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Audi tops BMW and Mercedes in luxury sales

April was a good month for Audi, as the four-ring automaker beat out both Mercedes-Benz and BMW in sales. Bloomberg reports that it was America's appetite for CUVs like the Q5 and ancient Q7 that helped Audi move nearly 153,000 units around the globe. It's not all good news, though. Audi's worldwide sales only jumped by 2.5 percent, compared to BMW and Mercedes, whose sales increased 5.6 and 11 percent, respectively. On top of that, BMW is still the best-selling brand (of the three, anyway) so far in 2015, outselling Audi by roughly 9,000 units and Mercedes by about 23,000 vehicles. Considering the faster growth of its rivals, it's unclear if Audi will be able to hang onto the monthly sales crown beyond April, or if BMW will continue its reign as the world's biggest luxury automaker.

MW's new Driftmob video shows the M235i like you've never seen it before

Last month, we went behind the scenes of the filming of BMW's new Driftmob, web video, bringing you one post from the practice sessions, and another from the shoot itself, which took place in an enormous traffic circle in Cape Town, South Africa. Today, BMW has launched the final version of Driftmob, and it's pretty damn cool.
The plot is pretty simple: just like a flashmob, in which people invade a location and perform choreographed dances to music, much to the delight of surprised onlookers, the "driftmob" features a quintet of red M235i coupes that take over a traffic circle and perform choreographed dances - sideways - to the delight of onlookers. The only differences are that, in this case, the onlookers are mostly paid extras (though there were many unwitting passersby that joined the crowd at times) and the only music is a constant squealing of tires-a sweet song if we ever heard one. Then, after about two minutes of tire-smoking shenanigans, the coupes vanish.
As promised, we will have a more detailed, behind the scenes story about the filming of the video, including insights from Rhys Millen, Samuel Hübinette, Dai Yoshihara, Rich Rutherford, and Conrad Grunewald, the five guys who executed these remarkable stunts. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the short flick.

2015 BMW i8 offers you a fast ride to the future for $135,700* [w/video]

BMW's long-form teasing and rollout of its incredibly cool i8 has put us in a unique position to report from its world debut here in Frankfurt. Typically, an auto show debut marks just the start of the information dump about a new vehicle. The i8, however, is a car that we've already driven and reviewed, so perhaps the biggest news from the show floor is the official price of the thing, as well as getting to see it live and in person, of course.
Arriving in US showrooms in the spring of 2014, the i8 performance plug-in hybrid will carry a price tag of $135,700 (*not including $925 for destination and handling charges). That kind of cash puts the i8 near the very top of the BMW range (slotting just under the top-trim 7-Series models), and will buy a massive amount of new technology.
The four-seat i8 has the look of a true supercar, and its new-tech drivetrain will offer up the performance of a stirring sports car, at least. A TwinPower Turbo, three-cylinder, 1.5-liter engine will make 231 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque that's gets sent to the rear wheels, while a 96-kilowatt electric motor doles out 131 hp and 184 lb-ft of maximum torque to the fronts. Total system output of 362 hp and 420 lb-ft allows the i8 to sprint to 62 miles per hour in 4.4 seconds with all-wheels-driven handling, and it still returns an astonishing 94 miles per gallon US.