2011 Bmw X5 M-17k-driver Assistance Pkg-premium Sound-comfort Access-navigation on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Top Gear names BMW i8 Car of the Year, Corvette, Ferrari, Mercedes also win big

The lads at Top Gear have released their listing of the finest cars of the past year, handing the ultimate honor to BMW's revolutionary i8 plug-in-hybrid supercar. "The i8 is a milestone in the annals of automotive history and a glorious statement for an exciting and positive future. The i8 delivers - and then some," the British mag wrote. The i8, though, was far from the only hybridized car to take victories. James May and Richard Hammond both highlighted hybrids as their personal cars of the year, with May saluting the Ferrari LaFerrari and the Hamster, unsurprisingly, heaping praise on the Porsche 918 Spyder. Jeremy Clarkson, meanwhile, opted to shock many by selecting not only an American car as his best of 2014, but giving the honor to of all things, a Corvette. Clarkson wasn't the only person to honor the USA's iconic sports car, with the new, 650-horsepower Z06 variant being named TG's Muscle Car of the Year. Other big winners include Mercedes-Benz, which TG honored for S-Class Coupe (Luxury Car of the Year), the new AMG GT (Sports Car of the Year) and the not-for-US C-Class Estate (Family Car of the Year). The 458 Italia Speciale A snagged a second win for Ferrari. The best of the rest include the Citroen C4 Cactus, Renault Twingo, Volkswagen Golf R, Lamborghini Huracan and Audi TT. Take a look below for the celebratory press blast from BMW. The BMW i8 wins Top Gear Car of the Year The BMW i8 has been named as Top Gear magazine's global Car of the Year 2014. The plug-in hybrid performance vehicle beat off some stiff competition from a host of other premium and luxury manufacturers to win the overall award. The editorial team of Top Gear commended the BMW i8 for its breadth of abilities. Its 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine combined with an electric motor gives searing acceleration and driver enjoyment but all wrapped in a package that takes BMW's EfficientDynamics philosophy to the extreme courtesy of CO2 emissions less than 49g/km and a 135mpg combined cycle figure. Charlie Turner, Editor in Chief at Top Gear magazine, said: "The BMW is a milestone in the annals of automotive history and a glorious statement for an exciting and positive future. The i8 delivers – and then some. It's the kind of car we should celebrate, a beautiful vision of the future, delivered now.

Mystery shoppers love Infiniti, hate Tesla

Infiniti, followed by Lexus tied with Mercedes-Benz took the top two spots for best sales experience according to mystery shoppers from the latest Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index, while EV manufacturer Tesla recorded the lowest overall score. Not surprisingly, premium brands dominated the top ranks. Including the three already mentioned, luxury brands occupied seven of the top ten spots and included Audi, BMW, Porsche, and the only American brand to crack the upper echelon, Cadillac. Toyota, Volkswagen, and Nissan rounded out the first ten positions. The news for domestic automakers isn't good. Aside from Caddy, the only other star-spangled automaker to score above the industry average is Chrysler. The rest of FCA, most of GM, and all of Ford fell below the line. But Pied Piper's mystery shoppers handed Tesla the biggest walloping – the company is ten full points below the next lowest brand, Volvo, and its score of 86 is 17 below the average of 103. It's baffling, considering the company's touted direct-sales model. "Tesla leaves me scratching my head," Fred O'Hagan, Pied Piper's president and CEO, told Wards Auto. "They own all of their stores, so you would think each one would be doing the same thing. But they're not. Tesla is consistent in its inconsistencies." O'Hagan added that there's a "huge variation" in Tesla's store-to-store effectiveness, and that in some cases, shoppers found showroom workers that acted more like "museum curators," Wards Auto reports. It might be popular to call Tesla the Apple of the car world, but based on Pied Piper's work, the brand has a long way to go to emulate the uniform shopping experience of an Apple Store. The news might be bad for Tesla, but even for the brands that scored below average, there's cause for celebration. Only Tesla and Mini lost points in this year's rankings, and only Mercedes and Lincoln held steady. Every other brand, including Infiniti, which topped the index for the first time, gained at least one point. The biggest improvements belong to Porsche, Land Rover, and Mitsubishi, which all jumped five points. Pied Piper's annual Prospect Satisfaction Index uses mystery shoppers – over 6,100 this year – from across the country to assess dealers and generate rankings from over 50 individual factors. News Source: Pied Piper via WardsAuto Green Audi BMW Cadillac Chrysler Infiniti Lexus Mercedes-Benz Nissan Tesla Toyota Car Buying Car Dealers study

BMW introducing i8 to US with Hello Future Olympics ad

It's not all unfinished hotel rooms and unconventional toilet situations at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. During the broadcast of the opening ceremony tonight, BMW is going to introduce the American TV audience to its plug-in i brand of vehicles. Of course, since we have things like Twitter and YouTube (which the Russian hosts might not be too happy about), you can already see the first spot below. BMW is going all-in on its Olympics ads, saying the campaign is the company's "largest media investment of the year." The first ad, called Hello Future, sets the words of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke to an array of futuristic cityscape visuals before flashing the i8 onto the screen. Two other spots – called SHHH and Sightings – will also debut during the Games. Those have not yet been placed online, but BMW says that Sightings is about people "trying to describe something they have never seen before; something remarkable and other-worldly" (i.e., the plug-in i8). SHHH, on the other hand, is a short romance, about a "boy who sneaks out in his dad's quiet and all-electric BMW i3 as he tries to impress his dream-girl with the ultimate joyride. In the end, the joyride helps him win the girl." There's a twist, of course, which you can read about in the press release below or just wait until it appears on screen, trying to break through the banal advertising landscape, over the next few weeks. BMW has other connections to the Sochi Olympics as well, including designing the two-man bobsled used by the US Olympic team. There's a contest running regarding that project over on BMWTimeTracker. BMW Debuts BMW i Brand Campaign During NBC's Broadcast of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games First-Ever U.S. Television Commercials for BMW i to Begin Airing on February 7. WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J., Feb. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- BMW of North America, the Official Mobility Partner of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), will tune into the Opening Ceremony of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games tonight at 7:30pm ET on NBC, which is expected to be one of the most-watched television events of 2014. During NBC's broadcast of the event, BMW is officially launching the brand campaign for the revolutionary BMW i brand with its largest media investment of the year.