For those of you who can’t afford a real Nissan GTR Nismo, fear not as LEGO has just announced that they are adding the GTR Nismo to their LEGO speed champions collection which already includes the LEGO Formula E Panasonic Jaguar Racing GEN2 Car & Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY as well as the Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO & Urus ST-X. The model was unveiled today at an event in Yokohama.
The model itself looks very good especially the way they have replicated the tail light of the GTR Nismo and the little red seats, gear stick and steering wheel too add a nice touch. Of course it does not have the carbon fiber or the tuned suspension of the original one but you can still have a lot of fun building it and dismantling it and driving it with your hands.
The 2020 E speed champion set will be 25% bigger then that of the previous years so you can expect the the GTR Nismo to be bigger as well. According to LEGO, the Nismo took around 12 months to make and comes with 298 pieces. It is expected to be available globally in January 2020.
Leg Room and Head Room is one of the most important deciding factors when buying an electric car as not everyone is the same height or size, so I thought I would put up this table of the different electric cars currently available and their leg room and head room measurements.
As you can see from the table above when it comes to the front leg room, the winners are both the Tesla Model 3 and Model S at 42.7 inches closely followed by the Hyundai Ioniq at 42.2 inches and for the rear leg room the Audi E-Tron beats everyone with a measurement of 39.1 inches closely followed by the Tesla Model X at 38.4 inches. The Model X also has the most front head room at 41.7 inches followed by the Nissan Leaf at 41.2 inches. The car with the most rear head room is again the Tesla Model X at 40.9 inches followed by the Kia Soul EV at 39.5 inches. The specifications listed here are for the 2019 models.
Tesla finally unveiled their long awaited Cybertruck on Thursday at the Tesla design center in Los Angeles to a packed crowd. The event started off with a beautiful display of lights And a short intro by a hologram of a young girl in a short dress after which Elon Musk strolled in. The whole event had a very cyberpunk like feel to it with Musk’s assistants dressed like the actors in the Matrix with long trench coats and futuristic suits.
Now coming to the truck itself when I first saw it, I thought it looked futuristic but also quite comical as it looked more like a rendering of a futuristic concept pickup truck or something that I would expect to see in a video game but not in real life. However, by the end of the presentation, I felt like the oddness of its look has sort of grown on me and I feel like the fact that it looks so different from any other truck out there and that they have been so bold in their design without trying to play it safe is part of the appeal as well. It kind of reminds me of toothless from the movie How To Train Your Dragon in the sense that it looks cute but is still very powerful.
Intro:
The presentation starts off with Tesla’s Chief designer Franz von Holzhausen showing off the strength of the Cybertruck’s external structure by swinging a sledgehammer first to a regular truck door and then to the Cybertruck’s. However, this wasn’t all that convincing as It was obvious that he hit the regular truck door a lot harder. Next was the “armor glass” test which ended up being a complete fail as the glass cracked when Franz tossed a steel ball onto it. However, I’m not sure if they didn’t expect this to happen or whether it was some kind of a marketing ploy but Elon did look a bit unsettled when it happened, so I can’t say. My favourite part of the whole presentation was when they brought in the ATV and loaded it onto the truck while showing off it’s retracting bed cover and adaptive suspension . That was really cool.
Construction And Exterior:
Coming to the truck itself, it’s construction features an exoskeleton instead of a body on frame that is found in most pickup trucks. The exoskeleton is made from cold rolled steel which supposedly can be up to 20% stronger than hot rolled steel. The armor glass according to Elon is bullet proof and can stop a 9mm bullet but based on the demo where the glass cracked with a steel ball, I have my doubts about whether it’s true. The truck has 100 cubic feet external storage and Tesla claims that it’s tonneau cover is strong enough to stand on. Payload capacity for the top model is at 3500 pounds which is good and better than the Ford F-150 but nowhere near as much as the F-450 (7640 LBS) or F-550 (12,730 LBS). The towing capacity for the tri-motor is at 14,000 pounds which is again better than and the F-150 (13,200 LBS). The suspension can be raised or lowered by 4 inches in either direction
Interior:
On the inside, the truck can accommodate 6 people, 3 in the first row and 3 in the second with the center seat in the first row being foldable and there is also more storage space underneath the second row of seats. The 17 inch touch screen features a new user interface that looks very slick ok but it is unclear whether this interface will be implemented in Tesla’s other models. Also, there are no turn indicator stalks and no turn indicator lights in the prototype model that was shown, So it is unclear as to how that will be implemented as there is just a long strip of led lights in the front and back. Unlike in the model 3 and model S where you select the gear using the signal stalks, in the Cybertruck this is done using the touch screen and i’m guessing turning autopilot on and off will be done via the touchscreen as well.
People who have taken a ride in this truck say that there is plenty of headroom in the backseat even for a 6 footer with even more headroom in the front seats as the roof of the truck slopes towards the rear. The dash kind of looks strange and has some kind of a marble looking thing but isn’t clear what exactly it is made of.
Options:
Musk has stated on twitter that there will be an option to add solar power to the truck which gives it an Additional 15 miles of range per day with the possibility of adding solar wings that would possibly double the range to 30 miles per day.
Models:
The truck comes in three models single motor RWD, dual motor AWD and tri motor AWD. All models come with a 6.5” bed, 100 cu.ft of storage, autopilot, adaptive suspension and a 16 inch ground clearance. The tri motor has the best performance with a reported 0-60 time of 2.9 seconds, 500+ miles of range and 14,000 LBS of towing capacity . Prices are $39,900 for the single, $49,900 for the dual and $69,900 for the tri motor but you will have to pay an additional $7000 for full self driving.
Production Dates:
Production for the single and dual motor is expected to start in late 2021 and for the tri motor in late 2022. You can book a Tesla Cybertruck now on their website by paying a $100 fully refundable deposit.
VW Has announced that it they plan to invest over 4 billion Euro In the Chinese Market next year and spend around 40% of that on production, development and research related to electric vehicles. The company also predicts that they will spend more on on new energy vehicles than on fuel cars in the future.
VW currently offers 14 electric models China and announced that they plan on offering 30 locally produced e-cars by 2025. They also plan to start producing their all electric cars in Anting and Foshan next year sometime around October which would be based on their Modular electric drive Toolkit and with a total capacity of 600000 units per year.
Initially, the plants will be used to produce the China specific ID model and in the future other MEB based electric cars will be produced as well. Also both these factories were exclusively designed for producing all-electric cars.
The group currently has 19.5 percent market share in China and according to their CEO every 5th car sold in China comes from the VW group.