If you're wondering why, this is because of the statistics which show that in Japan, more than half of road traffic fatalities are of people aged 65 and above, while pedestrian now account for more fatalities than vehicle occupants.
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During the run-up to the arrival of the excellent 2012 Focus, Ford released the Focus Sport in the U.K.—a last-gen, Euro-market five-door packed with options, but offered at a low price and with puny engines—to spur showroom activity before the new model hit. The interim Sport model proved so popular that Ford has taken that car’s concept and applied it to the new model, christening its latest value proposition the Focus Studio. But don’t think the Studio’s low price and entry-level designation make it the rolling equivalent of a single-room habitat with a hot plate, because it’s actually rather well equipped. It’s much more appropriate to think of it as a studio apartment with track lighting and a dishwasher, and maybe even on-site laundry.
The entry-level Focus Studio costs just £13,995—about £2000 less than the next model up, the Focus Edge. The lowliest Focus is powered by an 84-hp, 1.6-liter gas engine, so while the low cost of entry may not get you road-burning speed, good fuel economy is most certainly part of the deal. Camouflaging the Studio’s base-model status are a set of attractive 16-inch aluminum wheels, a rear-hatch spoiler, a CD audio system with USB connectivity, air conditioning, and power-operated mirrors and front windows. The features list may be long, but the list of exterior color choices is amusingly short. Ford will spray your five-door Focus Studio in one of three grayscale hues: Panther Black, Moondust Silver, or Frozen White.
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Revealed for the first time at the Toronto Show in Canada in February, which was followed by an appearance at the New York Auto Show in the U.S. earlier this year, the 2012 Mazda3 gains new and more fuel-efficient engines that deliver lower CO2 emissions.
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Given the superlative nature and awesome speed of Bugatti’s already-legendary, 250-plus-mph Veyron supercar, interest in the manufacturer’s follow-up is intense. The company had previously gone on record as saying that its next model wouldn’t be a supercar, but details were scant—until now. In a recent article from the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, Bugatti CEO Wolfgang Dürheimer confirms that the new car will be in the vein of the controversial 16 C Galibier concept, which we examined (and this scribe didn’t particularly like) back in 2009. It will seat four and have a generous trunk, Dürheimer says; you can bet that a set of fitted luggage will be one of the pricey options. We care somewhat more about what’s fitted up front, of course, which the article claims will be a 16-cylinder powerplant, although output wasn’t mentioned. (The W-16 under the Galibier’s butterfly bonnet delivers a mere 800 hp, somewhat less than the 1001 churned up by the 8.0-liter W-16 in the mid-engine Veyron.) The Galibier concept is big, though, so don’t expect Veyron-esque, sub-three-second 0-to-60 sprints no matter how much carbon fiber and aluminum the new car contains. Interestingly, a hybrid model (presumably a plug-in) is on the docket as well, with an electric-only driving range of about 25 miles, according to Dürheimer.
Also interesting is Dürheimer’s hope of selling between 1000 and 1500 of the super-luxe conveyance over the course of its lifetime, roughly triple the number of Veyron coupes and Grand Sport convertibles Bugatti has built since 2004. The story also projects that the big Bug will go on sale during the fall of 2012, about a year earlier than most stated projections. How much will it cost? Dürheimer says it will command at least €1M, which amounts to about $1.42 million at today’s exchange rates.
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Last year GPS company TomTom used iconic Star Wars figures Darth Vader and Yoda to promote their services. Now they are back with another iconic figure: no less then Knight Riders’ KITT.
TomTom used the famous car from Michael Knight to show in a fun way that one needs to update their maps every once in a while to stay up to date in traffic.
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The company said the new Studio will replace the Focus Sport, a final special edition of the previous model that has been on sale since October 2010 reacting sales of 15,000 units.
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Since the early 1980s, the story of how whales walked into the sea has become one of the most celebrated of all evolutionary transitions. Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus, and many, many more—these fossil whales with legs have beautifully demonstrated how land-dwelling mammals became adapted to life at sea. But between 50 million and 40 million years or so ago, whales were just going through a transition that many other vertebrate groups had gone through before. They were not the first vertebrates to return to the sea, nor were they the last, and a paper recently published in Paleobiology by paleontologists Johan Lindgren, Michael Polcyn, and Bruce Young has traced the history of how a very different group of animals got their sea legs.
Mosasaurs were formidable oceanic predators. Take a Komodo Dragon, put flippers on it, and, in some cases, blow it up until it’s over 40 feet long and you’ll have some idea of what these Cretaceous marine lizards were like. Their fossil record—stretching over 27 million years—is also relatively well known, and so the mosasaurs provided Lindgren and colleagues with a good opportunity to see how these peculiar animals evolved.
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Staples offers the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 2TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive in Black, model no. STAC2000103, for $89.99. (Best Buy charges the same.) With free shipping, that's $0.04/GB, tied with our June mention, and the lowest total price we could find by $7. Sales tax is added where applicable. This drive features a GoFlex Desk USB 3.0 adapter base, 5900 rpm spindle speed, 32MB cache, and more. It's also compatible with USB 2.0 ports."
