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Beverly Hills road rage incident ends with BMW driver ramming bicyclist

An instance of road rage turned mortally dangerous in Beverly Hills, CA, recently, when an incident between a cyclist and a BMW driver took a scary turn in front of a rolling security camera.
LA Weekly reports that the person on the bicycle and the driver of the 2008 BMW 328i in the video had some kind of altercation, resulting in the cyclist punching the driver. The driver then followed the biker to an alley on the 9000 block of Wilshire Blvd and, according to the Beverly Hills Police Department, "Intentionally rammed the bicyclist with his vehicle pinning him to a metal rolling trash bin."
That the act was intentional is clearly evident in the video footage below, captured on a security camera. Police have published the video in the hopes of tracking down the driver, who is said to be in his mid-30s with dark hair, dark eyes and a thin build. BMW owners across the country can thank him - for reinforcing certain stereotypes - by helping to turn him in. Do your part, Bimmer Nation.

Researchers halfway to cutting carbon fiber costs by 90%

Carbon fiber has been utilized for decades to build racecars, as a means to cut weight while maintaining strength. But until recently, the space-age material has been largely absent from the street on anything but supercars because of the expense to use it. Recently, BMW signaled a major shift in that trend when it starting using carbon fiber reinforced plastic panels on the i3 and i8. This relatively small scale start might be just the beginning; the German company believes that a breakthrough to inexpensively manufacture the lightweight stuff is just on the horizon.
MAI Carbon Cluster Management GmbH counts BMW, Audi, Airbus, the German government and many other organizations as supporters, and it's researching how to make carbon fiber cheaper to produce, according to Automotive News Europe. The company thinks it can reduce costs by 90 percent in the near future. "We've certainly reached a halfway point on our cost-cutting target for suitable carbon-fiber parts," said project head Klaus Drechsler to Automotive News Europe.
Unfortunately, it isn't entirely clear just what MAI Carbon is doing to make such a huge leap possible. However, a recent post on the company's website talks about a new form a carbon fiber using a thermoplastic matrix that could be cured in less than three minutes. That's compared to about 90 minutes in the traditional process with an autoclave.

BMW to unveil X4 in March

It's been about half a year since BMW unveiled the X4 concept in Shanghai. But if you've been waiting for news on when it will reach production, the latest intel indicates it'll be announced next March.
Just when in March? That's the strange part. Inautonews reports having been told by BMW that the new X4 will be announced on March 14. So, the Geneva Motor Show, then? Not quite: although that show will still be going on then, the doors open to journalists like us on March 4, not 14. So either someone has got some details mixed up, or BMW - for some reason - is planning on waiting until after Geneva to reveal the production X4.
Whenever it does, we'll be looking at a slantback version of the X3, much like BMW did with the X5 and X6, giving Bavaria a rival to the Range Rover Evoque and Porsche Macan.