Ibiza model, must expand its range of offerings for models such as the Leon compact and reduce its reliance on Spain, Muir told journalists during a roundtable discussion.

Fixing Seat will be key to plans by VW, which also makes Skoda, Audi and the namesake VW brand cars, to surpass Toyota Motor Corp. in profitability and deliveries in 2018.

As part of that target, Muir yesterday reiterated VW's goal of more than doubling Seat's sales to 800,000 vehicles. Wolfsburg-based VW posted record sales last year of 6.3 million units.

“It seems to me that VW hasn't fully committed itself yet to the brand image of Seat,” said Mike Tyndall, an automotive analyst at Nomura Securities in London. “At some point they wanted Seat to be the sporty brand within the VW family, but some of the model decisions don't add up.”

VW Chief Financial Officer Hans Dieter Poetsch said March 11 that a “comprehensive program” of cost cuts was under way to return Seat to profit after the unit's operating loss in 2009 quadrupled to 339 million euros. The goal is to trim fixed outlays by raising capacity utilization, he said.

Martorell plant gets Audi SUV

To that end, VW will build Audi's new Q3 compact SUV at Seat's main plant in Martorell, near Barcelona, beginning next year, with a goal of making 80,000 vehicles a year. The factory, which can produce 500,0000 vehicles per year, has a capacity utilization of 60 percent currently, Muir said, adding that he needs to reach 90 percent to hit the breakeven point.

“Our clear focus over the next three years will be to improve utilization,” Muir said. “One cannot solely rely on cost reductions to make Seat profitable.”

Muir has made his own missteps since taking over Seat, running into resistance from the German carmaker's labor leaders after announcing plans to lay off about 300 workers. He later backed away from that plan after works council chief Bernd Osterloh criticized his efforts, saying cost reductions weren't enough to save Seat. VW has owned Seat since 1986.

Worker representatives hold half the seats on VW's supervisory board and have played a crucial role in the past in ousting executives that tried to cut jobs, including former VW CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder.

“I'm coming from outside the company straight into the CEO position,” Muir said. “That's a sign that there is a certain frustration about Seat at VW.”

Read more: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100513/ANE/305139945/1193#ixzz0nvNa1Zhj

Fiat to debut Europe's only 2-cylinder engine

500 minicar's TwinAir takes downsizing to a new level

Fiat S.p.A. is taking engine downsizing to a new level with the introduction of its new 900cc, two-cylinder TwinAir unit.

When it goes on sale in the Fiat 500 minicar this summer, the 85-hp turbocharged engine will be the only two-cylinder engine available in a car in Europe.

Fiat will debut the engine at the Geneva auto show on March 2.

Globally, Tata Motors is the only other carmaker currently offering a two-cylinder engine. The Nano minicar, which debuted in India last summer, has a 33-hp 623cc engine.

Automakers are removing cylinders and lowering the displacement of their engines to meet tougher CO2 emissions rules that take effect in Europe in 2012.

Fiat has not released the TwinAir's official CO2 performance information, only saying that the 500 minicars sold with the engine will produce less than 100 grams per kilometer of the greenhouse gas.

The greenest version of the 500, the PUR-02 equipped with a standard stop-start system, currently emits 113g/km.

The TwinAir engine is a key part of Fiat brand's aim to remain Europe's leader when it comes to fleet CO2 emissions in Europe.

Fiat brand had average CO2 emissions of 129g/km in the first half of 2009, according to UK-based market researcher JATO Consult. That places it ahead of Toyota, which had fleet emissions of 132.9g/km during the same period.

Tiny engines

Internally called SGE, for Small Gasoline Engine, the TwinAir has Fiat's fuel-saving MultiAir technology. MultiAir improves power and cuts fuel consumption by 10 percent with electrohydraulic variable valve timing.

Fiat chose the TwinAir name to because this is the first application of MultiAir technology on a two-cylinder engine.

In terms of capacity, Fiat's TwinAir is the smallest gasoline engine available in Europe. Mercedes Benz unit Smart's ForTwo minicar offers Europe's lowest-displacement engine, a 45-hp 799cc three-cylinder diesel.

Rivals such has Volkswagen AG started developing a two-cylinder unit for its new Up family of minicars, but decided to continue using the group's gasoline and diesel three-cylinder engines.

Chevrolet, Citroen, Daihatsu, Mitsubishi, Opel/Vauxhall, Peugeot, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota also offer three-cylinder engines in Europe.

Fiat has a long tradition of two-cylinder engines. Its first debuted as a 13-hp 569cc unit in the 1936 Topolino. A 13-hp 479cc unit was used in the 500 that arrived in 1957. The last two-cylinder engine built by Fiat was the 31-hp 704cc unit offered on the Cinquecento minicar from 1991 to 1996.

Quick expansion

In addition to the 85-hp TwinAir that debuts in Geneva, there will be a turbocharged 105-hp version and a 65-hp normally aspirated variant of the engine.

Fiat will add the TwinAir engine to other minicars and subcompacts, beginning with the successors to the Fiat Panda and Lancia Ypsilon minicars. Both replacements are due in the second half of 2011.

The TwinAir, which is designed to run on gasoline or compressed natural gas, will be built at Fiat Powertrain Technologies' plant of Bielsko Biala, Poland.

Fiat has not yet announced production volumes for the engine.

Office 2010 prices: the good, the bad and the costly

Microsoft has announced UK pricing for Office 2010 and once again there's bad news for British customers.

UPDATE: MICROSOFT COCK-UP ADDS £30 TO OFFICE 2010 PRICE

Buyers of Office Home and Business are being asked to pay £240 (all UK prices include VAT) for the full boxed version of the software, over £60 more than the US price of £178 ($280) on a straight dollar conversion. Office Professional, which includes every app in the Office portfolio, will cost £430* in Britain, but only £318 ($500) in the US.

"There are a number of different things that play a role [in British Office pricing]," explained Microsoft's Office product manager, Chris Adams, when PC Pro asked him to explain the discrepancies. "There's not one specific thing that leads to differences between us and the US," he said, citing factors such as foreign exchange rates, the cost of localisation and varying production costs from country-to-country.

There's not one specific thing that leads to differences between us and the US

The good news is that the price differences aren't too steep on the entry-level suite, Office Home and Student, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The price of the full boxed version in the UK is £110, compared to a US price of £95 ($120).

All prices are only Microsoft's suggested figures, and retailers will undoubtedly sell the software at below ticket price.

Product Key Cards

Microsoft is introducing a new Product Key Card scheme with Office 2010. This will see trial versions of the Office software pre-installed on new PCs, which users will be able to unlock with a code purchased from retailers or Microsoft itself.

There is, however, a catch with this new system. Although the Key Card codes are cheaper, they only include one licence rather than the three that come with the boxed versions of the software.

That means buyers will pay £90 to unlock Office Home and Student on a single PC, but only £20 more to get a licence for three PCs and, of course, the full back-up disc media that comes inside the box.

Adams says that Microsoft hopes retailers will make this distinction clear to buyers when they purchase a new PC, although as PC Pro's own investigations have shown, High Street retailers aren't exactly renowned for their technical competence.

Retailers will be able to set their own prices for the physical key cards, but at launch only Microsoft will be able to deliver Office unlock codes over the internet. Adams confirmed that Microsoft will be charging full retail prices for these codes.

The Office 2010 price list

Office Home and Student 2010 - £110 (£90 for Product Key Card)

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Web Apps

Office Home and Business 2010 - £240 (£190)

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Office Web Apps

Office Professional 2010 - £430* (£300)

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Office Web Apps, premium technical support

(Revised price, was originally stated as £400)

3 Tesla employees killed in California plane crash

Three employees of Tesla Motors were killed in a small airplane crash in northern California today, the electric car maker's chief executive said.

A Cessna 310 struck an electrical tower after taking off this morning and crashed into a residential neighborhood, killing all three people on board, according to local police. Tesla confirmed all had worked at the company.

Tesla is withholding the employees' names while it works with authorities to notify their families, CEO Elon Musk said.

"Tesla is a small, tightly-knit company, and this is a tragic day for us," Musk said.

Tesla is one of the best-known companies in an emerging electric car industry that is growing as more people seek clean-energy alternatives in their daily lives.

Tesla filed for an initial public offering of up to $100 million last month. The company was co-founded by and is currently run by Musk, an entrepreneur who made his fortune as co-founder of online payments service provider PayPal.

The three employees were mid-level engineers, said a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to give out details about the fatalities.

The plane was registered to Air Unique Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif. Air Unique was registered with Tesla engineer Doug Bourn. It was not known whether Bourn was on board.

The plane left the Palo Alto Airport at about 7 a.m. PST bound for Hawthorne Municipal Airport in Southern California. It lost power before striking the tower, breaking off a wing, East Palo Alto Police Department Captain John Chalmers said.

The wing hit a house, causing a fire. The rest of the aircraft struck parked vehicles, Chalmers said. There were no reports of injuries on the ground, Chalmers said.

According to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor, the plane crashed about one mile northeast of the airport.

The FAA does not know if the foggy weather was a factor. Three FAA safety investigators were on the scene, and a National Transportation Safety Board investigator was scheduled to arrive today.

Wired.com said it had confirmed that J.B. Straubel, Tesla's chief technology officer, wasn't aboard.