Definitely the best torque converted auto!

Last few manual cars have been six gears, with the sixth as cruising gear. Didn’t find myself wanting fewer or more gears. Strong accel in 1-5, cruise at 75-80 in 6th and save your fuel economy. It works particularly well with a torquey engine.

There is room IMHO for an entry-level engine, so I wouldn’t be TOTALLY opposed to a turbo 6, but I hope they keep the V10. According to people who’ve driven it, the best thing about the current R8 (besides maybe its balance of performance and usability) IS the V10. It revs to the stratosphere and sounds mental. And…

Which, for all its other awesomeness, doesn’t sound that good.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree that we should err on the side of caution. I was thinking ahead toward when autonomous cars hit the road in large numbers.

Bingo. When it comes to driving (and many other things) humans don’t follow the rules, and have only loosely-defined rules for when it’s okay to break the rules. We read and react as best we can. Figuring out how to program an AI machine to do this will be a challenge.

The problem I see with taking the super-cautious approach is human drivers likely abusing the autonomous vehicle’s passivity by cutting it off, playing chicken with it, etc. Think if it trying to navigate New York or Boston traffic. It would take forever to get anywhere.

It’s a real psychological barrier, though. People are instinctively more likely to trust situations where they feel in control. Car and Driver showed some of the research behind this a few months back. The less “in control” people were of any object or experience, the greater margin of safety they demanded before they…

Clickbait. They are clearly thinking about some degree of electrification, otherwise they wouldn’t have hybridized the P1 or upcoming BP23, nor supplied batteries to Formula E.

Was once good, but becoming terrible?

Last time I checked Vermont is part of some country called the United States of America, whose airspace Putin has been flying nuclear-capable bombers toward. The most convenient way for said bombers to reach large portions of the US is to fly over the pole and penetrate our airspace from the north. What state sits by…

They might not stop ICBMs, but they can definitely stop the Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers Russia has been flying towards our airspace recently.

Don’t want F-35s in your area?

Agreed. That would be a logical way to preserve their V12s.

That’s impressive! I upgraded my dad’s 09 E92 with an intake and tune for Xmas. Runs so smoothly you wouldn’t notice it was tuned unless you hammer it. GREAT engine IMHO. 

To be fair, BMW inline-6s are some of the smoothiest, torquiest, best-sounding engines available for under $100k. If I had to have anyone build me an inline-6, it would be BMW.

They also weigh next to nothing. I’m skeptical the Toyota/BMW platform will go below 3400 lbs.

Agreed. At $50k it needs 400+hp. Preferably 450+hp if Toyota is pushing this as a serious performance car, as many leaks suggest they will. Some diehards will snap the first year’s supply up regardless of how fast it is, but I doubt it sales will be sustainable if a Corvette and V8 Camaro/Mustang can waste it. Those…

Weird. I’d never seen a pic of it before, and never thought it would be laid out like that. I’d imagined it in a 6-6-6 layout with one cylinder bank to the left, one to the right, and one vertical - an upright W. Never considered the detail of how that might work TBH.

Yes, and it’s that way because our society rightfully sees a moral difference between defensive killing, negligent killing (manslaughter), and offensive killing (murder).