The 2014 Audi RS 7 is being touted as the most powerful amongst all RS models that are available in the United States, and was first shown off at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Now the pricing for the model has been revealed, with prospecting buyers looking at a starting price of
Alfa Romeo’s new Spider droptop will launch late in 2015 and eschew the retro styling of the 2uettottanta concept for a more contemporary aesthetic, it’s claimed, after the company struggled to make the Pininfarina design work alongside other high-profile models like the upcoming 4C. The Alfa Romeo Spider, a collaboration between the Italian company and Mazda, will share a far chunk of its construction with the new 2015 Miata/MX-5, and is expected to have a 168HP turbocharged 1.5 TB MultiAir engine, Autocar sources claim.
That’s different from the new Mazda drop-top, which is expected to use the Japanese company’s own engines. The Spider will have a single powerplant option at launch, it’s said, routing its power through a six-speed, dual-clutch auto gearbox; the engine will be mounted longitudinally so as to fit into the sub-1,100kg body.
Exactly what that body might look like is what’s been giving Alfa enthusiasts sleepless nights. For a start, the insiders say, it will be completely different to what Mazda prepares for the new Miata, though both will make considerable use of high-strength steel to keep weight down.
For the Spider, it’s expected to result in a roughly 4m long by 1.7m wide car, slightly longer in the process than the Miata, though both will have the same windshield and surrounding structure, front bulkhead, engine compartment, and front/rear axels. There’ll be “conventional” headlight clusters, rather than the outlandish lights of the 4C, and the traditional Alfa Romeo grill with “whisker” air intakes low down on either side.
According to the sources, the overall aim is to make a car with more mainstream appeal than the enthusiast-friendly 4C, including approachable suspension settings to make it “accessible” to everyday drivers. Again, that’s another area in which Alfa Romeo and Mazda are expected to go their own ways, with each company responsible for its own tuning and setup.
Even so, the 2015 Spider will be manufactured in Japan, alongside its Mazda cousin, with Alfa Romeo apparently close to signing off the final design by chief Marco Tencone. Pricing is still a mystery, however, though is expected to be lower than the roughly $55,000 the 4C is expected to come in at when it hits forecourts later this year.
2015 Alfa Romeo Spider goes modern, eschews “boat-tail” 2uettottanta is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
If ever there was a good reason for Instagram and Vine, Acura teasing the latest NSX prototype doing wicked things around the track ahead of its showroom debut might be the very finest. The car company has already shown us the 2015 NSX sitting pretty at NAIAS 2013 back in January, but a pair of brief videos – which you can see after the cut – give a more aurally-pleasing glimpse of the supercar.
The first video, shared on Vine, is six seconds of the mid-engined car running around a dry test track. It’s covered in what looks like a vinyl wrap with Acura Motorsports branding, but is otherwise unbadged, and we’re big fans of the blacked-out headlamps which give the car an aggressive, snaked-eyed look face on.
Arguably more exciting is the follow-up, a nine second Instagram video showing the Acura NSX having fun in the wet. That’s a good excuse to get the tail out round some test track corners and throw up some spray.
What we can’t quite get over is how great the NSX sounds: an angry V6 that, even though Honda has cooked up a new version of its electric support system for the car, doesn’t sacrifice the soundtrack.
Wet performance should benefit considerably from the Sport Hybrid SH-AWD system paired with the 3.5L V6 engine. Acura will equip the 2015 NSX with a total of three electric motors, one 30 kW motor hooked up to the V6, and 20kW motor apiece for each rear wheel. They’ll be switchable, either allowing for greater torque on the outside rear wheel while the inside wheel flips into regenerative mode to keep the battery topped up, or helping shift the car into all-wheel drive, with the third motor powering the front axel.
Alternatively, it can be used to top up the car’s battery while simultaneously driving the rear wheels. That should all come in handy when the NSX takes to the Mid-Ohio Raceway come August 4, for the Honda 200 IndyCar race.
Mass production, meanwhile, won’t begin until 2015, with Honda and Acura yet to confirm final pricing but describing the NSX as a “boutique” project.
VIA Autoblog
Acura NSX teaser shows supercar getting frisky in the wet is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
To mark the 100th anniversary of Chevy’s logo this year, the car company has created this graphic charting the evolution of the iconic bowtie. But did you know that the origins of the slanted cross are vague at best?
     |
BMW isn’t counting on brand cachet and outlandish styling to sell the new i3 EV, with the “range-extender” gas generator option getting an even more fossil-fuel-reliant companion in the shape of access to a loaner X5 SUV. The backup option, which BMW will market as an “add-on mobility” feature Bloomberg reports, will effectively offer i3 converts access to the more traditionally powered X5 for a number of weeks each year.
The package – which will be an optional extra on top of the $41,350 starting price of the i3 – is yet to be finalized, with BMW still to decide on how much it will cost drivers as well as how many days with the X5 they’ll get. Still, it’s being positioned as a way to drive an eco-friendly vehicle the majority of the time while still having the reassurance of a regular one for family holidays and the like.
The base model i3 offers between 80-100 miles of electric-powered driving in typical conditions, BMW has said, recharging through either regular household outlets or via dedicated high-voltage power points. However, as a cost option, BMW will outfit your i3 with a “range-extender”: in effect a compact gas engine that is used as a generator to recharge the car’s Li-Ion battery array.
It’s an approach we’ve seen other companies take to prolong range, albeit with a little remaining reliance on traditional fuels. Cadillac’s upcoming ELR, for instance, offers a similar system as standard, with a gas engine working to keep the batteries topped up rather than directly driving the wheels.
BMW claims that with the range-extender option, the i3 will drive more than 180 miles.
Even those who don’t opt for the range-extender or the X5 will still have ways to prolong their use of the i3, however. An ECO PRO mode trims the top speed from its already-limited 93mph to around 75mph, in addition to curtailing acceleration in the name of economy.
Meanwhile, a more draconian ECO PRO+ mode can further reduce the power demands, by turning off supplies to non-driving-essential features like the radio. BMW estimates a 30-percent boost in range with ECO PRO+ active.
As for the BMW X5, the company took the wraps off the 2014 model back in May. While it may have little of the eco-conscious features the i3 offers, the refreshed SUV isn’t lacking in technology or power, with a 3.0-liter, triple-turbocharged gas engine pushing out 381HP and 546lb-ft of torque in the M variant.
BMW i3′s cure for range anxiety is a gas-guzzler on demand is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
A paper has been published by Flavio Garcia of the University of Birmingham which includes access codes for a number of luxury car brands, this resulting in the Professor being served an injunction from a UK court. The paper is being called dangerous as it would, according to the brands on the other side of this court case, allow criminals to drive away with the cars in question. The paper itself, on the other hand, warns against what Professor Garcia calls “weaknesses in security” which he suggests, in so many words, that criminals are already aware of.
The paper in question was set to be published by Usenix Security Symposium in Washington DC in August, but due to this court order, it’ll be held until a court session on the matter can be held. The injunction itself is being filed against Garcia as well as two colleagues of his, Baris Ege and Roel Verdul of Stichting Katholieke Universiteit, both of them cryptology experts that contributed to the paper.
Porsches, Audis, Bentleys and Lamborghinis are included in the paper, each of them with security codes set to be published if the paper ever does see the light of day. It’s Volkswagen’s parent that’s launched this case against the scientists, that one entity owning the four luxury lines affected by the paper.
Those filing for the injunction made a specific request for the paper to be published without the codes themselves, but the paper’s authors have declined. The paper itself, Dismantling Megamos Crypto: Wirelessly Lockpicking a Vehicle Immobiliser, shines light on the system that protects the whole lot of these luxury vehicles: Megamos Crypto.
The software behind the code has been available on the internet since 2009, the team reminded The Guardian this week through their court case filings. The paper suggests that the code had been leaked to the web after the system had (likely) been broken using what the team describes as “chip slicing.”
This chip slicing technique takes a computer chip from the security system and analyzes it under a microscope. The process, which the paper asserts likely cost the perpetrator around 50 thousand British pounds, analyzed the arrangement of the physical bits of the chip, inferring their abilities.
Now we’ve only to see what the difference is between this paper being published and the same information being available on the internet – other than the courts’ control over one and not the other, of course.
Scientists’ luxury car hack warning faces injunction via Volkswagen is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
BMW has officially revealed the production BMW i3, the company’s first i-Series electric car for the market, a carbon-fiber clad urban vehicle set to reach roads from November. Based on the i3 concept first shown off in early 2011, the new i3 will manage 80-100 miles on a full charge in its cheapest $41,350 form, though a hybrid-style version with a compact two-cylinder engine will effectively double that for an extra $1,150.
BMW took the wraps off of the production car at a simultaneous event in New York, London, and Beijing today, ahead of deliveries beginning in Europe this November. The US release, along with availability in China and Japan, will follow on sometime in the first half of 2014.
According to BMW, running costs for the i3 should work out roughly 40-percent less than its 320dA sedan, in Germany at least, over the first three years. That advantage could be even bigger, the firm suggests, depending on the level of local subsidies. It’s worth noting, though, that the first three years of life is unlikely to include a change of the 125 kW Li-Ion batteries.
BMW i3 Concept:
Those batteries, paired with a 170HP electric motor, are good enough to propel the BMW i3 from 0-62mph in 7.2 seconds, with a top speed limited to around 93mph for what the company claims are efficiency reasons.
The compact “range-extender” is a two-cylinder gas engine mustering 34HP and mounted above the rear axel by the electric motor; rather than drive the wheels directly, it’s used to keep the batteries charged up. BMW says that, with a full battery and a full tank of gas, drivers can expect more than 180 miles in range in regular driving.
Carbon fiber has been used to keep weight down to 1,195kg, with a passenger cell of the lightweight material wrapped around an aluminum chassis. Inside there’s room for four, along with BMW’s Connected Drive and 360-degree ELECTRIC systems.
BMW i3 production car revealed is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Earlier this month we saw a car with a joystick shift lever. It looks cool, but it doesn’t have any additional function. Ford engineer Zachary Nelson made a more high-tech shift lever mod that’s geared towards newbie drivers. It’s a shift knob that vibrates to tell you when to shift gears.
The shift knob is based on the Arduino Pro Mini microcontroller. Using an Android app and the OpenXC Vehicle Interface, the knob “monitors the vehicle’s speed, RPM and accelerator pedal position. Based on this information, the application calculates and then indicates to the driver when he or she should shift by vibrating the shift knob.” Additionally, the knob can be set to prioritize speed or fuel economy. Zach used a motor from an Xbox 360 controller to make the knob vibrate and then designed and 3D printed the knob’s case. It was then installed onto the manual shift lever from a Ford Mustang.
Start your browser’s engine and head to OpenXC to find out how to make a vibrating shift knob. Or not.
People have been talking about running cars on water for years, but it’s a slow march from science fiction to reality. Even on a small scale, development is difficult. But the i-H2GO is the second revision of an all-water remote controlled car that seems to actually work.
| |
Nissan has unveiled the US pricing for its 370Z Coupe, NISMO, and Roadster model, each of which are now available for purchase from Nissan dealerships throughout the United States. The prices for both the 2014 370Z NISMO and Coupe models have both seen reductions, which aim to make them competitive in the industry. The Roadster, however, remains unchanged.
The 2014 model for the 370Z Coupe has had its price dropped $3,130 USD over the 2013 model, while the 370Z Coupe Touring grade model was dropped by a lesser $2,550 USD. The new pricing for the former Nissan model starts at $29,990 USD for the 6-speed manual transmission, and $31,290 USD for the 7-speed automatic transmission.
The manual transmission 370Z Coupe Touring model, meanwhile, is priced at $35,270 USD, and the automatic transmission is priced at $36,570 USD. Rounding out the Coupe models is the Nissan Coupe NISMO, which is priced at $43,020 USD. All of these vehicles include a $790 USD destination and handling fee on top of the MSRP.
And then there’s the 2014 370Z Roadster, which starts at $41,470 USD for the seven-speed automatic transmission, and increases from there for the two Touring models. The latest Roadster Touring six-speed manual transmission model has an MSRP of $44,170 USD, while the seven-speed automatic transmission option is priced a bit more at $45,470 USD.
As with the Coupe models, the Roadster models’ pricing excludes a $790 USD destination and handling fee. Says Nissan, the 370Z Coupe’s 2014 models have had “no significant product enhancements,” while the NISMO received a new design theme on both the exterior and the interior. The Roadster, meanwhile, offers an auto convertible top.
SOURCE: Nissan
2014 Nissan 370Z Coupe, Roadster, and NISMO pricing unveiled is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
