PRODUCTION OF CADILLAC ELR ENDS

News Hour:

Cadillac’s ELR has bowed out of production a little more than two years after reaching showrooms. The last ELR rolled off the line at General Motors Company’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant in February, a Cadillac spokesman confirmed to HybridCars.

It was also in February that Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen said there were no plans for further investment in the ELR, so the news doesn’t come as much of a surprise, reports Motor Authority.

                                   2014 Cadillac ELR interior

Total sales of the model were a little under 2,700 units. Part of the reason for the poor sales was the car’s exorbitant price tag. Cadillac originally asked $75,995 for what was essentially a front-wheel-drive compact with running gear lifted out of a Chevrolet Volt. And being an (extended-range) electric car and a coupe made it a niche within a niche.


Not surprisingly sales didn’t take off so a little more than a year after the ELR’s launch Cadillac dropped the price and offered more power. Unfortunately by then Tesla Motors’ superior Model S was attracting all the well-heeled electric car enthusiasts.











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Nasa Releases First-Ever Global Topographic Model of Mercury

Nasa's Messenger mission has unveiled the first global digital elevation model (DEM) of Mercury, revealing in stunning detail the topography across the entire innermost planet.

It will also pave the way for scientists to fully characterise Mercury's geologic history.

"The wealth of these data has already enabled and will continue to enable exciting scientific discoveries about Mercury for decades to come," said Susan Ensor, software engineer at The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).

This new model reveals a variety of interesting topographic features, including the highest and lowest points on the planet.

The highest elevation on Mercury is at 4.48 km above Mercury's average elevation, located just south of the equator in some of Mercury's oldest terrain.



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Nasa Releases First-Ever Global Topographic Model of Mercury Indo-Asian News Service , 9 May 2016
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Nasa Releases First-Ever Global Topographic Model of Mercury
Nasa's Messenger mission has unveiled the first global digital elevation model (DEM) of Mercury, revealing in stunning detail the topography across the entire innermost planet.

It will also pave the way for scientists to fully characterise Mercury's geologic history.

"The wealth of these data has already enabled and will continue to enable exciting scientific discoveries about Mercury for decades to come," said Susan Ensor, software engineer at The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).

This new model reveals a variety of interesting topographic features, including the highest and lowest points on the planet.

The highest elevation on Mercury is at 4.48 km above Mercury's average elevation, located just south of the equator in some of Mercury's oldest terrain.


The lowest elevation, at 5.38 km below Mercury's average, is found on the floor of Rachmaninoff basin, an intriguing double-ring impact basin suspected to host some of the most recent volcanic deposits on the planet.

More than 100,000 images were used to create the new model.

"This has become one of my favourite maps of Mercury. Now that it is available, I'm looking forward to it being used to investigate this epic volcanic event that shaped Mercury's surface," added Nancy Chabot, instrument scientist for the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) in a Nasa statement.

"During its four years of orbital observations,Messenger  revealed the global characteristics of one of our closest planetary neighbours for the first time.


The data from the mission will continue to be utilised by the planetary science community for years to come.











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'Cheater' car outside Harrods is (probably) a publicity stunt

   The mysterious car appeared outside Harrods department store yesterday morning Klo/Twitter

A car publicly vandalised by a spurned wife or girlfriend outside Harrods in London is likely to be a PR stunt.

The white Range Rover Revere was spotted outside in Knightsbridge and photographs of its unusual paintwork quickly filled social media.

The words ‘CHEATER’, ‘IT’S OVER’ and ‘HOPE SHE WAS WORTH IT’ were daubed in red paint over the body of the vehicle.

The car was seen making its way through Belgravia in the early hours before a man in a white T-shirt parked it outside the department store and walked off.

          Many people claim the car was left there to promote a Bravo TV show (Klo/Twitter)

However, it seems likely that the paint job is actually a publicity 
stunt for a new television show.
Exactly the same stunt was pulled in downtown New York in March last year and the photographs went viral on social media.

The images showed the same white Range Rover with words painted in red being towed through the Big Apple on the back of a truck.

           Eagle-eyed tweeters spotted that a similar stunt was pulled in New York in March 2015 (Imgur)

In December 2014, the TV channel Bravo pulled a very similar trick by towing a selection of graffitied Porche 911 cars around Manhattan to promote their scripted show ‘Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce’. 


















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Australian Entrepreneur Says He Invented Bitcoin

Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright claims he's the inventor of the digital currency bitcoin.

Wright told the BBC that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the shadowy creator of the cryptocurrency. In a follow-up blog post on Monday, Wright thanked everyone who helped out in bitcoin's beginnings.

"I have been staring at my screen for hours, but I cannot summon the words to express the depth of my gratitude to those that have supported the bitcoin project from its inception — too many names to list," Wright wrote. "You have dedicated vast swathes of your time, committed your gifts, sacrificed relationships and REM sleep for years to an open source project that could have come to nothing. And yet still you fought."



To back up his claim, Wright digitally signed a message using the cryptographic keys that were associated with the creator.

"These are the blocks used to send 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney in January [2009] as the first bitcoin transaction," Wright told the BBC.

Wright said Finney helped turn his vision of bitcoin into reality.

Almost immediately, Wright's claims came under suspicion, with some saying the real person or ground behind Satoshi Nakamoto has yet to be revealed. And the evidence Wright put forward has left some experts unconvinced.


For years, news organizations have been investigating who the real founder of bitcoin is, with several names being mentioned. Someone or a group of people called "Satoshi Nakamoto" was always associated with the invention of the cryptocurrency, but nobody knew who was behind the name.

In 2014, Newsweek said that the bitcoin creator was a 64-year-old Japanese-American living in California named Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto.










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Facelifted BMW i8 Will Drop Next Year: Report

   2011 BMW i8 Concept

A facelifted and subtly tweaked BMW i8 coupe is reportedly set to go on sale late next year. If you’re a movie studio hoping to remake Back To The Future, start planning now.


BMW i8: The Ultimate Buyer's Guide

The BMW i8 is a unique car from the future designed to work perfectly in the present. It might not…



According to a report by Autocar, BMW plans to put the revised futuristic coupe on the market in the fourth quarter of 2017. The car will apparently get a 60 horsepower boost from a revised 1.5 liter 3-cylinder turbo and upgraded battery pack to total around 420 hp on combined power.

The upgraded battery is also expected to extend the electric range of the i8, and a revision of the 6-speed automatic transmission is expected to improve the coupe’s current near-4 second 0 to 60 time.

Autocar suggests that BMW may go with a 10 kWh battery pack over the current 7.1 kWh pack based on an upgrade to the company’s Formula E safety car. It’s also expected that similar chassis modifications seen on the safety car will make their way to the next production i8 as well.

It’s also suggested that wireless charging will be available on the car through technology developed by Qualcomm, which is partnered with BMW.

The launch of the i8 roadster may team up with the new coupe next year, both featuring a soft redesign of the current i8 language. Here’s hoping it stays crazy.













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Volkswagen unveils the T-Prime Concept GLE

Volkswagen has unveiled the T-Prime Concept GLE SUV at the Beijing Motor Show 2016. Based on the modular longitudinal platform (MLB), the car will lead Volkswagen’s SUV line-up, which is currently dominated by the Touareg

Aesthetically the car looks appealing with large front grille extending till the end of the headlamps. The “C” shaped day-time running lights further enhance its appeal. The German carmaker has done away with most of the knobs and buttons in the car’s interiors and introduced a multi-functional steering wheel with touch pads. The 15-inch touchscreen display placed at the center, enables the driver to control most of the features in the vehicle. The interiors of the T-Prime truly demonstrate the company’s plan to go more digital

The SUV measures 5,069mm x 2,000mm x 1,708mm (L x B x H) and is a tad bit bigger than the Touareg. The car is powered by a mechanical engine and an electric drive with a combined output of 375 bhp (248 bhp for mechanical and 134 bhp for electric drive). This apparatus comes mated with an eight speed automatic gearbox.

The car is driveable in three modes namely E-mode, Hybrid and GTE. In E-mode, the SUV completely depends on the electric drive, while the hybrid mode combines the output of the electric motor and the combustion engine. In GTE, the electric motor complements the performance of the petrol mill.

The carmaker came with all guns blazing at the Auto Expo 2016 and displayed models such as the Tiguan and the Passat GTE. As a matter of fact, the Passat GTE and the T-Prime share the same electric motor. The automaker is likely to introduce the production version of the T-Prime, which will also be the next-gen Touareg, in India only after the launch of the Tiguan. The Tiguan is expected to hit the Indian roads by early 2017.








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2016 Beijing Motor Show: Long-wheelbase Mercedes-Benz E-Class debuted

Mercedes-Benz has taken the wraps of the long-wheelbase (LWB) E-Class at the 2016 Beijing Motor Show. Measuring 4923mm, the long-wheelbase Mercedes-Benz E-Class’ length and wheelbase have gone up by 140mm over the standard car. This translates to an additional 134mm of legroom for rear passengers. The rear passengers also have access to a new centre armrest which can be optioned with a touchscreen tablet and wireless chargers.

Like the standard Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the LWB version is loaded with features which include touch-sensitive controls on the steering wheel, Multibeam LED headlamps and a host of driver assistance systems. Although the brand hasn’t disclosed any specifications on the powertrain, the E 200 L badging indicates that it could be powered by the same 2.0-litre petrol engine from the standard E 200. This four cylinder engine puts out 184PS of power and 300Nm of torque.

Langversion der neuen E-Klasse LimousineLong-wheelbase version

Langversion der neuen E-Klasse Limousine Long-wheelbase version


Initially, the LWB Mercedes-Benz E-Class will be built in China for China. However, there could be plans to launch this version in other parts of the world. India will get the standard variant of the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class only in 2017. However, it’s too soon to tell if the LWB version will be offered as well.








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