Performance

Aston Martin's Vanquish rides again

Hot on the heels of Bentley's announcement of its new GT Speed comes news from Aston Martin about the revival of the coolest model name in the automotive industry. A new Vanquish model will show up early next year exhibiting extremes of luxury and performance.

According to Aston Martin's release, the new Vanquish looks to be a significant technological improvement. Not often seen with a grand tourer, the body is entirely composed of carbon fiber. That construction should make the car lighter than the DBS, the model it replaces, although Aston Martin did not release a curb weight … Read more

Bentley shows fastest Continental yet

Bentley has come a long way from the 4 1/2 Liter Blower, by about 376 horsepower. The new GT Speed, announced today, generates 616 horsepower from its twin turbocharger W-12 engine. Bentley says that's good for a top speed of 205 mph.

Bentley engineers managed to coax an extra 24 horsepower over the previous GT Speed out of this engine, and got the torque up to 590 pound feet. The zero-to-60 mph rating is 4 seconds, not as fast as many other supercars, but the GT Speed should weigh in at more than 5,000 pounds, similar to … Read more

Audi's hybrid takes Le Mans victory, twice

Ricky Bobby said "If you ain't first, you're last", but the driver of Audi's No. 2 R18 e-tron quattro probably did not feel particularly crushed to come in second, behind Audi's No. 1 R18 e-tron quattro, at this weekend's 24 hours of Le Mans endurance race. Both cars not only used Audi diesel engines, which have dominated at previous Le Mans runnings, but also an electric boost system.

The wins not only prove the efficiency of these drive systems, which helped the drivers to victory through the need for fewer fueling stops, but … Read more

Verizon leaps into connected car biz with Hughes buy

Verizon has agreed to buy Hughes Telematics for $612 million, bolstering its efforts to hook cars up with wireless service.

The New York telecommunications company said today that the all-cash deal would expand its ability to serve the fleet and automotive telematic industries. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter, and Verizon said it plans to retain the existing management team and its headquarters in Atlanta.

The connected devices -- or machine-to-machine -- business is increasingly seen as the next growth area for the wireless industry. The opportunity to connect cars with entertainment, safety, security, and maintenance … Read more

Mitsubishi builds i-Miev Evo electric car for Pikes Peak

Mitsubishi Evos, performance-modified versions of the Lancer model, became legendary on the offroad rally circuit for their exceptional handling. Now Mitsubishi takes the Evo designation into the future with the first i-Miev Evolution, a performance version of its pod-like i-Miev electric city car.

Mitsubishi built the i-Miev Evo for the annual Pikes Peak Hill Climb, a race featuring 156 turns over 12.42 miles with a 4,700 foot ascent. The company says it started with a stock i-Miev, but the specs show heavy modification. Along with a completely new, carbon fiber body, the i-Miev Evo gets three 80 kilowatt … Read more

Verizon Jetpack MiFi 4620L mobile hot-spot review: It's a Rocketeer

I can't count anymore how many mobile routers I have reviewed, but that also means that I know the Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 4620L by Novatel Wireless is different.

And it's not because of its crazy long name.

Instead, it's partly because of its craz,y long battery life. The router is the first I've seen that comes with two batteries. The standard one offers about 5.5 hours of continuous usage on a charge, and the second one offers about twice that. Combine the two, you have about two days' worth of charge, if you only use it during working hours that is.… Read more

Audi to field first diesel hybrid at Le Mans

Audi proved the worth of its diesel engine technology with a win at the 2006 Le Mans, breaking new ground for the legendary endurance race. This year, Audi ups the ante with two cars using hybrid diesel-electric drive systems.

The drive technology, branded by Audi as e-tron, uses a V-6 turbo-diesel engine on the rear axle, and an electric motor on the front axle. Similar to Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) being deployed in F1 racing, the Audi R18 e-tron quattro captures braking energy in a flywheel. The car can then convert the energy of the spinning flywheel into electricity, … Read more

Nissan to build production Juke-R supercars

Last year a Nissan department based in Europe came up with the strange idea of putting the GT-R's engine in the new Juke small SUV. The car was introduced as a concept, and Nissan probably thought that was the end of the matter. Like most concept cars, the Juke-R would be consigned to a lonely corner of a garage, and eventually disassembled.

A strong positive reaction from the car-loving public, which must have taken Nissan by surprise, dictated a different fate for the car. After the Juke-R's first public appearance, in Dubai of all places, Nissan capitalized on its popularity by releasing videos of it racing a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and a GT-R.

All along, Nissan insisted the oddball Juke-R was nothing more than a concept.… Read more

New Shelby GT500 boasts most powerful production V-8

As new city cars come out with less than 100 horsepower, you might have thought the horsepower wars were over. But there's still a corner of the great American garage where gearhead engineers build and tune engines to dump massive amounts of power out through driveshafts to wheels.

The team bearing Ford's blue oval on their coveralls get to wear the garage king crown for their efforts with the new Shelby GT500, which was certified to produce 662 horsepower and 631 pound-feet of torque. That makes the 2013 GT500 more powerful than the Ferrari 458 Italia -- lot more powerful. … Read more