JonnnnY

New Mercedes engines: 4.6-liter V8 biturbo and 3.5-liter V6 official details revealed yesterday, I was bitching about old MB engines, and today they announce new ones. I'm prophet :D now new diesels please, and it will be great. but I don't really think that replacing 5.5l NA V8 with turbocharged V8 is that good idea. I have driven ML500 (current 5.5 388hp engine) for few hundred km, and the engine was great. accelerating from lowest revs smoothly to the redline, and even the fuel consumption wasn't that bad at all. what more do you need ? so what is really the point ? yes, acceleration would be better, but do anyone really need more than 550nm and almost 400hp ? well, that's what AMG is for. I doubt it will take less fuel in real life. turbo/super-charged engines has usually lower compression ratio and runs on richer mixture, and that could spoil the fuel consumption. I know about cars, where new downsized turbocharged engine consumes more fuel, than the N/A engine it was replacing. not on paper or testing dyno runs, but real traffic is different. so it is worth all the turbochargers, intercoolers, direct injections and other expensive and sometimes problematic stuff ? I don't think so. bartender, naturally aspirated for me

Mercedes M-Class Grand Edition Announced one thing I don't understand is, why don't MB make new engines, or current ones more powerful ? 3 liter ~225hp diesel is with us for how many years ? 5? 10 ? same story 4 liter 300hp v8 diesel. audi, bmw, land rover each of them has more powerful diesel engines. not by much, but come on. it is that hard to increase boost pressure ? instead of that, they just rename the engines. 280 to 300, 320 to 350 and so on. what is the point ?

F1 teams close to agreeing new 2013 engine formula - 4 cylinder twin-turbo scratchy996 : why don't you tell the whole story ? that the engine was tuned to 1000+ hp only for qualifications, because in race it will explode in about 5 turns ?

F1 teams close to agreeing new 2013 engine formula - 4 cylinder twin-turbo benz_man : sorry, but I don't think this new technology will have anything to do with production cars, and the cutting edge technologies are the problem. if the F1 engine costs 20x more then average car, there is no way the technology can come to production. and to be honest, I don't want 10'000$ titanium, ceramic ultra lightweight turbocharger blowing milion blilion psi in my car... how many technologies came from F1 to production cars ? robotic transmissions, carbon fiber monocoque chassis, ceramic brakes and some traction control differential thing in ferrari. this is how the future technology will come to production ? in supersport cars which cost hundreds thousands dollars ? and it takes 20 years ? as I see it, turbochargers and downsizing are IN (for some stupid reasons), and F1 wants to be IN too..

2011 Lotus Elise Posts Lowest CO2 Emissions of Any Sportscar in its Segment Worldwide with 1.6l engine and 900kg it is not that big surprise. next week, caterham greener than prius !

Volvo Revises V70 and S80 Engines to Achieve CO2 Emissions Below 120 g/km only tiny little disadvantage is, that you will reach 100kmh in about 12-14 minutes. one thing is consumption measured on dynamometer, other is real driving conditions. and if you want to be faster than cyclists, you can forgot 4.5l S80 weight about 1.5 ton. and if you try to put in some family and luggage, it can be near two tons...

Second Audi e-tron Concept Surprises in Detroit - Possible R4 Preview? BrianWCF : thanks, i didnt noticed the link to press release. it may have only two motors and probably "standard" torque vectoring differentials in the middle of each axle, but it doesn't really change anything. sport car needs lots of power at rear wheels, and the e-tron has fixed 50/50 split...

Second Audi e-tron Concept Surprises in Detroit - Possible R4 Preview? "... 2,650 Nm of torque which can be freely varied between the wheels as required" don't know if this info came from audi, but it is so not true. if you have 4 same electric motors, one in each wheel, the maximum torque on one wheel can be exactly one forth of the maximum. 2650 / 4 = 662Nm you will always have 1/4 on each wheel. never a Nm more. yes, you can make it rwd or fwd, but with only half the power ! 102hp ! so the torque can NOT be freely varied between the wheels as required. not a chance. modern 4wd systems can do much much better. ok, torque "transfer" can be better controled, you can apply any ammout of torque on any wheels you want (which normal 4wd cant do by any chance), but 99.9% of time, you dont really need or want to. you dont need one wheel drive car, do you ? everything sportscar will ever need can EVO do much better. because it can move allmost all the power... have you seen the videos where EVO lifts inner back wheel ? etron will loose 1/4 of power doing that ;) only exceptions (where this will be much better then classic 4wd) can be offroaders. ultimate control, maximum torque from 0 rpm, diffs (virtual diffs) locked anytime you want or need... this could be golden era for offroad driving.

Swiss Millionaire Gets $290,000 Speeding Ticket - Sets New Record god, imagine what could happen, if they had caught top gear filming their movies there. revving ferrari in the tunel? bbc is rich television, so they can fine them about 250'000'000 pounds. this is just absurd.

2013 Nissan GT-R Hybrid To Use Electric Powertrain from Infiniti Essence so GTR gets heavy hybrid system, which makes it even heavier, to improve performance and fuel economy? with all hybrid stuff, it would weight probably 100-150 kg more. supersport car which weights more than 1850 kilo ? dont think it is a good idea...