PATREONItems tagged with Automobiles
It's been nearly four decades since Porsche rolled out its first open-top 911 variant, starting with a prototype it unveiled at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt in 1981, followed by a commercial release a year later. It's been a staple option ever since. Continuing that tradition, Porsche unveiled its 2020 model 911 Cabriolet with a roof that the automaker says opens and closes more quickly than ever. The newest model features a fully automatic soft top with an integrated rear glass window. Porsche says the top structure contains magnesium elements known as bows, which is supposed to resist ballooning when pressing the pedal to the metal. It can be opened and closed at speeds up...
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Well, I found my next car, now I just need a windfall of cash and a 'money is no object' attitude. When that time comes, I have every intention of buying a McLaren 720S Spider, the newest supercar from the British automotive company. It combines ridiculous power and speed with an open-top design (similar to Ferrari's 488 Pista Spider), making it one heck of a drool-worthy convertible. "The new McLaren 720S Spider offers an unparalleled blend of extreme performance, crafted luxury, driver involvement and daily usability—all with the additional exhilaration of open-air driving whenever required. As the most accomplished convertible supercar ever, the new Spider delivers across a remarkable...
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The gear heads at Mercedes-Benz are building an even faster version of the AMG GT called the AMG GT R Pro, because can you ever have enough speed and grunt? That's not a question that ever needs to be asked at AMG. The new Mercedes-AMG GT R Pro is all the answer anyone needs, and it's "closer to motor racing than ever before." Mercedes-Benz is planning to reveal the speedy upgrade at the Los Angeles Auto Show later this month. It's one of the largest auto shows in the world with over 1,000 vehicles to ogle, including cars, trucks, SUVs, electric vehicles, and more. Ahead of the show, Mercedes-Benz took to Instagram to tease the AMG GT R Pro with an action shot from the racetrack. We only get...
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BMW seems acutely aware of the criticism some have had for the more recent 3 Series iterations, so it's gone and retooled the sedan, giving it a bigger design, making it more tech savvy, and a punchier look. Or as BMW puts it, the 2019 model 3 Series "takes the signature characteristics of a BMW and turns the volume up several notches." The dial has quite been turned up to 11, though certainly the latest 3 Series is a bolder, more aggressive representation of the sporty sedan. It has T-shaped air intakes in front of both wheel wells, sleeker looking twin LED headlights, a "kidney grille" with a single surround for the two elements, slim L-shaped 3D rear lights, and a twin-pipe exhaust system....
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Chevrolet is spearheading a mobile effort to encourage drivers both young and ol, to put down their smartphones when behind the wheel of an automobile. Ironically (at first glance) the automaker is doing this through a mobile app, Call Me Out, available for Android devices. It's a unique app, however, in that it encourages drivers to put their phone down. That way it works is the app takes recorded messages by family and friends—or whoever—and plays them back to drivers when they pick up their phone. Let's say Erica goes out for a drive. Erica is easily distracted by her phone, whether it's reading text messages or cycling through Spotify playlists. Through the Call Me Out app, her...
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Electric vehicles are growing in popularity, and it certainly helps that some of the newest designs carry the same aggressive looks and performance (at times) as their gas guzzling brethren. Some EVs are even ultra-sporty. That seems to be what Ford is after with an all-electric vehicle in the making, one that takes its inspiration from the company's iconic Mustang. Ford teased the upcoming EV by releasing a sketch of the rear end, and boy is it a beauty. In fact, it would be easy to mistake the sketch, as shown above, for a Mustang. That is precisely the point—Darren Palmer, product development director of Ford's Team Edison division, stated in no uncertain terms that the all-new, fully-electric...
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If you wait long enough, what's old becomes new again, to a new generation. We see this not only in fashion, but also technology—just look at the success of Nintendo's NES Classic and SNES Classic Edition game consoles. Mercedes-Benz is going back even further, though. Some 81 years after introducing its W 125 hit the racetrack, the automaker is paying homage to its sleek design with a new electric vehicle concept. Mercedes-Benz unveiled its new Vision EQ Silver Arrow show car during Monterey Car Week, which is an event for car aficionados and collectors from all over the world. The Vision EQ Silver Arrow is a one-seater vehicle designed in the same general shape as its record breaking...
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German automaker Audi is not messing around with its latest concept car, the PB 18 E-Tron. For all intents and purposes, this nifty (and futuristic) looking vehicle is an electric hypercar (or supercar, if you prefer the term) with copious horsepower and torque for plenty of get up and go, never mind that it's rocking a battery operated drive system. The PB 18 E-Tron features three electric motors, one up front and two more in the rear. Those latter two are centrally located between the steering knuckles, each driving one wheel via half-shafts. They combine to deliver 600 horsepower to all four wheels. Or in terms of electric power, they deliver 150 kW to the front axle and 450 kW to the rear,...
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Audi has been talking about its E-tron Quattro electric SUV for several months now, with the German automaker most recently announcing a delay. In a follow-up to that, Audi says it is planning to unveil the E-tron Quattro on September 17 during a global launch event in San Francisco, California, at which time it will begin taking pre-orders. "We’re introducing a premium, customer-centric vehicle in a premium, customer-centric way," said Scott Keogh, president of Audi of America. "With our owners and our dealers, this process allows us to offer transparency from reservation and build all the way through delivery." The E-tron Quattro is fully electric, five-passenger SUV aimed at the premium...
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In an excited email to employees, Tesla founder and chief executive officer Elon Musk wrote, "We did it!!," making sure to add an extra exclamation point for emphasis. What Tesla did, according to Musk's email, is finally achieve the automaker's goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 electric vehicles in a single week, hitting the goal in the last week of the quarter. But that's not all. "Not only did we factory gate over 5000 Model 3’s, but we also achieved the S & X production target for a combined 7000 vehicle week!," Musk added. 7000 cars, 7 days ♥️ Tesla Team ♥️ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2018 While it took some time for Tesla to reach its goal of producing 5,000...
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Toyota is developing a new 'hypercar' that is based on its TS050 Hybrid LMP1 race car that won Le Mans. Called the GR Super Sport Concept, Toyota's Gazoo Racing (TGR) division showed off the at the 86th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, after having first revealed it at the 2018 Tokyo Auto Salon in January. The news at Le Mans is that Toyota is bringing the race car (or hypercar) to the consumer market, meaning it will be road legal at some point. "The development of Toyota's next generation of super sports car has started. It takes the cutting-edge hybrid electric systems and fuel economy technology that the TGR WEC team has tested and refined during the past six years in WEC, and showcases...
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Sometimes the weather calls for cruising down the road with the top rolled down, Thelma and Louise style (minus the ending). Mercedes-AMG has again added that option to its growing line of GT sports cars, the latest of which is the topless GT S Roadster. It's the third GT Roadster model in the company's stable, to go along with four two-dour coupes, three four-door coupes, and a pair of customer race cars. That's right, there are now a dozen AMG GT sports cars, and like the two other GT Roadster models, the GT S Roadster boasts a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine. This gives it 469 horsepower in the standard package and 465 pounds-feet of torque, or buyers can opt for the C version with additional...
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The days are numbered for opportunistic thieves who swipe packages from people's doorsteps when they are away at work or otherwise not at home. In an expansion to its Amazon Key service, Amazon is now giving Prime members the option of having their items delivered to their car, so instead of leaving a box of goodies out in the open, the delivery person will instead shove it in the trunk of a compatible vehicle. Amazon is not charging anything extra for this service, it's yet another perk for Prime subscribers. There are caveats, however, one of which is that it's only available in 37 cities and surrounding areas across the United States. Amazon says it plans to add more cities over time, but...
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It has been exactly five decades since Ford introduced its original Mustang Cobra Jet, which made its debut only four years after the first Mustang arrived. In celebration of the Cobra Jet's 50th anniversary, Ford went and built another model for 2018 that is the "most powerful and quickest version from the factory yet." And by that, Ford means it roar down a quarter-mile in the mid-eight-second range while topping 150 miles per hour. "From the very first Mustang Cobra Jets dominating the 1968 NHRA Winternationals to our modern-day Cobra Jet racers, the Ford Performance Parts team continues to build the Cobra Jet brand based on its success at the track over five decades," said Eric Cin, global...
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Neel Jani and Porsche are both sitting on cloud nine after Jani set a new track record at Spa-Francorchamps while driving Porche's 919 Hybrid. In what has proven to be faster than a Formula One race car, the Porsche 919 Hybrid zoomed around the Belgian Grand Prix track in 1 minute 41.770 seconds, besting the 1 minute 42.553 seconds it took Lewis Hamilton in a Formula One last year. With the pedal to the metal in the modified Evo, Jani achieved a top speed of 359 kilometers per hour, or a hair over 223 miles per hour, while averaging 245.61 km/h (~152.61 mph). "This was an absolute fantastic lap—an outstanding drivers’ performance from Neel and the result of great engineering. Today’s...
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Uber and the autonomous driving sector at large are under close scrutiny after one of the ride sharing service's self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian on Sunday. However, the police chief of Tempe, Arizona, the place where the fatal accident occurred, says a preliminary investigation into the matter reveals that Uber is "likely" not at fault for what happened, and that it would have been difficult to avoid the outcome whether a human driver was in charge or a series of sensors and cameras. To be clear, there was a human driver behind the wheel, though the self-driving Volvo SUV was in full autonomous mode when the accident happened. The vehicle was traveling 38 miles per hour in a...
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The future of high-speed racing might very well be performed using electric vehicles. Performance-oriented electric hypercars are getting stupid fast, to go along with their sometimes aggressive styling, as we bear witness to once again from Rimac. The company's newest concept vehicle, the C Two, hit the pavement and went from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just 1.85 seconds, believe it or not. Hitting 60 mph in under 2 seconds is nothing short of incredible. It also makes the C Two one of the fastest cars in the world, electric or otherwise. The C Two is plenty powerful too, obviously, with nearly twice as many horses underneath the hood as its predecessor. Whereas the previous generation Concept...
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The era of electric vehicles may one day arrive in earnest, especially with some automakers pushing out performance oriented sports cars that run on batteries. Porsche is one of them. The company is prepping its Mission E for launch, and like Tesla's Model S, it is an intriguing vehicle. Stefan Weckbach, the guy in charge of Porsche's EV efforts, spoke in an interview about the Mission E and what's in store. One thing Weckbach said is that Porsche is not likely to devote resources to developing technologies that simulate the throaty sounds of muscle cars that run on gasoline. "Porsche is unlikely to lower itself to gimmicks of this kind or use sound effects," Weckbach said, according to Autoblog....
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To the uninitiated, riding shotgun in a self-driving car might seem like a scary proposition. Part of the reason is because we are simply not used to seeing a vehicle navigate itself without a human driver behind the wheel, so the image of a potentially deadly hunk of metal motoring down a busy street is inherently concerning. Waymo seems to recognize this, so it has gone and launched a 360-degree virtual reality experience that puts users in the rear seat of a self-driving car. Much of the 3-minute video is spent explaining how Waymo's various sensors survey the landscape to identify all the moving parts, be they other cars, guys and gals on bicycles, or pedestrians hanging out in a parking...
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Just two months ago, Waymo announced plans to test a self-driving car service in Phoenix, Arizona, in which commuters could summon a free ride from one of around 600 Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans. Now the company is putting the pedal to the metal with "thousands more" of the same hybrid vehicle, each one motoring around without a flesh and blood (read: human) driver behind the wheel. Fiat Chrysler in Canada is producing the self-driving vehicles for Waymo, which is planning to deploy the hybrids in cities where it is currently testing autonomous driving technology. When asked by Wired exactly how many thousands it is talking about, the company would not say, leaving it up to everyone's imaginations....
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Apple has filed a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that provides some insight into how the company plans to tackle navigation. The patent explains how Apple intends to make autonomous driving more efficient by reducing the need to constantly remake detailed maps. It also serves of further confirmation of Apple's plan to compete in the autonomous vehicle category—this is Apple's first patent in the self-driving car field. In the patent, Apple explains that today's autonomous vehicles use a combination of static information, such as detail maps of various routes, and real-time data captured by sensors as a self-driving car proceeds on a route....
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Tesla is indeed developing custom AI semiconductors that will help with autonomous driving chores, company CEO and founder Elon Musk has finally confirmed. It is not entirely clear if Tesla is working with AMD on specialized hardware for its electric vehicles, though Musk did offer up that Jim Keller, a microprocessor engineer who previously worked for AMD and Apple, is working on the hardware for Tesla. Keller joined Tesla in 2016. He is the automaker's President of Autopilot Hardware and Software Engineering, and presumably is the one who is in charge of the company's effort to build to a custom AI chip. Previously he spearheaded both AMD's K8 and Apple's A-Series chip efforts. When Tesla brought...
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