Car News
-
The German touring car series known as DTM has welcomed Aston Martin as the newest manufacturer to join. DTM organizers announced Thursday that Aston Martin will be represented by Team R-Motorsport which will field race cars based on the Vantage sports car perhaps as early as the 2019 season. The move is seen as a key step in internationalizing the series which looked to be in trouble last year when Mercedes-Benz decided to quit in order to free up resources for a planned Formula E entry. The current season of DTM has Audi and BMW represented, with race cars based on their respective A5 and...
-
2020 Audi R8 spy shots and video
Audi Sport has been spotted testing an updated version of of its R8 supercar. Previously thought to be a more hardcore GT variant, a source has revealed that the planned changes only constitute a mid-cycle update for the car. The latest tester is wearing new fascias front and rear as well as large...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Next Jaguar F-Type could get BMW V-8, 2+2 layout
The next Jaguar F-Type may have to hide a German accent. According to a Car report from Monday, Jaguar will source the next sports car's engine from BMW. Specifically, the publication reports a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine is on deck for the next F-Type. BMW offers its 4.4-liter V-8 with 456...
Sean Szymkowski -
Quiet talk could be big hint about new Land Rover Defender plug-in hybrid
Our best evidence yet of a Land Rover Defender powered by electrons surfaced this week and hinted at a 2020 arrival. Employees at Land Rover-corporate parent Tata have posted publicly on social media about a "L663 PHEV" project due for 2020. A tipster pointed us toward a Tata engineer who reported...
Aaron Cole -
New Amazon Prime show "The Gymkhana Files" goes behind the scenes with Ken Block's viral video series
Rallycross racer Ken Block ignited the internet with Gymkhana 1 in 2011. It has become a series with nine installations of intense stunts and high-horsepower machines. The series continues to draw millions of viewers and has given rise to Block's fame as a world-class driver. Next month, we'll be...
Sean Szymkowski -
BMW sets course to buy controlling stake in Chinese joint venture
To build cars in China and escape the country's steep tariffs on imports, foreign automakers have had to partner with local firms via 50:50 joint ventures. However, the Chinese government earlier this year laid out a plan to phase out the rule by 2022, thus paving the way for foreign automakers to...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
BMW has insisted the 2019 3-Series will be a return to form for the benchmark sport sedan. And no one is more confident than BMW research and development chief, Klaus Fröhlich. In fact, Fröhlich is fed up with automotive media claiming BMW's old cars are better machines. Australian publication Motoring reported Tuesday that the R&D boss said the G20-generation 3-Series "has to beat everybody" in the segment. Driving dynamics were of utmost importance when developing the sedan because "all the Australian, UK and American journalists say ‘ooh the E46 CSL was the last real 3...
-
Ford teases 5 custom Mustangs racing into SEMA
This year's SEMA show is nearly upon us and Ford has previewed an assortment of modified Mustangs that are set to star. They've been prepared by some of most famous names in the aftermarket business, showcasing why the Mustang is one of the most popular vehicles to customize. First up is the...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Hennessey: 0-60 irrelevant, Bugatti sandbaggin'
Hennessey Performance Engineering in Texas is focused on building speed machines, and its latest goal is hitting the 300-mph mark with the F5 Venom, then flying past it. With such otherworldly numbers on his mind, company founder and CEO John Hennessey said 0-60 mph times are basically irrelevant...
Joel Feder -
2019 Audi e-tron review, 2019 Mazda CX-5, all-female race series: Car News Headlines
Audi's e-tron is almost ready for its showroom debut and we've had a chance to get behind the wheel of one, albeit a prototype. We found the e-tron to be a promising entry to the electric car arena, especially when you factor in the very reasonable $75,795 starting price. Mazda's CX-5 was...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Jaguar XE SV Project 8 reveals its full fury on the dyno
There are many examples of automakers underrating their performance products. The latest data point is Jaguar's XE SV Project 8. Harry Metcalfe of the Harry's Garage YouTube channel took his own example of the super sedan over to a friend's dyno and discovered that the quoted 592 crank horsepower...
Jeff Glucker -
John Cena's 2017 Ford GT takes 6-figure hit on latest sale
The 2017 Ford GT originally commissioned by actor and pro-wrestler John Cena crossed a Mecum auction block in Dallas last week, fetching $1,320,000 in the process, a steep discount to the $1,540,000 it sold for during Russo and Steele's Monterey Car Week auction just in August. We'll remind you...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
An all-female race championship series will launch next year, organizers announced Wednesday. The W Series will race 18-20 cars in 2019 with an all-female field. The series is meant to offer a platform for female drivers who’ve been largely overlooked by other race series, organizers said. “There are just too few women competing in single-seaters series at the moment. W Series will increase that number very significantly in 2019, thereby powerfully unleashing the potential of many more female racing drivers," W Series CEO Catherine Bond Muir said in a statement. Critics say the...
-
James Murdoch could take chairman role at Tesla
James Murdoch, son of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is the leading candidate to take over the chairman role at Tesla, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. However, Elon Musk, current CEO and chairman at Tesla, hit Twitter shortly after the...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
2019 Audi e-tron prototype first drive review: An SUV that happens to be electric
Embedded deep in the Namibian desert, surrounded by orange sand that looks like it was imported from Moab, we discovered one of the unexpected benefits of driving an electric car: Giraffes don’t gallop away as you creep up on them. The noise of the tires slowly crushing loose rocks and sand...
Motor Authority -
Devel Sixteen reportedly not even close to production
Dubai-based Devel is reportedly a far cry from producing the 5,007-horsepower Devel Sixteen supercar, and a notable engineering company is no longer working with the company. Road & Track reported on Tuesday that a source claimed the car is indefinitely stuck in development. Since the project's...
Sean Szymkowski -
Future Hondas might be able to virtually see through and around buildings
Honda has developed what it calls a "smart intersection" that allows cars to virtually see through buildings, walls, and other obstructions at intersections. One day, all Honda vehicles could feature the vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology. The technology employs Honda's proprietary object...
Sean Szymkowski -
1,200-hp electric Audi RS 3 hits 130 mph in reverse for new world record
An all-electric Audi RS 3 has set a new world record, though unofficially. Driven by Daniel Abt, the modified sedan hit 130 mph...in reverse. Abt posted video of the attempt to YouTube on Tuesday. Daniel Abt is part of the Audi Sport Abt Formula E team. The car was an Audi RS 4 modified by the...
Jeff Glucker -
The Ford GT that caught fire and burned to the ground in Germany has led to a recall for the supercar. The automaker announced on Wednesday that it recall 194 GTs from the 2017 and 2018 model years to address a fire risk. Earlier this year, Ford was on the scene after a German owner's GT caught fire with 43 miles on the odometer. The driver and his son escaped from the car with no injuries, but the car was a total loss. At the time, Ford said it was investigating the matter further. Now we know the problem stems from leaky valves in a valve block assembly located below the hydraulically...
-
Bollinger B2: The electric off-road pickup of your dreams
Electric car startup Bollinger on Wednesday gave us our first look at a rugged, all-electric pickup truck currently in the works. The truck is called the Bollinger B2, and it's a sister vehicle to Bollinger's B1 SUV first shown in 2017. While the B1 can also be configured with a bed, the B2 is a...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Porsche North America CEO: Porsches will always have a steering wheel and pedals
Porsche drivers want it all. So says Porsche North America CEO Klaus Zellmer. When it comes to self-driving cars, that means Porsche drivers want to hand off the driving when it's tedious and take it back when it's fun. At Rennsport Reunion VI last month, Zellmer told Motor Authority that...
Kirk Bell -
Volvo will use Nvidia AI chip in next-gen SPA2 platform
Volvo is the latest automaker to announce plans to integrate Nvidia's powerful Drive AGX chips in its cars. Volvo said Wednesday that Nvidia's Drive AGX Xavier chip will be the basis of the core computer that features in the next-generation SPA modular platform, which has been dubbed SPA2 and...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Mercedes-Benz S560e's plug-in hybrid system to filter across to C- and E-Class
The new S560e variant in Mercedes-Benz's S-Class lineup is the first to feature the automaker's third-generation plug-in hybrid system, which has not only been tuned for efficiency but also improved power and electric range compared to the second-generation system found in the outgoing S550e. The...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
PSA Group will decide in coming months what brand(s) to launch in US
French automaker PSA Group, which controls the Peugeot, Citroën, DS and Opel (Vauxhall) brands, plans to sell cars in the United States no later than 2026. In the coming months the automaker will make some key decisions surrounding how it plans to return, including what brand(s) will lead the...
Sean Szymkowski