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1972 BMW 1602e EV concept looks glorious

Pretty sweet. That's a first impression of one cherry-looking experimental electric vehicle from BMW from way back in the day. Or at least from someone who for a time drove a '74 2002. A gas-powered one, that is. BMW built two experimental vehicles in 1972 based off of the old 1600 (which evolved into the 2002) model and even showed them off during the Munich Olympic Games of that year. BMW strung together a dozen typical car batteries and linked them to an electric motor made by Bosch. The result was a battery pack that weighed about 770 pounds (A quick modern-day comparison: a Nissan Leaf battery pack weighs about 480 pounds). Bimmer recently posted a two-and-a-half minute video about the project. The clip doesn't say how far those cars could go on a single charge, but did use to the vehicles to "escort" long-distance running competitions at the Munich Games, since there was no exhaust to choke those athletes out. The timing is fortuitous, of course, as the German automaker looks to continue to gain more goodwill from the green-car set through its new "i" sub-brand of plug-in vehicles, including the i3 electric vehicle and the i8 plug-in hybrid. News Source: BMW/YouTube Green BMW Electric Videos munich

Mercedes fights off late BMW surge to claim 2013 luxury sales crown

The king is dead - long live the king. Mercedes-Benz is now your new US sales champion in the fiercely competitive luxury market, deposing the champ BMW, which has enjoyed annual supremacy for the past two years.
Thanks in no small part to the dynamite launch of the new, affordable CLA-Class, not to mention a redesigned E-Class and hot-selling S-Class, Mercedes moved 33,007 units in December alone, while sales in 2013 were up 14 percent, to 312,534. BMW, meanwhile, managed to sell 309,280 units in 2013. It was far from a sure thing for the Stuttgart-based brand, though, as BMW managed to nearly halve its rival's sales lead heading into the last month of 2013.
"We saw record sales, flexed our muscles across the entire product line from top to bottom and brought the customer experience to an all-time high," said Steve Cannon, Mercedes USA's CEO. While we don't have individual figures, it seems at first blush that the CLA was really the car that pushed Mercedes over the top.

What's up with this thought-controlled BMW i3?

Autonomous driving? A car being controlled by just verbal commands? One pilot program is going way beyond that this year with a car that can theoretically be mind-controlled. UK-based insurance-services company MoneySuperMarket is promoting something called "Epic Mind Drive." The project involves a BMW i3 electric vehicle (nice and futuristic) being rigged up with an autonomous driving system. Only instead of the system watching the road, it involves a person sitting in a seat outside of the car with an electroencephalography (EEG) neuro headset connected to the vehicle. In fact, that headset records brain activity and translates it into instructions. Those instructions are converted to radio frequency that's sent to the car to instruct it to perform various speed and turning duties. Apparently, yes, the car will be mind-controlled. Somehow. If this were intended for real-world use, it would go far beyond the autonomous-driving programs that have been in the works for the past couple of years. Nissan has been real active in that area, with chief Carlos Ghosn saying earlier this year that a "hands-free" car for heavy stop-and-go traffic may be available within the next couple of years. And last year, Google unveiled its autonomous car prototype (though it wasn't nearly as cool-looking as the Bimmer i3) while Tesla Motors has been making noise in that area as well. Besides the i3, MoneySuperMarket has developed the Epic Mind Drive mobile game that uses face-tracking technology to control a car on the screen. The idea with these two whiz-bang ideas is to get drivers to realize that they should think as they drive, it seems. As for the telepathic i3, we're as interested in details as the next website, so we checked out the two videos that are supposed to hype the project. While there is some groovy jazzy-electro music involved, the details of how this works are pretty much nonexistent (16 sensors, think to turn the wheel, and that's about it), so we look forward to hearing more about the project once it's underway. You can check out the videos above and below. News Source: Daily Mail, MoneySuperMarket Green BMW mind control