Since unveiling the 911 Carrera in 1963, Porsche has built many dozens of variations, ranging from convertibles to racing editions to subtly tweaked versions distinguishable only to board members of the Porsche Club of America. Full-blown generational revamps have been rarer. When the seventh Porsche 911 arrives this month, 90 per cent of the vehicle's components will be new or redesigned. The result is a car that corners more evenly and consumes less gas, yet is substantially quicker than its predecessors.
You know when Ferrari has arrived for the big race. Suddenly, there are huge, red trucks everywhere. They park and unfold all sorts of marvellous toys. Workshops, tools, clever men and women, and of course those beautiful crimson F1 cars. But there's another truck in the Ferrari F1 team, and on the side there's a shell next to the famous prancing stallion. It's a fully-equipped fuel laboratory, unique in the competition, dedicated to analysing the petrol and lubricants that go into the race cars. Let's take a look inside...
Until now, there hasn't been an all-electric car fit for road-tripping. But Tesla's Model S, due out late in 2012, is made for extended drives. Its battery goes up to 482 kilometres on a charge. Its cabin is spacious enough for seven passengers. And it can get up to cruising speed fast - the Model S accelerates from 0 to 100 kilometres in 5.6 seconds.
Biometric security is often focused on the more boring anatomical parts, like the pads of the fingers (ehhh) or the eyes (who cares). So little attention has been paid to the security possibilities of the butt. Well, not anymore: researchers at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology in Tokyo have come up with a car seat that measures the precise contours and pressures left by your posterior.
The Audi A7 is the world's first fully Web-connected car. A built-in mobile data connection allows drivers to pull high-resolution 3D aerial images from Google Maps into the navigation screen, dispatching with current cartoonish maps. Using voice commands or controls on the center console, drivers can also search phone numbers, weather maps, real-time petrol prices from nearby stations, or Google "coffee shop" to look for a spot in the neighbourhood. For safety reasons, drivers can't pull up fantasy-football scores at a stoplight - but because the A7 generates a Wi-Fi signal, any passenger with a laptop can check them for you.
Cars with infrared sensors, cameras and collaborative connectivity will eventually go a long way toward avoiding collisions, but human drivers will still be a wild card. Now a new algorithm can predict whether they'll behave at intersections, and could someday prevent crashes and save lives.
Previous
