Drew Dowdell

A lot of expensive tech to what benefit? Mirrors work

gah, I hate those sites that make you click next for every vehicle. They're nothing but spammy spam ad sites.

But... they still have the pods on the side of the car... I'm not sure how much of an advancement it is.

The Porsche Taycan, which is due to be officially revealed next week, got some track time with a reporter from Autocar. The Taycan will be Porsche's offering to compete with the Tesla Model S, and like the Model S will come in a variety of flavors. No matter which Taycan chosen, it will come with a 90 kWh battery pack capable of recharging up to 60 miles of range in just 4 minutes and free high speed charging for the first 3 years. On the faster of the Taycan flavors, there will be an overboost option that will hold for two and a half seconds that boost the horsepower to "well over" 700 hp and over 750 lb-ft of torque. That power will rocket the Taycan from 0-62 mph somewhere under 3 seconds. For those who miss the sounds of a car, the Taycan will offer something new. It will electronically enhance the sound of the electric motors' whine and pump it into the cabin. Base price for the Taycan will be around the $75,000 mark, but expect the model with the overboost to be substantially more. View full article

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has begun testing vehicles that have cameras in place of real mirrors. The request to test such devices goes back to March of 2014 when the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers along with Tesla filed a petition with the NHTSA to get approval to install based rear or side vision cameras and screens in their vehicles. Daimler filed a similar petition in 2015 for their heavy duty trucks. Japan and Europe have already approved the technology. The first car with cameras replacing the side mirrors was the Lexus ES sold in Japan, followed by the Audi e-tron in Europe back in December. Both vehicles are sold in the U.S. with standard mirrors instead of the cameras. Honda's coming Honda e will have the technology standard when it goes on sale in Europe later this year. Mirrorless systems are an area where the legislation has not yet caught up with the technology according to Mark Dahncke of Audi. View full article

Kia Niro EV, if it had the Bolt's range.

I do think some of those safety features should be standard. I had a really near miss on Rt 1 in NJ after leaving @balthazar's place on Monday. Two Toyota Minivans stopped in the middle of Rt 1 but no traffic around them. The Encore handled the swerve well.

It seems like Toyota doesn't want to build smaller cars themselves anymore (smaller than Corolla). They're currently outsourcing some of that to Mazda, but perhaps that will go to Suzuki for the next generation. The Swift would have made a good Yaris. Also, Suzuki does really well with small engines. Not that Toyota can't, but perhaps they don't see the ROI on doing it themselves when they can get a perfectly good small engine from a partner like Suzuki or Mazda.

I don't see the military buying this independent suspension or not. It looks like a more capable puff cruiser than anything else. Nothing like the old Defender. This is more their Grand Cherokee than their Wrangler.

LOL there's a difference between limited production and standard production and you know it.