gjm

FTFY.

On Tuesday January 18th BMW announced it will cease building V-12 engines, for BMWs, in June this year. Rolls-Royce also uses BMW V-12s, and production of those engines will continue. BMW have offered a V12 since 1987 and the E32, and there will be a special 'Final V12' version of the 7-Series M760i xDrive, which will be offered with first refusal to customers who have previously bought new V12 7-series cars. There will be very, very few options on this car - it will simply come with everything as standard. You can choose paint colour, leather options, and whether you'd like grey or black wheels... The engine is the same as that in the current M760i xDrive: 6.6-litre twin-turbo V12, 600 hp and 627 lb-ft of torque. The M70B50 in the 1987 E32 7-series produced about half of that. As the V12 will be gone, the most powerful new 7-series is likely to be the i7. Mercedes-Benz are likely to offer an ICE V12 until 2030 when they go fully electric; Audi has already dropped the W12, and the rest of the VAG group is likely to do the same by the end of 2026.

Similar car but 4-door recently sold in Auckland for $2300.

It's the 1991 BMW E1; all-electric, 155-mile (250km) range, 2-hour recharge time, seats 4 in (apparent) comfort, weighing 900kg. It was slower than the electric cars we have around now, but does beg the question - where has al the intervening development gone? EVs are faster, but weigh more, are no more comfortable, and many don't have better range.

I am certainly posting pics! Perhaps even more oddly, I also sometimes see the 'might be' message, and not the picture. 😕

Not sure I see the point, but I'm sure it was fun!

Price of diesel in the UK rose very dramatically in response to the increased number of diesel vehicles. This was driven by the fuel companies and based on 2 main criteria - first, profit (well, no surprise there!), and second - diesel for automotive use was made as a cheap by-production of petroleum distillation. Increased demand meant insufficient supply from that source, and required a dedicated production process. Anyone else notice that the price of 91 petrol has increased by 10c per litre since a week or two before Christmas?

I wish those that are proposing being involved in hydrogen production (on a commercial scale) would get their proverbial fingers out and actually do something instead of just talk!

I genuinely think that is the way forward. Whether it is a hydrogen ICE-type solution, or using hydrogen as a fuel cell. And that will be an economic answer. Anyone can build something at home to release hydrogen from water and while those designs are unlikely to be commercially viable it does demonstrate the potential. But for now... The choice isn't simple. A hybrid? A diesel? Or just buy an economical car? We get 13.6km per litre from our E46 318i.

It has to happen. NZTA build and maintain the major roads, and funding for that is (theoretically) from vehicle use taxation. Petrol at the pump; diesel in RUCs. Many manufacturers are ending development and even production of ICEs, effectively cutting off the finances for roads. I wonder if EVs are 'easier' on roads than ICE vehicles? 🤔 DERV RUCs are a rort. If you are legal, you pay the same in a car as you would for a significantly larger vehicle. If you are an 'orrible, tricky, not-at-all-bovvered-about-the-law type, you'll have found a way to 'slow' distance accumulation on your odo. Don't know what the answer is on that. Put it on fuel, and it unfairly penalises those who exclusively use a vehicle offroad (already applies with petrol); apply RUCs to petrol engines and while that eases the offroad bill (farmer's quads etc, and accompanying paperwork involved in recovering tax) it opens up the increased possibility of illegal vehicle operation. The UK has a partial solution - red diesel. It takes very little even in a mix of red and normal diesel to dye the injectors; if your injectors are coloured and you are using the vehicle (inappropriately licensed) on the road, you're in a lot of trouble. Diesel at the pump is taxed the same as petrol, and any tax recovery is the responsibility of the user.

Offset?

Slapping a rego plate across the middle helps break it up, but begs the question - is cooling airfow then restricted at all?

Local road has some new metal on it. Hot weather means that tar has started bleeding through the old surface, so the contractor has taken the opportunity to skip the tar spraying step. I'm not sure that they even scraped the surface first - tar is bleeding through the 'new surface' already.