2009 Infiniti G37 Coupe X on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Popular Science magazine's Best Of What's New 2012 all ate up with cars

Popular Science has named the winners in its Best of What's New awards, the victors coming in the categories of aerospace, automotive, engineering, entertainment, gadgets, green, hardware, health, home, recreation, security and software. The automotive category did not go wanting for lauded advancements:
Tesla Model S: the Grand Award winner for being "the standard by which all future electric vehicles will be measured."
BMW 328i: it's 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder gets called out for being more powerful and frugal than the six-cylinder it replaces.

Infiniti invites 22-year-old to work with Red Bull F1 team

Infiniti launched the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy (IPEA) in 2014, a global talent search for three engineering students from eleven international markets that the automaker would select for a one-year assignment with its Formula One team and road car division. The second year's IPEA competition has concluded, the class of 2015 expanding to five students that get eight months at Infiniti Red Bull Racing headquarters in Milton Keynes, and four months at the company's European Technical Center in Cranfield, UK. Twenty-two-year-old Alex Allmandinger (pictured), a student at the University of Illinois and one of 11 US finalists, is one of those five winners. He'll head to Milton Keynes next month to settle in with the other winners from China, Europe, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Based on interviews with last year's winners, the IPEA doesn't stick the students in a corner, either – one of them said he had designed seventy parts that went into the RB11 F1 racecar. The video above speaks to some of this year's winners, the video below talks to last year's, and there's a press release below that. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Infiniti gives one U.S. engineering student the Formula One career opportunity of a lifetime NASHVILLE, Tenn. Aug. 20, 2015 – Infiniti has announced that an engineering student from the University of Illinois is one of five global winners of the 2015 Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy (IPEA). For one year, Infiniti will provide 22-year-old Alex Allmandinger with the opportunity to work in Formula One with the Infiniti Red Bull Racing team. After beating 11 other finalists from around the country in an intense shootout event, Allmandinger will move to Infiniti Red Bull Racing headquarters in the UK in September to begin a 12-month placement working with the four-time Formula One World Championship Infiniti Red Bull Racing team, as well as with Infiniti. Allmandinger will spend eight months working on Vehicle Design at the team's headquarters in Milton Keynes, UK – and four months working at Infiniti's European Technical Center in Cranfield – on road car development projects. Formula One technology is more relevant to the automotive industry than ever and will play a key role in the ongoing transfer of technical knowledge and expertise between the race team and Infiniti.

The Nissan Patrol may become America's next Armada

Plausible rumors are swirling that the Nissan Patrol, the Land Cruiser rival sold outside of North America, might come to the US as a replacement for the unrelated Nissan Armada. That large SUV's future was left ambiguous after the news of the Xterra's discontinuation, as Nissan's press release ominously promised information on the Armada "at a later date" without further elaboration. That left us scratching our heads and thinking that, perhaps, it would be quietly killed off in the future. If the rumors are true, it will be. And then it will be reborn. It'll join its old platform-mate, the Infiniti QX80, on the Patrol platform. The QX abandoned its Titan-based platform in 2011, becoming the Patrol-based QX80. So you can think of the Armada as catching up, a few years late. The QX80 was refreshed last year, a mainly cosmetic nip-and-tuck. The Infiniti utilizes the 5.6-liter, 400-hp V8 and a 7-speed auto, so it's a safe bet that this powertrain will make it into the Armada version. Less likely, but plausible, would be the availability of the new powertrains intended for the Titan XD and upcoming lower-grade Titans. The massive SUV market tends to be a bit conservative, so the Cummins diesel V8 that's the sole engine in the Titan XD right now seems unlikely. The forums are abuzz with a photo of what's purported to be a leaked marketing image of the new Armada, so head to this TitanXDForum thread if you'd like to see what that's about. (Spoiler: it looks a lot like the Patrol above, minus some of the Nismo flair.) Related Video: