After the Dieselgat saga, VW anounced it cut the R&D budget by €1 billion to €12 billion next year. This led to speculation about the premier brands Porsche and Audi’s future viability in the face of stiff technology competition from BMW and Mercedes. Fortunately the 2017 Audi A8 still has what it takes! Spy photographers have […]
The greatest automotive story this century has been the “Dieselgate” conspiracy. Not only has it brought down the established regime at VW, but it’s shaken the very foundation of diesel powered transportation. VW has already started rolling out a fix in Europe, which many of us are sceptical about, but are still “negotiating” with legislators […]
As farfetched as Sergio Marchionne’s dream of a merger with GM seemed, even stranger things may be happening in the industry: Mergers between traditional OEMs and tech companies, such as Google and Apple, could be on the wishlist of some of the major self-driving car players. But while Apple’s CEO Tim Cook is rumored to […]
The new generation of downsized turbocharged engines require more than a spark generated at the right time to initiate combustion: Some mixtures exceed stoichiometric ratios and in theory should not even combust. The modern ignition system has evolved from a purely mechanical switch used to charge the coil, to engine-management controlled, electronic switching circuits. A few […]
The steel industry is under siege: Carbon Fiber, Graphene and aluminium are rapidly making inroads into traditional automotive steel applications such as body in white, suspension, and even engine components. But, the recent unveiling of a new amorphous metal dubbed SAM2X5-630, could stall the trend in it’s tracks. The search for increasingly versatile alloys of […]
In the greater scheme of things 2008 may have been a fairly insignificant year, with the Beijing Olympics and Cyclone Nargis capturing the news. Hidden away on page three of the 2008 news were the strides that science took when scientists extracted images directly from the brain for the first time and the long-awaited breakthrough […]
Located at Peats Ridge, about 45 mins from Sydney, is the magical dream of Dean Wills. Simply known as “The Farm”, this 5km section of private road is possibly one of the most talked about “racetracks” in Australia. Few have had the pleasure of hurling a 430 into any one of a number of flowing […]
SUV’s started life as mom’s taxi’s, but as with anything with wheels, when the marketing people saw there was interest the segment rapidly saw “real” cars enter the niche: Cars that might actually (Secretly of course…) appeal to those of us that actually do like driving! Take Audi’s new SQ7 for example: Nowhere is Audi’s […]
As far back as May 2009 Martin Goede, coordinator of the EU’s ‘SuperLight-Car’ project predicted that the reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions would be the most important challenges facing the automotive industry in the future. “One way to reduce consumption is by reducing a car’s weight,” he added. Penalties for excess emissions have […]
After a little mishap I suffered in my Jet Black 918, going off on the INSIDE of the infamous Crowthorne corner at South Africa’s Kyalami racetrack in 2019, today will be my first time back on a circuit. It’s only thanks to the amazing surgeon, Sir Timothy Noakes, who printed some pretty trick Carbon nano-tubes […]
