2003 Bmw M3 on 2040-cars

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Honda scores big in Automobile Advertising of the Year Awards [w/videos]

This year the Detroit Auto Show didn't just celebrate the automobile, it celebrated how we find out about the automobile, too. Partnering The One Club, this year introduced the 2014 One Show Automobile Advertising of the Year Award to Cobo Hall, celebrating winners in five different categories of advertising: broadcast television, online, interactive, experiential, and print/outdoor. Winners in those categories were judged by 50 creative directors and journalists, while a Public Choice category was chosen from among nearly 20,000 online votes.
Honda walked off with three of the six awards, its Hands spot taking Broadcast honors, its Sound of Honda getting the Online category and Illusions winning Public Choice. Hyundai made the grade in Interactive with Driveway Decision Maker, Fiat captured Print/Outdoor with its "Letters" ad, and Toyota's Tundra Endeavor Campaign spot and BMW's A Window into the Near Future were co-winners for Experiential.
You can watch all of the press release and winning videos below or check out all of the finalists, announced last month, for a refresher.

BMW i3 owners in California get $1,000 to delay charging

It's fairly rare to get paid for doing absolutely nothing, but that's exactly the case for a select group of BMW i3 owners in California. A hundred people are part of the ChargeForward pilot program in coordination with BMW and Pacific Gas & Electric Company, and each participant gets a $1,000 gift card to not plug in their cars – at least not whenever they want to. It's all part of an attempt to develop strategies to reduce the strain on the grid during peak usage. The trial runs from July 2015 to December 2016 in California's Bay Area. According to the automaker's website, when plugged in, BMW has the ability to delay the charging of the i3s by up to an hour. There are no necessary mechanical or software modifications necessary, either. Although, if drivers desperately need the juice, they can also opt out of the program for a day. At the end of the experiment, the people are eligible for a second gift card for up to another $540, depending on their involvement. According to Bloomberg, with 65,000 electric vehicles in Northern California, the power company estimates the area has among the highest concentrations of EVs in the country. While all of those emissions-free miles are great for the environment, plugging them all in once just adds to the load on the system. As a second part of the program, used Mini E batteries are being repurposed to create a solar-powered, stationary storage system that Pacific Gas can also use to supplement the grid.

2015 BMW Alpina B6 Gran Coupe challenges the M6 in New York

Despite being a well-respected outfit for decades, Alpina remains something of a mystery to many stateside BMW fans. In Europe, Alpina has established itself as a first-rate source for breathed-upon high-performance Bimmers, and it's looking to continue picking up traction on our shores. The US has received a handful of Alpina models through BMW factory channels, namely the 7-Series-based B7, and now we're getting another fast four-door with the debut of the BMW Alpina B6 xDrive Gran Coupe at today's 2014 New York Auto Show.
The B6 Gran Coupe stands as an interesting sibling to the factory's M6 Grand Coupe. Both are propelled by a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8, but the tunes are quite different. The Alpina produces 540 horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque, which is 20 hp less than the M6, but with 40 lb-ft more torque. An eight-speed automatic and all-wheel drive mean that the B6 is about half a second quicker to 60 miles per hour than BMW's own creation. Plus, the B6 has an unrestricted top speed of 198 mph, making it one seriously rapid 6 Series Gran Coupe.
The sport sedan also wears other Alpina goodies like 20-inch versions of the brand's 21-spoke wheels and exclusive color options. The B6 Gran Coupe goes for $118,225 (including destination), and will be available through BMW dealers immediately after the auto show ends. More info about the B6 is in the release below.