2011 Cayenne Turbo 4.8l V8 32v Automatic Suv Premium on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Watch Porsche's 918 Spyder break a sweat while hot weather testing

With five months left until the 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder enters production, Porsche engineers are still putting the hybrid sports coupe through a battery of last-minute tests. To give us new reasons to ogle over the car - as if we needed any more - Porsche has released a short video showing the 918 Spyder undergoing shakedown tests in the hot Nevada desert. And you can't drive through Nevada without visiting Vegas, too, right?
Although there's really nothing new to see in this video, it's still fun to watch as Porsche approaches one million test miles logged on this exciting new high-performance model. One interesting part (at around the 0:37 mark) shows the car taking off under electric power and then transitioning to engine power, which results in a mix of whirs and growls as the 918 Spyder switches from a 127-horsepower electric vehicle to an 887-hp hybrid supercar. Scroll down to watch - and hear - Porsche's latest creation in motion.

Automakers paying Chinese dealers for lower-than-expected sales

The Chinese dealers vs. foreign manufacturers story won't quit. It began with a story on the struggles faced by FAW-Toyota joint venture dealers, with supposedly 95 percent of the showrooms losing money, and 10 percent of them doing so poorly that they'd have to exit the business. The problem is mandated sales targets, most set when the country's economy was racing. Now that things have slowed, China's dealers are swimming in unsold cars and the costs to keep them. In the case of FAW-Toyota, dealers asked Toyota to hand over 2.2 billion yuan ($355 million) to help address the situation. That was followed by a report noting the issues that Honda, BMW, and Nissan dealers are having with the same issue, revealing that the Chinese Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) had taken the highly unusual step of writing to the Chinese government to complain. Now Reuters reports that CADA is not only pressing its case even harder, it's being open about it: it announced that BMW agreed to pay dealers 5.1 billion yuan ($820 million) to alleviate poor profits last year. Unnamed sources said Audi has thrown 2 billion yuan into the kitty for subsidies, and Daimler has contributed "about 1 billion yuan" to its dealers. The battle isn't just about 2014, but how business will be run in 2015 as well: Chinese Porsche dealers have requested the automaker lower its 2015 target of 64,000 cars, which would be a 40-percent increase on its 2014 sales of 46,931 vehicles. One analyst called it "shocking" that the CADA has taken its fight public, while CADA comments continue to imply that dealers have been railroaded to the cliff's edge without recourse. "Due to the difference in status," it's deputy secretary said, "individual dealers are not willing to, or don't dare to, talk frankly with the carmakers...." Both parties need one another, so they'll figure out a way to make it work – but that could mean acknowledging the Chinese market is behaving more like a mature one, not an emerging one. News Source: ReutersImage Credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Earnings/Financials Audi BMW Porsche Toyota Car Dealers Luxury

Stunning vintage Porsche 911 collection profiled by eGarage

It's Pebble Beach time, so how appropriate that eGarage presents us a vid on one of the finest personal Porsche collections in the world. A former COO of drug maker GlaxoSmithKline, Robert Ingram amassed more then 50 Porsches that include a 1949 356 Gmund, a 1961 356B 1600 Carrera GTL Abarth Coupe, and a 1964 356C Carrera 2 Coupe. His collecting career didn't start well, Ingram saying he bought his first Porsche in 1959 sight unseen and it was a fiasco, the seller had lied about everything. Ingram said he still has the car, unrestored, and uses it to show people "what happens when you don't do your due diligence." Things have got much better. Ingram said he's committed to using his cars during his lifetime, so he called some friends for a weekend in Napa Valley to drive selections like his 1968 911L Rally Kit/Sport Kit II, a 1973 911 Carrera RS 2.7, a 1974 911 RS 3.0, and the first 1990 911 Carrera 4 Lightweight. As far as we can tell, they did not drive the Porsche tractor also in the collection. The collection is covered in a new book called Porsche Unexpected by veteran car writer Randy Leffingwell, with photography by Michael Furman, and it also examines the skill of collecting, with tips and mistakes shared by Ingram and other collectors. You can check out some of the cars and words from the party involved in the video above. News Source: eGarage via YouTube Porsche Coupe Luxury Performance Classics Videos egarage