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2015 Green Car Of The Year finalists announced, run alt-fuel gamut

The 2015 edition of the Green Car of the Year award is following right in the footsteps of previous years with a variety of alt-fuel powertrains making the just-announced finalists list. You've got your plug-in vehicle (the BMW i3), your compressed natural gas (the Chevy Impala Bi-Fuel), your high-efficiency diesel (the Audi A3 TDI), your 40+ mile-per-gallon gas engine (the Honda Fit) and, finally, a car that can do a little bit of everything (the VW Golf). The Golf is available – at least in some parts of the US – with three different powertrains: a 2.0-liter diesel, a gasoline engine and all-electric drive. The Impala can burn either natural gas or gasoline in its 3.6-liter engine. The A3 is an efficiency champ, able to get 73.5 mpg on some European tests. The i3 can be a pure electric vehicle or come with a short range extending engine. And the Fit brings 41 miles to the gallon in a practical, affordable package. The GCOY award is announced every year at the Los Angeles Auto Show by Green Car Journal. The committee doesn't just take the fuel-saving technology into account, but also a vehicle's "availability to the mass market." Last year, the Honda Accord Hybrid/Plug-In Hybrid won top honors, following up on wins from the Ford Fusion models (plug-in hybrid and hybrid) for 2013, the Honda Civic Natural Gas for 2012 and the Chevrolet Volt for 2011. FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR 2015 "GREEN CAR OF THE YEAR"" Green Car Journal to Reveal Winner of 10th Annual Award at LA Auto Show" Press & Trade Days, November 20 LOS ANGELES, CA (October 21, 2014) – Green Car Journal has announced its five finalists for the magazine's high-profile 2015 Green Car of the Year® program. The 2015 models include the Audi A3 TDI, BMW i3, Chevrolet Impala Bi-Fuel, Honda Fit, and VW Golf. The Green Car of the Year® award, an honor widely recognized as the auto industry's most important environmental accolade, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. An increasing number of vehicle models are considered for the Green Car of the Year® program each year, a reflection of the auto industry's expanding efforts in offering new vehicles with higher efficiency and improved environmental impact. Green Car Journal has been honoring the most important "green" vehicles every year at the LA Auto Show, since its inaugural award announced at the show in 2005.

BMW tests M Lap Timer App with M4 Coupe at Brands Hatch

The 2015 BMW M4 looks to include all the necessary ingredients to offer dynamite driving experience. It's an M car after all. But in today's constantly connected world, the experience of hurtling a car around a track isn't always enough.
We want data, and while there are some solid telemetry apps available for smartphones (notably Harry's GPS LapTimer), manufacturers have been a bit slower to develop their own dedicated mobile telemetry trackers for their performance cars. With the new M4, though, BMW is taking the plunge, allowing drivers to track their lap progress through a new app, creatively called the M Lap Timer.
To show off the program, BMW has recruited touring car racer Andy Priaulx to perform a fast lap in an M4 at the UK's Brands Hatch circuit. The accompanying video doesn't do much to show off the app in action. Rather, it give us a stylized look at the metrics as Priaulx hustles BMW's hottest 4 Series coupe around the circuit.

Watch the next BMW M5 slide its way around the Nurburgring

By now, you've probably seen the spy photos of the next BMW M5 – we posted three sets of camouflaged cars last year. Now comes recently captured video showing three camouflaged examples – including the car shown in our June 2015 photos – lapping Germany's famed Nurburgring. The (obvious) advantage of video when looking at prototypes like this is that we can actually see the vehicle in motion. That allows us to make a couple of educated guesses, particularly when it comes to the rumors about the next M5 moving to an all-wheel-drive setup. In the video, we can clearly see the next super-sedan throw its tail out around a bend. Judging by the way the driver takes the turn and the change in engine note, it looks and sounds like the driver was actively trying to throw the tail out. That could point to a rear-drive layout, or at the very least an AWD setup with a heavy rear-wheel bias. Beyond seeing the M5 sliding about, we also get to hear its thumping, twin-turbo heart at work. It's widely expected BMW's popular 4.4-liter, twin-turbo V8 will carry on under the hood, and this video gives us absolutely zero reason to think otherwise. It sounds a lot like the current car, down to the abrupt upshifts of the seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission. According to the video's caption, that upgraded V8 should get around a 60-horsepower bump, which would put it around 620 hp. That's 20 ponies more than the 30th Anniversary car and would contradict a June 2015 report claiming that M was capping its cars at 600 hp. Related Video: