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A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

Audi, MIT, GE start cab ridesharing study in New York City

Audi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) and General Electric are getting together to study something that won't likely be thrilling for New York City cab drivers. But there are bigger fish to fry and keeping cabbies happy. The German automaker is working with MIT's Senseable City Lab and GE on a study designed to get a better handle on how ridesharing in the city's cabs could work and how such a practice could cut both emissions and traffic in the largest US city. The program, dubbed HubCab, will track more than 150 million taxi trips in a year. The broader idea is to figure out how ridesharing could cut trips by 40 percent. That's not likely to please the holders of those coveted NYC taxicab medallions but would certainly benefit the city in other ways. "The aim of HubCab is to spark thinking about ways of utilizing publicly available data as we explore new concepts for mobility, especially in crowded urban contexts," said Audi spokesman Brad Stertz. Stertz allowed that there remained many legal and "customer acceptance" issues to address with ridesharing and that there was no timeframe for concluding the study or when the findings would be put into effect via an actual ridesharing system. At least it's a start. Check out Audi's press release below. MIT, Audi launch HubCab project in New York City • HubCab will track more than 150 million taxi trips in NYC to gain insight on ride share scenarios • Insights will inform researchers on how car sharing systems can lower vehicle emissions, reduce congestion, and save money and time • Scientific study conducted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Senseable City Lab with support of VW Group's ERL, Audi and GE MIT, in partnership with Audi and GE, launches HubCab – a transportation tracking tool aimed at reducing commuting congestion, decreasing vehicle emissions and dramatically lowering the cost of mobility infrastructure. HubCab tracks more than 150 million taxi rides in New York City over the course of a year. With this information, researchers can identify commuter travel patterns and work to develop a more efficient car share system. MIT researchers say HubCab technology could not only save people money and time, but allow users to better plan their taxi rides around the city, potentially reducing the number of trips by 40%.

Audi Q7 to be first diesel plug-in from VW group

Lending credence to prior reports, the next Audi Q7 will be available with a diesel-powered, plug-in-hybrid powertrain, Automotive News claims, after speaking to a source in the Volkswagen Group. Both the gas and diesel-powered Q7 will debut in 2015, with the diesel PHV to arrive after that. Unlike Europe's other plug-in diesel, the Volvo V60, Audi's Q7 will be sold on both sides of the Atlantic, the source told AN. You can see a few spy photos of the Q7 PHV above. Audi research and development boss Ulrich Hackenberg previously confirmed that diesel plug-ins would be arriving earlier this year, although it wasn't clear which models the ultra-efficient powertrains would be offered on, or which of those would be offered here in the US. Time to play the waiting game...