Category Archives: News

Mini’s electric strategy failed

Mini is one of the manufacturers that advocated a rapid transition to fully electric cars, but the reduced demand for electric cars has brought them back to reality. Now the company is thinking more about combustion engines.

“We are not giving up on full electrification, but we will have to postpone it, because it is evident that the demand for cars powered by internal combustion engines is still high, much higher than the demand for electric cars,” the company said.

Along with the development of electric models, Mini will continue to offer hybrid models and there is already a lot of talk about a new model that will be positioned above the Countryman. This model should have significantly higher ground clearance, reinforced suspension and wheels for different surfaces.

It is still not known when the BMW Group will stop producing cars with combustion engines, but the latest information suggests that the end of the decade may be too ambitious. Last year, only 17.4 percent of the BMW Group’s offer was electric cars, which is still far from what they planned.

Source: Mini

Ferrari is bringing back the manual gearbox

According to Carsales, Ferrari may bring back the manual transmission after 12 years. The manual transmission will appear in exclusive limited edition models, and the last Ferrari to be equipped with a manual transmission was the Ferrari California.

In an interview with Carsales, Ferrari’s head of product development, Gianmaria Fulgenzi, hinted that Ferrari could make such a move due to strong customer interest. This will also mean the return of engines with less torque, and the first model that could be equipped with a manual gearbox will be a future model from the Icona series, which will join the current Monza SP1, Monza SP2 and Daytona SP3.

“We will soon reach the performance limit with our cars. In Formula 1, it takes 2.3 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h. With the SF90 XX, we are somewhere around 2.5 seconds or 2.4 seconds, and that’s with all-wheel drive. For an ordinary driver, such accelerations require that they are physically stronger, that is, that they have stronger neck muscles. Don’t think that all our customers want to train every morning just to be able to drive our cars,” said Fulgenzi.

Ferrari will not be the first to bring back or keep a manual transmission in its range. Porsche also recently announced that, if there is enough interest, it will offer a Carrera S with three pedals. It will be the third 911 to be offered in a combination of manual and automatic transmissions.

Source: Carsales

Pac-Man arcade game available in VW cars

Volkswagen has recently updated the software in all ID. cars, which now offers even more entertainment for passengers. They will now be able to enjoy playing one of the most famous maze video games in the world, Pac-Man.

Initially, Pac-Man will be available for all models that integrate the ID Software 4.0 operating system and all those that will be produced this year, which is approximately 300,000 Volkswagen cars in Europe. Passengers will be able to play the game via AirConsole and instead of Pac-Dots, Pac-Man will eat the Volkswagen logo and silhouettes of some VW cars. To complete the gaming experience, there is also the ID Light ambient lighting system that will react to what is happening in the game using a dynamic lighting system. It is important to note that the Pac-Man Championship Edition game will only be available when the car is parked and the engine is off.

The AirConsole app is available in the car’s online multimedia system store, for users who have subscribed to VW Connect Plus.

The Pac-Man game was created by Toru Iwatani at the end of 1980, and since then it has become one of the greatest video games of all time. Also, it is one of the highest-grossing and best-selling games (48 million copies), generating more than $14 billion in revenue.

Source: Volkswagen