2001 Bmw 5 Series 525i on 2040-cars

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The Rinspeed Etos is a BMW i8 that drives itself and comes with a drone

Outlandish as they can be, we've grown accustomed to seeing Rinspeed unveil its avant-garde concept cars at the Geneva show every year. But this time the Swiss studio will present its latest showpiece outside of its native country, taking the veil off at CES in Las Vegas. It's called the Etos, and takes the advanced concept of the BMW i8 even further. Frank M. Rinderknecht and company designed the Etos around autonomous technology. Now if you're wondering why anyone would need a self-driving sports car, we're with you. But if Rinspeed is out to capture our attention, the svelte shape, eye-catching yellow paint, and 20-inch Borbet alloys have certainly done that much. Recognizing the transformation possible in the cabin of a self-driving automobile, Rinspeed fitted the Etos with a retractable steering wheel. That allows unfettered access to a pair of 21.5-inch ultra-HD widescreen displays hooked up to a connected infotainment system that learns from the driver's (or occupant's) habits to minimize the necessity to manually input information. No less than eight exterior cameras work in conjunction to all but completely eliminate the notion of the blindspot. But like so many mullets festooning the streets of Las Vegas and the slopes of the Swiss Alps alike, the party trick is found around back. Not unlike a megayacht with a helipad, Rinspeed fitted a remote-control helicopter on the rear deck that can be used for anything from selfies on the go to retrieving packages along the driving route. The drone lands on a platform with 12,000 individually controlled LEDs and covered in Gorilla Glass furnished, as with the glass roof, by Corning. Combine the drone with the ability to pay tolls and other charges through NFC signal while charging your phone inductively, and the driver/occupant may never need to get out of the car unless he or she wants to (and the singularity controlling all these systems permits). Fortunately Rinspeed made the interior a comfortable place to be, filled with niceties and distractions from a watch winder on the dashboard to the ceramic and titanium trim to the San Francisco skyline stitched, for some reason, into the seatbacks. Few of these features strike us as strictly necessary, and the most outlandish of them (we're looking at you, drone) will likely never be implemented on a production automobile. And what features do will likely find their home in more accommodating vehicles than a two-seat sports car.

Electrify Expo is an all-electrified auto show like the old days

In late July, Autoblog swung by Washington, D.C. to check out the Electrify Expo. Now in its third year of nationwide shows, the Electrify Expo calls itself “North America's largest electric vehicle festival filled with over 1 million square feet of the world's top electric brands.” At every stop, visitors can find out about, crawl around in, drive and ride just about any personal conveyance that uses a battery for propulsion. Truth be told, when the show's PR team reached out to us with an invite, we only considered going after finding out about an area showcasing battery-electric tuner cars. EV tuning is undoubtedly going to be huge—eventually—which got us curious about these early days. We figured weÂ’d brave whatever the rest of the expo was to find out whatÂ’s the equivalent of nitrous for a Tesla. See, the EV event scene is still such that one never knows if theyÂ’ll show up to a mix of science and county fairs with a few cars on display just for truth in advertising, or if theyÂ’ll show up to a parking lot with 26 cars, 10 of them locked, 10 of them homemade, and 6 guarded by promotional hires desperate to tap all your identifying info a tablet before dispensing dubious and superficial information. Which is to say, we didnÂ’t expect much. And that makes us chuffed to report: Electrify Expo is great. We hadnÂ’t been strolling the lot outside the old RFK Stadium for five minutes before thinking, “This feels like an old-school auto show!” The exclamation to that point came from a group of four who cut me off to reach the C40 Recharge in the Volvo booth, one of them exclaiming as if he were the group expert and as if his friends were deaf, “THATÂ’S THE LEAST EXPENSIVE ONE! AND ITÂ’S BEEEE-YOUUUUU-TI-FULLLLLL!” I wasnÂ’t there to judge, I was there for the enthusiasm. Automakers had built small, simple, open booths, parked cars in them, then provided visitors the kind of interactions that will do the most good for anyone wondering about or interested in an EV. We only saw two cars that were off limits, the new Volkswagen ID.Buzz and the Ford F-100 Eluminator. Volvo wouldnÂ’t let me get an espresso from their chic little trailer, either, unless I visited the EX90 Experience trailer first. Otherwise, it was a free-for-all. Tesla had a large booth full of cars. BMW had two i7s open for everyone to sit in, next to the Ford booth with that Eluminator and an unlocked Mustang Mach-E GT and F-150 Lightning showing their cooler-chest-frunk trick.

Playboy reveals its 2013 Cars of the Year

Vaunted men's magazine Playboy knows that its readers are nearly as interested in cars as they are in the female anatomy... sorry, we thought we could write that with a straight face. Anyway, the buff-book does occasionally fill some of its spreads with sexy metal, to accent all the rest of the sexiness.
To wit, the magazine has unveiled its feature on the 2013 Cars of the Year. Without giving us much in the way of criteria for the awards, nor a clear framing of the categories ("Responsible Ride" is a particularly challenging concept, especially when you consider that the Mazdaspeed3 was the winner), Playboy has nevertheless highlighted what we assume to be it's favorite 12 or 13 (depending on how you count) cars from the 2013 model year.
Headlining the class is the Porsche 911, which Playboy writers single out for having "remarkable electronic voodoo." BMW M5 is named "Slickest Sports Sedan" though the Cadillac ATS then follows on because "we couldn't resist giving the new Caddy a shout-out." The rest of the picks are pretty conventional (save, perhaps, the Honda Fit EV as "Ace Electric"), even if the categories and methodology are fairly wonky. Cruise through or gallery for a taste or check out the full list, here. The site is safe for work, and you can legitimately (this time) say that you were reading it for the articles.