Porsche Of Quad Cities

To return to the top, you need a car that will take you there. The Porsche 919 Hybrid is that car. Designed with the finish line in mind, the 919 Hybrid is anything but your typical Porsche. Because of strict FIA WEC regulations for vehicle design, the Porsche 919 looks more like a futuristic LeMans Prototype. The FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) is where the highest level of motor sports pit themselves against each other on renowned tracks around the world, where stamina is challenged, where tears are shed and where history is written. The race series, which replaced the Intercontinental LeMans Cup in 2012, is considered to be the toughest in the world. It brings together sports prototypes and Gran Turismos on eight long-distance circuits from all over the world. After a 16 year absence, Porsche is ready to be back in the racing car line-up for the LMP1, the races highest class, with their 919 Hybrid. 52806 where you can speak with a member of our Porsche Certified Sales Team. We look forward to hearing from you.

Dozens of established carmakers, technology companies, and startups are working furiously on autonomous vehicles. But if you look at the cars that are actually driving themselves on roads today, just two models are miles ahead: the Lexus RX450 and the Ford Fusion, with its sibling, the Lincoln MKZ. Public records sourced from the California Department of Motor Vehicles show the Ford Fusion and the Lexus RX450h make up 80 percent of self-driving cars that are not vehicles being tested by their own manufacturers. Nationwide, the figures are harder to come by. Going by publicly available information, the Fusion and the RX450h roughly account for more than a third of all autonomous test cars in the United States. Leading the Lexus camp is Google, with the largest total of self-driving cars: 24 RX450hs and 34 of its own prototypes. Zoox, a Silicon Valley startup aiming to make a fully autonomous vehicle for ride sharing, also uses a Lexus crossover for testing.

Outside California, self-driving Lincoln MKZs also can be found in New Jersey through Nvidia, the graphics and computing company, and Ford Fusions in Illinois, where AutonomouStuff, a provider of components for self-driving cars, tests them mostly away from public roads. In Pittsburgh, Uber is using at least 14 more Fusions as part of its pilot self-driving-taxi program. But why are these models so popular when there are so many other vehicles available? The Tesla Model S, for example, has a modern electric drivetrain and plenty of space and power for the sensors and computers that all experimental vehicles need. It also comes with radar and cameras built in. But apart from Tesla itself, only Bosch is using a single Model S to develop next-generation driving technologies. The answer, for the Lexus at least, was almost accidental. When Anthony Levandowski was building Google鈥檚 first self-driving cars, he chose a Toyota Prius because it had an easily accessible drive-by-wire system. Levandowski, now VP of self-driving technology at Uber, explained why Google moved to the Lexus in 2012: 鈥淭he Prius fleet was aging.

We wanted vehicles that you could take to more places, including four-wheel drive because we wanted to test in the snow,鈥?he said. 鈥淭he RX450h is a great Tahoe vehicle, and electrically, it鈥檚 exactly the same as a Prius. The popularity of the Fusion is also all about hackability, said Bobby Hambrick, CEO of AutonomouStuff. He noted that Ford is almost unique in exploring collaborations with outside companies. The Fusion also allows electronic drive-by-wire control of all the key driving functions without extra hardware. 鈥檛 rated to be driven on the road鈥攖hey鈥檙e only meant for self-parking or lane keeping,鈥?Hambrick said. 鈥淛ust hacking into a car doesn鈥檛 mean you鈥檙e doing it safely. Oliver Cameron, who leads the self-driving-car team at Udacity, agreed. 鈥淲e chose the Lincoln MKZ because of our ability to control the vehicle programmatically,鈥?he said. 鈥淲e can fit a drive-by-wire kit to send commands like steering, acceleration, braking, and more. The Fusion鈥檚 hackability may have been a convenient coincidence, but Ford鈥檚 welcoming attitude is no accident. At a conference in September, Ford CEO Mark Fields said: 鈥淲e are rethinking our entire business model. It鈥檚 no longer about how many vehicles we can sell; it鈥檚 about what services we can provide. As today鈥檚 startups mature into businesses making their own self-driving vehicles, Ford and Toyota should be well placed to turn today鈥檚 experiments into tomorrow鈥檚 strategic partnerships. But they should not expect to have the field to themselves for long.

SARDINIA, Italy鈥擨f you鈥檙e a storied carmaker, nothing quite rests the weight of history on your shoulders like juxtaposing your latest, greatest creation against its legendary ancestors. Case in point: the press introduction of the 2019 Porsche 911 Speedster, where museum examples of the ragtop鈥檚 forebears鈥?56, G-Body, 964, and 997 Speedsters鈥攁re on display in their charismatically old school, blue-chip, investment-grade glory. Though predated by four generations of Speedsters with barely a hint of performance upgrades, the new example is the first Porsche in history that鈥檚 a bona fide GT3 production car with its roof lopped off. This stuff is fearfully and wonderfully made in a way that its antecedents鈥攚hich were essentially chopped and trimmed-down versions of coupes鈥攃ould only dream of. Yet the old-timers still have an admittedly evocative call, especially when their bodywork鈥檚 complex curves glint in the Sardinian sunlight. 275,750 price tag, which is similar to many of the old collectibles鈥?values after decades of rampant appreciation. Faster than you can say, 鈥渁ndiamo!