News: May 15th, 2017 + Weekend

This week, instead of the normal two articles, I will be trying out a daily news recap. I will try and get them out as early as possible on the previous day’s news, so visit the site early!

NIO EP9 Takes the Nurburgring Record

 

 

While this technically happened last week, an electric car start-up in China called NextEV brought their ultra-low-production NIO EP9 electric supercar to the Nurburgring and made the lap record for a street legal (not USA-legal) production car its bitch. Setting a time of 6:45.90, it shattered the time of the Lamborghini Huracan Performante’s impressive time of 6:52.01. With only 7 produced, the claim of “production car” is up for debate, but what isn’t up for debate is the serious speed this car can maintain. Watch the video down below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcepG9Twa_8

Volvo is wising up: Help us Google!

Yesterday Volvo announced a new partnership with digital giant Google; in particular the Android development branch of Google. Google I snow leading the development of Volvo’s newest infotainment system, with new systems being branded with a “powered by Google” banner. This system will spread throughout Volvo’s entire range.

 

 

We can hope that this starts the industry on the path of hiring proper technology firms to develop their infotainment systems. While most companies are good at designing automobiles, they are not good at designing automobile OS’s. Chrysler products are already powered by Infotainment systems designed by Sprint, but Google has vast experience through its Android arm.

Split in Two: Two Cars lose some Weight

In two separate incidents–both in California however–two American-made vehicles were split down the middle, albeit in different directions.

The first story, as reported here by Jalopnik, depicts a car accident straight out of a Hollywood movie that doesn’t take itself very seriously. As the picture below shows, somehow the car was split between the passengers, from nose to tail.

 

 

Luckily everyone is ok. It appears that another car drifted into her lane, taking everything behind the front passenger cell with it, leaving the impression of a “torn in half” car.

If one car splitting in half isn’t crazy enough, just a few hours away, a second car was split in half in an accident, as reported here by Jalopnik. This incident is less innocent-seeming than the previous, as it involves two Mustangs allegedly street-racing. If that wasn’t bad enough, the accident occurred on busy roads during the afternoon.

 

 

The Mustang that suffered the extreme weight loss was T-boned by another car after the Mustang failed to stop at a red light. The innocent car proceeded to push the Mustang into a telephone pole, did the deed. It must be said, the telephone pole fared much better. People were injured seriously, so this story serves as a reminder to keep it to the track.

Racing

While I appreciate a good race, I sadly do not get to watch as many as I would like. This weekend there were three options on the table, and I missed them all. To recap the results, keep reading.

The first race was the Formula E race in Monaco. Silently whooshing around such a historic racing site must have been nearly as exciting for driver Sebastian Buemi as winning the race was. Buemi took his fourth win of the five races this season, battling rival Lucas di Grussi throughout the session.

 

 

In GT racing news, the 2017 Beijing GT at Goldenport took place this weekend, with McLaren taking a 1-2 podium finish. The factory supported owner-led team The Winning Ones took the wins in their 570S GT4 cars, with the Managing Director for the Asian Market of McLaren taking some seat time along with the owners. Factory executives racing with owners is always cool and newsworthy.

 

 

The Blancpain GT endurance series had a 24hr race at Silverstone this weekend with the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 taking its third consecutive win. While news worthy in its own right, this series of wins represents a seismic shift in Lamborghini’s history which is starting to reflect in its road cars. The partnership with Audi is making the Lamborghini into a somewhat reliable car. What a day.

Think I missed some news? I am sure I did! Let me know down below and stay tuned for tomorrows news recap.