2011 Bmw X5 35d Diesel on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2015 will be the biggest year ever for cars at CES

Like the SEMA Show, major automakers are paying increasing attention to the CES, with 2015 expected to be one of the most auto focused yet. Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, General Motors, Hyundai, Mazda, Audi, BMW and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will all be in attendance when CES 2015 kicks off next week, taking up a record-breaking 165,000 square feet of space at the Las Vegas Convention Center. "We've come a long way from a single car on a carpet," Ford's Alan Hall told Bloomberg. Unlike SEMA, or a more traditional auto show, like the upcoming festivities in Detroit, CES doesn't necessarily focus on entire cars or the way they perform, but on the way our technology will interact with vehicles, and in how those vehicles will deliver information to drivers. "CES has become a major launch point for a lot of the big automakers," IHS tech analyst Mark Boyadjis told Bloomberg. "CES is a way for them to get on a global stage for technology." As for what kind of wares automakers will trot out in Las Vegas, we already know that BMW will show off an autonomous i3 electric car that can navigate its way through a multistory car park and can be hailed via a smartwatch app. According to Bloomberg, Hyundai will show off its own smartwatch app for the Genesis sedan, while Audi and Mercedes-Benz will show off autonomous vehicles next week. Automakers won't be the only companies looking to capitalize on CES. Tech firms, like chipmaker Nvidia, are becoming increasingly involved in the automotive game and will be in town showing their wares off to OEMs. "Two years ago, our booth would have been filled with PCs and people playing video games," Danny Shapiro, Nvidia's senior director for automotive business, told Bloomberg. "This year we made a strategic decision to shift the focus of the booth on automotive and de-prioritize some of the other things." Needless to say, you can expect to see a lot of news out of Las Vegas come next week. Stay tuned. News Source: BloombergImage Credit: Julie Jacobson / AP CES Audi BMW Chrysler Fiat Ford GM Hyundai Mazda Toyota Volkswagen Technology CES 2015

Recharge Wrap-up: Cezeta electric scooter, BMW's new Efficient Dynamics engines

The revived Czech motor scooter company Cezeta has revealed its retro-styled electric scooter. The Cezeta 506, which borrows its looks from the brand's scooters from the 1950s and 1960s, uses an 11-kW (about 15 hp) electric motor to propel itself and its rider to speeds of up to 68 miles per hour, making it suitable for highway use. A smartphone app allows the owner to reprogram top speed and acceleration, find charging stations, and take advantage of the bike's built-in Bluetooth speakers. See the video above, read more at Technologic Vehicles, or learn more at the Cezeta website. BMW has unveiled its newest Efficient Dynamics engines. In three- and four-cylinder, gasoline- and diesel-burning versions, the new modular powerplants share architecture and componentry. Featuring an aluminum crankcase and displacing about 0.5 liters per cylinder, the new engines are also aided by BMW's TwinPower turbocharging technology. Both the gasoline and diesel variants offer a savings of about five percent in fuel and emissions while improving performance. Learn more, including the many technical details, at Green Car Congress. Tesla is set to open its largest Supercharger stations to date, at 20 stalls apiece. In anticipation of a growing demand for charging infrastructure with the launch of the Model 3, Tesla will open one of the 20-stall stations in its hometown of Fremont, California, with the other opening in Nebbenes, Norway, not far from the EV-loving country's capital of Oslo. It's not clear when the Fremont location will open, but the Norwegian station should be up and running in August. Read more at Electrek. A new study confirms that automotive aluminum is recycled at a rate of 91 percent. According to research from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute's (WPI) Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling (funded, we should note, by the Aluminum Association), provides evidence of aluminum's sustainability in the manufacturing process. "With an eye toward reducing the nation's energy consumption, lowering carbon emissions, and increasing fuel economy," says Professor Diran Apelian of WPI's Metal Processing Institute, "this study confirms that as aluminum use continues to grow in the automotive sector it also enhances energy security and environmental protections." Read more in the press release below.

2015 BMW S 1000 RR looks to retain sportbike supremacy

The BMW S 1000 RR is already a pretty potent member of the superbike ranks, but BMW is revealing a host of upgrades for this two-wheeled lightning bolt at the Intermot 2014 motorcycle show that should make it even faster.
The biggest additions to the latest 1000 RR are its new cylinder head, lighter valves and different intake cam to tweak even more power from the bike's 1.0-liter, four-cylinder engine, and BMW now rates it at a claimed 196 horsepower (or 199 horses if you go with the European measurement, converted from 146 kilowatts), a boost over the first-gen's 193 ponies, and 83 pound-feet of torque through a six-speed gearbox. Those adjustments would probably be enough to make the cycle a tick faster alone, but the Bavarian engineers also cut 8.82 pounds (4 kg) to bring the motorcycle's weight with a full tank of fuel to a feather-light 450 pounds. Much of that diet comes from the redesigned exhaust that cuts about 6.6 pounds off the scales.
Cradling that tweaked engine is a redesigned, lighter frame with fully adjustable springs. The bike also comes standard with Race ABS, stability control, seven-step variable traction control and three riding modes. In terms of styling, all of these changes are communicated through an updated fairing with repositioned, though still asymmetric, headlights.