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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.

BMW i8 added to exotic Dubai police fleet

Apparently the Dubai Police is ready to start expanding its vast collection of exotic cars yet again. After taking a little while off from new purchases, the cops there recently added a Lexus RC F to the stable, and now the force has gone green – well, kind of. The latest high-performance vehicle to wear the green and white livery is a BMW i8. While the video above isn't in English, the clip is self-explanatory by showing off officials getting out of the high-performance hybrid coupe and taking a walk around it. With a total output of a mere 357 horsepower, the i8 is practically the economy entry in the Dubai Police fleet that includes a Bugatti Veyron and McLaren MP4-12C. Pics: #BMW i8 joins #DubaiPolice fleet of Super Patrol #Cars. @BMW #BMWi8 #Dubai #MyDubai #UAE #Police #Luxury pic.twitter.com/u0WK16g6B0 - Dubai Police???? ??? (@DubaiPoliceHQ) March 11, 2015 Related Video: Related Gallery Dubai Police BMW i8 News Source: Twitter, ArabGT.com via YouTube Auto News Green BMW Coupe Hybrid Videos dubai dubai police

Recharge Wrap-up: EVSR returns to Mt. Washington, China Mulls $16 Billion For EV Charging

Foxconn and electric carmaker BAIC are partnering to provide an electric car rental service in China. Slated to kick off next month in Beijing, Hangzhou and Jiangsu province, the company, called Henyu, will offer the EV rentals by the hour. Henyu hopes to offer 5,000, to 10,000 electric rental cars within a year, and wants to become the largest EV rental group in China. The company will also deploy BAIC's E150EV to ten cities for rental outside of Beijing. Read more at Want China Times. Hoping to convince more people to make the switch to electric cars, China is considering investing $16 billion to install charging facilities. Anonymous sources have said that an announcement about the program will be made soon. China has already announced and implemented various measures, such as incentives and tax breaks, to encourage more people to drive emissions free and improve urban air quality. China aims to have 30 percent of its government vehicle purchases be EVs by 2016, with higher targets after that. There's more from Bloomberg. BMW is launching a campaign to highlight technology features from the i8 to be used in other BMW vehicles. Called BMW Innovations, the program will include television ads showing how the i8's full-color heads-up display, LED headlight technology and Surround View Camera System are making their way into cars such as the 3 Series, 5 Series and X3, respectively. BMW Innovations also includes digital and social media campaigns, as well as hands-on technology presentations at dealerships. See the new ads below, and learn more in the press release. EVSR is set to return to Mt. Washington for the Alternate Energy Summit. It is the team's first time back since EVSR set the electric vehicle record at the Climb to the Clouds hill climb earlier this year. EVSR will run the cars up the hill again, and it will hold a workshop about electric racing, called "Redefining Motorsports - A How-To Guide for Creating a Revolution in Speed." The Alternative Energy Summit takes place on September 13 and 14 as part of National Drive Electric Week, and is free to the public. Read more in the press release, below. BMW Debuts BMW Innovations Campaign Showcasing Key Technology Features. Woodcliff Lake, NJ – August 27, 2014... BMW of North America will introduce a new campaign, BMW Innovations, which will highlight how the range of BMW vehicles share several key technology features with the visionary BMW i8, a plug-in hybrid high-performance vehicle.