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Russia gives its Olympic medalists new Mercedes

Russian medalists at the recently concluded Sochi Winter Olympics are being rewarded quite handsomely for their service to the Motherland. In addition to the $120,000 being handed out for each gold medal, the $76,000 being awarded for slivers and $52,000 given to bronze winners, now word has come out that each of Russia's medalists will be gifted a new Mercedes-Benz.
As with the prize amounts, the type of Mercedes offered was based on what sort of medal was won. Gold medalists got a new GL-Class, silver medalists were given an ML and bronze medalists were treated to a GLK. As prices for Mercedes are higher in Russia, the cheapest model, the GLK, was the equivalent of $59,500, according to The Moscow Times. The cars were handed out by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, pictured above with figure skating medalist Julia Lipnitskaia.
"I was a bit shocked at the car I was given," Anton Shipulin, a member of the gold-medal biathlon relay team, told RIA-Novosti. "Of course I knew what kind of model it would be, but I didn't totally believe it." For athletes not old enough to drive, like 15-year-old Lipnitskaia, their Mercedes will come complete with a driver.

Mercedes-Benz engines with 48-volt systems coming in 2017

As part of a big green push announced yesterday, Mercedes-Benz is jumping into the world of 48-volt power. The company will launch a new family of efficient gasoline engines next year and will begin rolling out 48-volt systems with it, likely in its more expensive cars first. Mercedes will use the 48-volt systems to power mild-hybrid functions like energy recuperation (commonly called brake regeneration), engine stop-start, electric boost, and even moving a car from a stop on electric power alone. These features will be enabled through either an integrated starter-generator (Mercedes abbreviates it ISG) or a belt-driven generator (RSG). (RSG is from the German word for belt-driven generator, Riemenstartergeneratoren. That's your language lesson for the day.) Mercedes didn't offer many other details on the new family of engines. There are 48-volt systems already in production; Audi's three-compressor SQ7 engine uses an electric supercharger run by a 48-volt system, and there's a new SQ5 diesel on the horizon that will use a similar setup with the medium-voltage system. Electric superchargers require a lot of juice, which can be fed by either a supercapacitor or batteries in a 48-volt system. Why 48-volt Matters: Current hybrid and battery-electric vehicles make use of very high voltages in their batteries, motors, and the wiring that connects them, usually around 200 to 600 volts. The high voltage gives them enough power to move a big vehicle, but it also creates safety issues. The way to mitigate those safety issues is with added equipment, and that increases both cost and weight. You can see where this is going. By switching to a 48-volt system, the high-voltage issues go away and the electrical architecture benefits from four times the voltage of a normal vehicle system and uses the same current, providing four times the power. The electrical architecture will cost more than a 12-volt system but less than the complex and more dangerous systems in current electrified vehicles. The added cost makes sense now because automakers are running out of ways to wisely spend money for efficiency gains. Cars can retain a cheaper 12-volt battery for lower-power accessories and run the high-draw systems on the 48-volt circuit. The industry is moving toward 48-volt power, with the SAE working on a standard for the systems and Delphi claiming a 10-percent increase in fuel economy for cars that make the switch.

Fastest cars in the world by top speed, 0-60 and quarter mile

A claim for the title of “Fastest Car in the World” might seem easy to settle. ItÂ’s actually anything but: Are we talking production cars, race cars or customized monsters? And what does “fastest” even mean? For years, car publications have tended to define “fastest” in terms of an unbeatable top speed. ThatÂ’s distinct from the “quickest” car in a Usain Bolt-style dash from the starting blocks, as with the familiar 0-60 mph metric. Professionals often focus on track lap times or elapsed time-to-distance, as with a drag racer thatÂ’s first to trip the beam of light at the end of a quarter-mile; or the 1,000-foot trip of nitromethane-powered NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car dragsters. Something tells us, however, that you're not seeking out an answer of "Brittany Force rewriting the NHRA record books with a 3.659-second pass at a boggling 338.17 mph." For most barroom speed arguments, the focus is firmly on cars you can buy in showrooms, even if many are beyond the financial means of all but the wealthiest buyers and collectors. Here are some of the enduring sources of speed claims, counter-claims, tall tales and taunting dismissals that are the lifeblood of car enthusiasts – now with EVs adding an unexpected twist to these passionate pursuits.   Fastest from the blocks: 0-60 mph Thirty years ago, any car that could clock 60 mph in five seconds or less was considered extremely quick. Today, high-performance, gasoline-powered sedans and SUVs are routinely breaking below 4 seconds. As of today, the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 crushes all with a 0-60 mph time of just 1.66 seconds. That's simply absurd, but keep in mind the Demon was engineered with the single-minded purpose of going fast in a straight line. It's also important to realize that direct comparisons are difficult, because not all of these times were accomplished with similar conditions (prepped surfaces, adjustments for elevation and so on). The moral here is to take these times with a tiny grain of salt. After the Dodge, the Rimac Nevera comes in with an officially recorded 0-60 mph time of just 1.74 seconds. EVs crowd the quickest list, with the Pininfarina Battista coming in a few hundredths slower (1.79 seconds) than the Nevera and the Lucid Air sapphire (1.89 seconds) right after that. Eventually, you arrive to the Tesla Model S Plaid, which has a claimed 1.99-second 0-60 mph time, though instrumented testing by Car and Driver shows it accomplishes the deed in 2.1 seconds.