Kim Carr and Steve Bracks will lead a 20-strong delegation of executives, engineers, scientists and designers from the car industry bound for the USA and the UK.

They'll be spruiking our ailing auto industry to theirs, basically, trying to develop export opportunities. On the lunch list will be the Ford and GM head boardrooms, Washington power brokers and companies including Lockheed Martin in Great Britain.

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GM has put the brakes on its eBay experiment with online retailing - but isn't saying if the trial was a success.

Launched on August 11, the eBay experiment ran longer than originally intended. Almost 16,000 vehicles from 225 dealers were offered. 1.5 million visitors viewed the site, which generated 15,000 sales leads.

Some dealers thought it a time-wasting exercise, having to pore through hundreds of unrealistically low bids.

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General Motors will probably kill off the Saturn brand following the demise of an eleventh-hour deal with auto industry and racing magnate Roger Penske.

Saturn was set up in 1990 to stem the rising tide of Japanese imports into the US. And it didn't work. The deal fell through after Penske was unable to find and slot in an alternative manufacturer for when GM walks away at the end of 2011.

It's believed Penske had approached Chinese interests and Renault.

Saturn has 350 dealers and represents about 13,000 jobs in the US.

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A car and battery manufacturer has topped China's rich list. His main enterprises are making lithium-ion mobile telephone batteries and China's best-selling passenger car.

Wang Chaunfu jumped from 103rd place last year to pole position on the rich list after America's richest investor Warren Buffett bought a 10 per cent stake in Mr Wang's company, BYD, a year ago. Since then the share price has jumped sevenfold, making Mr Wang a six-billion-dollar man.

BYD is China's eighth-largest car maker and its F3 sedan is currently the best-selling passenger car in the country. It's an unassuming small four-door with an old 1.6-litre 75kW Mitsubishi four-cylinder engine.

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Big Hu, as he likes to be known informally, has just taken delivery of a customised Hongqui HQE car. 6.4 metres long, two wide and 1.7 high, it's big. And retro-ugly. The head of Honqui manufacturing said: "The radiator grille is in the shape of a Chinese folding fan and the taillight is like an ancient palace lantern." Nice. He added: "It represents the most advanced automobile manufacture technique and the spirit of innovation and enterprising."

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A listener named Bernie e-mailed us earlier this week with the saga of locking the key in the boot of his 10-year-old BMW 318i.

Tragedy is, Bernie's always wanted a BMW, and he got one - used - aged 48. That's Bernie, not the car. Long story short, after some other problems, his kid locks the keys in the boot. Calls the BMW dealership. They won't give him the key code, but they will sell him a replacement remote key for $628 or a manual key for $312.

And it has to be shipped from Asia. And they won't get the ball rolling without payment up front. And it'll take five days.

Anyway, he calls out some whiz-kid locksmith who cracks the boot, retrieves the key and solves the problem all in under two hours.

This whole key rip-off has to stop. And it's not just BMW. It's tantamount to rape.

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Last week we reported the allegations of an in-house lawyer for Toyota in the US, who claimed the company destroyed and withheld documents critical to more than 300 rollover injury claims. Read that story here.

The story took a new twist this week.

A Dallas attorney has filed a lawsuit that will reopen 16 of his product liability cases.

Todd Tracey, an automotive product liability specialist, said "the American legal system and vehicle owners need to rise up to get Toyota to tell the truth about its hidden crash safety data". He added: "This type of conduct by defendants is illegal, immoral, unprofessional, and deprives litigants of equal access."

The plaintiffs have requested the courts set aside previous rulings owing to Toyota's alleged fraud, misconduct and obstruction of justice.

Toyota denies the claims.

HSV has released the E2 - or E-Series 2 - range, hot on the heels of the launch of Holden's new fuel-efficient V6.

Holden's stack of spare Pontiac G8 bonnets is being shoehorned into everything except Senator and Grange, and Euro-style daytime running lights have been added - which should confuse the cops, some of whom have apparently started booking Audi and Merc owners using their DTRLs on the basis that using fog lights in good weather is an offence. Even though they're not actually fog lights.

Most models won't receive a powertrain upgrade, but the GTS gets 8kW more - to 325kW. Launch control is available on manuals, the Magnetic Ride Control suspension has been tweaked, and there's a new ‘competition' setting for the ESC across the range.

But 8kW more is nothing - you won't be able to feel or measure it using a stopwatch. It's for bragging rights only. So is the claim of 4.5 per cent better fuel efficiency - who cares? HSV is a brand that can't be green-washed.

One practical addition is the new cruise control that applies brakes going downhill, if required, keeping the car at your set speed ... and possibly saving your licence.

Ford has added $4000 in extra value to a limited edition G6 Falcon, which goes on sale later this month.

The drive-away price is $36,490, which Ford says equates to a massive $13,000 price cut when you factor in the taxes and dealer costs absorbed in the drive-away pricing.

The car includes six airbags, leather seats, Bluetooth, iPod integration, 18-inch alloys, etc.

You can also have an LPG e-Gas version, but then you get only 17-inch alloys and the poverty-pack 4sp auto.

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Celebrities will race a plug-in electric Ford Focus in the soon-to-debut Jay Leno Show. The car will star in the Green Car Challenge, which is just like Top Gear's Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment.

Anyone scratching their heads at this point will note the plug-in Focus doesn't actually exist yet, and won't be on sale in North America until 2011.

Reading between the lines, Jay Leno flexed his considerable media muscles and Ford custom-built one, track-tuned it and built a roll cage inside.

The new Jay Leno Show screens every night on the Comedy Channel from Tuesday Setpember 15th.

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