BMW Zagato Coupe

I probably couldn't find Lake Como even if I had a car naviagtion system or an in dash navigation system, but after dicsovering a car show they hold there I am sure gonig to try.

This Northen Italian Lake is where one of the most luxurious auto shows on the planet occurs, The Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este.  The name by itself sounds like a car worth a million dollars.  BMW chose this prestigious event to unveil is Zagato Coupe.  They probably decided to introduce this eye catching beast in Italy because their partner in designing the car was Italian manufacturer Zagato.

Zagato has been styling sports cars since 1919. The company has designed cars for Ferrari, Maserati, Bugati, Bently and many more.  The combination of Italian styling and German engineering has hit a home run with the Zagato Coupe. I guess since this is Italy and Germany I should say they scored a goal, instead of a home run.  But don’t take my word for it, check out the pictures yourself.

The best news of all is that this may not just be a concept.  BMW has put the Zagato Coupe through high speed testing, and it meets German road standards.  We may actually see this thing on the road!  

GM Puts Brakes on Facebook Advertising

It’s never a good thing when your steering rack or your steering gear box bites the dust, but try having the country’s third largest advertiser pull out two days prior to your company going public.  That is exactly what happened to Facebook, when General Motors decided to decrease its Facebook advertising budget from $10 million to $0.  Now, I am not that good at math, but I believe $0 means nothing.

GM still plans on being active on Facebook.  They will update their Facebook page, communicate with fans, and upload videos and photos.  However they will not pay for pay per click advertising. GM says that the return on investment has been insufficient.   They also feel that a car is not a type of purchase someone will make with just one click of a mouse.   GM feels the Facebook adverts are more for spontaneous shopping.

GM Dislikes Facebook

GM communicated with their Facebook Fans by posting this message on their wall yesterday

“Just wanted to let our millions of Facebook fans know, we're still here, and we 'like' you back! We may not be advertising on Facebook at the moment but we'll still be talking with you all daily. If anything, we will be providing more content across our many GM Facebook pages - including Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac - to keep the dialogue going.”

Some investors are now waiting to see what other big companies will also leave Facebook.  Though GM’s competitor Ford Motor Company says it is going to invest even more in its Facebook advertising.  Time will tell.

Mercedes Airmatic vs ABC Suspension

I've heard a lot of confusion about whether a Mercedes S or CL-class has Active Body Control suspension or just standard Airmatic (air ride). The biggest difference is that the standard Airmatic suspension runs on air, whereas ABC runs on power steering fluid supplied by the power steering (tandem) pump and does not run on air at all. The car will have one system or the other, not both.

A couple of ways you can identify ABC vs Airmatic:

1. ABC cars will have a button marked "ABC Sport" on the center console, whereas the standard Airmatic suspension has a button has a picture of a spring with arrows.

2. Airmatic struts will have white plastic tubes running to the top which can be seen under hood. See below.

Charging Made Easy

Although electric car owners don’t have to worry about their fuel pump and fuel injectors going bad, one of the drawbacks they face is the car charge time. A Chevy Volt takes up to 10 hours using a 120 volt outlet, and about 4 if you have access to a 240 volt supply. A Nissan LEAF takes about 7 hours to reach a full charge on a 208-240V home charging station. They say most people will charge their LEAF overnight at home “similar to a cell phone”, but in time they hope to make the process more efficient. This is one of the reasons that German and U.S. automakers are joining forces to create a faster EV charger.

What they are calling the “DC Fast Charging with a Combined Charging” system, automakers are hoping to create a single plug that incorporates four different types of charging. The four types are one-phase AC-charging, fast three-phase AC-Charging, DC-charging at home and ultra-fast DC-charging at public stations. The new ultra-fast DC-charging is aimed to recharge most electric cars in as little as 15-20 minutes.

Beyond the convenience of charging time, the unity of automakers will also create the convenience of location. Although it’s unlikely you will be driving your electric cars across many continents, the hope is that the same plug design that will charge your car in the U.S. will also be able to charge your car in Europe. Although many batteries that are currently in electric cars today may not support the ultra-fast charging stations, big automakers such as Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, FM, Porsche and VW are all making the necessary steps to turn this idea into a reality.

The Auto Black Box

A car navigation system or car GPS device can record where a car is located, but there is a little device in all of our cars that tracks everything we do.  Well… not everything but close enough. This gadget is referred to as the vehicle’s Event Data Recorder (EDR).  The EDR works just like an airplanes black box and is commonly used after an accident to see what happened.  It records at minimum of 15 aspects of a crash, including pre-crash speed, engine throttle, changes in forward velocity and airbag deployment time.

All vehicles are mandated to have these black boxes by 2013, but some cars have had these since the mid-90s.  The information collected could eventually be used for insurance companies to set your insurance rates, as well as in civil and criminal cases.  Some people have said that this information should be private but others say that if you are driving on public roads than it is public information.  People very weary of this technology fear a future where a device like this can issue a speeding ticket as soon as you go over the speed limit.  Imagine a citation printing right out of your dash. OK, so that’s a big jump, but you can see how people feel these devices are a little “big brothery.”

Even though it does feel like an invasion of privacy I do feel like this device can be used for good.  It will help auto companies fix problems with their vehicles that lead to crashes.  It will prove who was actually at fault in an accident, so the wrong person doesn’t have to pay for it.