Video: BMW takes its autonomous 5 Series onto the autobahn

Filed under: Safety , Technology , BMW Last May we went for a high-speed run around Laguna Seca in BMW’s Track Trainer , a modified 3 Series that can click of two-minute laps without the driver touching the controls. Now, BMW has packed a 5 Series with the next iteration of the technology and taken it on to the open road. This latest ConnectedDrive experiment uses much of the same tech, but beyond the radar and camera systems on the 3er, it includes new ultrasonic scanners and lasers to re-read the road surface, lines and surrounding vehicles. We say “re-read” because like the system we sampled at Laguna, this version needs to have the road data downloaded into the car before it can drive sans human intervention

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Video: BMW takes its autonomous 5 Series onto the autobahn

Video: Diabetic condition leads to wild snowy ride for Kia owner

Filed under: Videos The blurry screencap shown above is of a driver in morning traffic on Pennsylvania’s I-81, in mid-jump, hurtling down the snowy median. The man who captured the video, Shawn Lucas, thought the driver was trying to evade police, but it turns out the 61-year-old woman behind the wheel of the Kia was likely having a diabetic emergency. Before this video was taken, she had driven onto and stopped on the median, and other drivers pulled over to play Good Samaritan and push her off. While they were pushing, she sped off again, which is when Lucas began to record her (he apparently was unaware of the driver’s medical condition).

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Video: Diabetic condition leads to wild snowy ride for Kia owner

Official: BMW updates 2013 X6, introduces M Performance Package

Filed under: Performance , Crossover , BMW , Luxury BMW , which still insists on using the term Sports Activity Coupe to describe its least practical ‘ute, has updated its X6 for the 2013 model year. And with good reason – BMW says it has sold over 20,000 X6 crossovers in the States since its launch three years ago and over 150,000 worldwide, making it an important model for the German automaker. First and foremost, the 2013 X6 offers available power from both the 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged inline six and 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 through its M Performance Package (which is not the same thing as the X6M that carries on for 2013 with its 555-horsepower V8 and six-speed automatic transmission). By ticking he appropriate box on the order sheet, the X6 xDrive35i is blessed with 315 horsepower (a gain of 15 over stock) and 330 pound-feet of torque (a 30-lb-ft gain).

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Official: BMW updates 2013 X6, introduces M Performance Package

Report: Chrysler considering entry into Australia’s V8 Supercar series?

Filed under: Motorsports , Chrysler , Australia Wherever you find General Motors and Ford going at it, Chrysler is seldom very far behind. Except in Australia. The Land Down Under has its own unique touring car championship in the form of its popular V8 Supercars series, but the only contestants these days are Ford (with its FPV Falcon) and GM subsidiary Holden (with its HSV Commodore).

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Report: Chrysler considering entry into Australia’s V8 Supercar series?

Official: BMW M goes diesel, introduces M550d, X5 M50d, X6 M50d

Filed under: Sedan , Performance , Wagon , Geneva Motor Show , Europe , Crossover , BMW , Diesel Rumors of BMW M launching a diesel model have been circulating for over a year, and confirmation has finally arrived in the form of not one, not two, but four M-fettled oil-burners, each sporting all-wheel drive and the oft-rumored tri-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline six. And before you get excited, none of them are slated for sale in the U.S. – this is a Euro-only affair. So with that unfortunate fact out of the way, let’s get to the details.

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Official: BMW M goes diesel, introduces M550d, X5 M50d, X6 M50d

Video: First it was Vette on Vette violence, now it’s Z on Z carnage

Filed under: Coupe , Safety , Videos , Nissan Back on Thanksgiving Day of 2011, we saw what happens when a C5 Chevrolet Corvette goes head-to-head on public roads against a C6 Vette – the older Vette spears into the passenger-side door of the newer Vette. The video was our most popular post of 2011 , so we know that well over a million viewers saw the ill-advised drag race. We think that video illustrated that racing on public roads was a bad idea, but sometimes, accidents happen even without a race. Hit the jump to see what happens when a pair of tuned-out Nissan 350Z models do their best impression of the Thanksgiving Day Melee

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Video: First it was Vette on Vette violence, now it’s Z on Z carnage