Lotus has unveiled a new version of the slick little Elsie sports car dubbed the Lotus Elise Cup 260. Lotus says that the Elise Cup 260 is the "standard for outright track pace and low lap times." The car features a laurel wreath decal on the left buttress and has the Union Jack on both rear wing end-plates. The gold hue you see the car swathed in here is an option and is called Championship Gold.
The German town of Bad Hersfeld has been chosen as the test location for a new delivery robot dubbed PostBOT that will be used to help mail carriers make their deliveries. The robot will carry mail items for the mail deliverers on their routes to make delivery of items easier. PostBOT has enough space inside to carry up to six post trays.
Everyone is wanting to get in on the SUV craze today with the SUV being the most popular segment in the automotive industry. This is much to the detriment of the car market with fewer cars selling meaning that fewer new models are likely to be made. We already have a super luxury SUV from Bentley called the Bentayga first revealed back in 2015 (we also got to drive one on the track). Now some spy shots have turned up that claim to be of a Rolls-Royce SUV.
VW has announced that it has a new electric racing car that will be running the 2018 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. VW is building the car with the specific goal of setting a record for the legendary race up America's Mountain. VW says that the EV prototype uses "tomorrow's technology" and the run will mark the first time VW has participated in over 30 years.
The world's first floating wind farm started construction back in 2015 off the shore of Scotland. Two years later the plant is now starting production and is the first floating wind farm in the world to do so. The power it creates will be sent to the Scottish electric grid and will power 20,000 households.
Toyota has unveiled a new concept car that it sees as the future of the premium saloon. The car is called the Fine-Comfort Ride concept and it is a fuel cell vehicle that runs on electricity created using hydrogen. Like all fuel-cell powered vehicles, the Fine-Comfort Ride produces no CO2 emissions in operation and has a long cruising range and needs only three minutes to refuel with hydrogen.
Porsche has unveiled the 718 Cayman GTS and Boxster GTS cars, and right off the bat, we can clear up rumors about a return to the flat-six. It hasn't happened. Both the Cayman GTS and the Boxster GTS carry on with a revised version of the 2.5L turbo flat four that is found in the Cayman S and Boxster S cars. The good news is that the four has more power in GTS form than it did in the S cars.
Jeep is steadily updating its models and eliminating some not so popular models (like the Liberty). One of the models that returned to the Jeep line after a hiatus for many years was the Cherokee and many Cherokee purists weren't happy with the model. One thing about that new Cherokee was that it had styling that didn't really go along with the looks of the other models.
Nissan has announced that its ProPILOT Assist technology will land on the 2018 Rogue SUV. This new feature is able to reduce driver workload during stop and go traffic by controlling acceleration, braking, and steering during single lane driving. Nissan says that ProPILOT Assist is the foundation for autonomous vehicles of the future.
One glance at the Laikago robot and if you have ever laid eyes on a Boston Dynamics quadruped you will see the resemblance. The builder of the Laikago robot isn't afraid to say that he is a big fan of Boston Dynamics, Xing Wang will tell you that Marc Raibert is his idol. Raibert is the founder and president of Boston Dynamics.
In an effort to get people to leave their smartphones alone while driving and reduce distractions, many car infotainment systems now support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Those two infotainment systems allow drivers to use some apps like music and navigation offerings on the screen of their infotainment system instead of the smartphone. Fans of the BBC iPlayer app will be glad to hear that a new version of the app is out and it specifically supports Android Auto and CarPlay.
Early next year Ram will roll out a refreshed version of its popular 1500 truck and recently the prototype of that truck was spied wearing very little camo. The only thing that Ram has taken pains to cover up on the truck was the center of the grille. That grille center appears to be fatter on each end than it is in the middle and overall the truck looks very cool.
