2002 Audi Allroad Awd 6 Spd Manual on 2040-cars

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Stanford goes from Pikes Peak to Thunderhill with autonomous Audi TTS

In the years since Stanford University engineers successfully programmed an Audi TTS to autonomously ascend Pikes Peak, the technology behind driverless cars has progressed leaps and bounds. Back then the Audi needed 27 minutes to make it up the 12.42-mile course – about 10 minutes slower than a human driver. These days, further improvements allow the vehicle to lap a track faster than a human. The researchers recently took their autonomous TTS named Shelley to the undulating Thunderhill Raceway Park, and let it go on track without anyone inside. The Audi reportedly hit over 120 miles per hour, and according to The Telegraph, the circuit's CEO, who's also an amateur racing driver, took some laps as well and was 0.4 seconds slower than the computer. To make these massive technological advancements, the Stanford engineers have been studying how racers handle a car. They also hooked up drivers' brains to electrodes and found the mind wasn't doing as much cognitively as expected. It instead operated largely on muscle memory. "So by looking at race car drivers we are actually looking at the same mathematical problem that we use for safety on the highways. We've got the point of being fairly comparable to an expert driver in terms of our ability to drive around the track," Professor Chris Gerdes, director of Stanford's Revs Program, said to The Telegraph. With progress coming so rapidly, it seems possible for autonomous racecars to best even elite drivers at some point in the near future. Related Video:

Weekly Recap: Car-pedestrian crashes remained elevated in 2014

The death of American Horror Story: Freak Show star Ben Woolf served as a reminder this week that car crashes involving pedestrians remain a problem, and a new study issued on Thursday reinforced that the situation isn't really getting better. The Governors Highway Safety Association found a slight decline, 2.8 percent, in the number of pedestrian deaths in the first six months of 2014. Fatalities dropped from 2,141 to 2,125 compared with the same period in 2013, though the association says it's a statistical wash when factoring in undercounting. Deaths are still 15-percent higher than in 2009. "The number of deaths remains relatively high and is cause for concern," wrote Allan Williams, who compiled the report and is the former chief scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. This is the first look at data from last year, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will issue its full-year results later. The GHSA found some progress on the roadways, as 24 states and the District of Columbia reported drops in pedestrian deaths. In some states, the problem isn't even a problem at all: Nebraska and Wyoming reported one fatality apiece, though large population centers in urban areas are where most accidents occur. "This is a clearly a good news, bad news scenario," Jonathan Adkins, GHSA executive director, said in a statement. "While we're encouraged that pedestrian fatalities haven't increased over the past two years, progress has been slow." Other News & Notes Cadillac previews CT6 during Oscars Cadillac previewed its upcoming flagship sedan, the CT6, in commercials that aired Sunday during the Oscars. As expected, the creased sedan carries on Cadillac's recent design language, and the car in the commercial looks like a larger version of the CTS and ATS sedans. The CT6 will be revealed this spring at the New York Auto Show and launch late this year. It will be assembled at General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck factory on a rear-wheel-drive chassis, and the CT6 is the first car to use Cadillac's revised alpha-numeric naming scheme. The commercials also kicked off Cadillac's "Dare Greatly" campaign, which is the first with its new advertising agency, Publicis Worldwide. Honda unexpectedly changes CEOs Honda unexpectedly announced this week that it will change CEOs. Current chief Takanobu Ito will step down in June and be replaced by company veteran Takahiro Hachigo.

2023 Cadillac Lyriq vs Tesla Model Y, Audi E-Tron, Jaguar I-Pace | Specs compared

The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq is the latest electric luxury crossover to enter a quickly growing segment. It brings with it the company's trademark creased design language along with high-tech features and an impressive amount of range. The Cadillac also happens to have a price and specifications that put it square in the middle of a competitive group, so we had to line up the numbers to see how it compares. We've gathered up a selection of premium electric crossovers including the Tesla Model Y, Audi E-Tron and Jaguar I-Pace, all of which seem like the closest rivals for the Cadillac. We've assembled all the raw numbers in the chart below. We've also got some additional analysis below that. And now, onto the data. Power, range, efficiency Interestingly, the Cadillac is the least powerful of the bunch. This is a bit surprising considering that GM will have a 1,000-horsepower electric Hummer pickup coming out soon. But in the Lyriq, Cadillac only uses a single electric motor powering the rear wheels. While its 340 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque should be more than adequate, it falls short of all the dual-motor, all-wheel-drive competition. Because Tesla does not provide horsepower or torque numbers, we're not sure how much the base model makes. We assume it's close. The true power fiends will likely want the optionally available Model Y Performance, though. It also doesn't have publicized power numbers, but its 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds suggests its substantially more powerful than the other crossovers, here. Power is all well and good, but range is arguably more important for an electric car. The Tesla is on top, here. The base Long Range trim has an estimated range of 326 miles. The company doesn't specifically say how large the battery is for it or the Performance, which goes 303 miles. The Cadillac is close behind with a current estimate of more than 300 miles on its 100-kWh battery. Cadillac doesn't say whether that number is the gross amount or the usable amount. The Audi and Jaguar lag behind with less than 250 miles from their 95- and 90-kWh batteries, respectively. Audi is the only company that notes that the usable capacity is less than the total, which is a common strategy employed to extend the life of the battery and to maintain consistent ranges over time. 2020 Audi E-Tron View 13 Photos While not as broadly discussed as range, we also wanted to touch on efficiency.