Driving the one-and-only electric Rolls-Royce

The Rolls-Royce 102EX is a fully electric plug-in version of the Rolls-Royce Phantom. The only one like it in the world, it was built to gauge customer response to the very idea of an electric ultra-luxury sedan.
There's no price on this car because, at least so far, it's for display purposes only. (A regular gasoline-powered Phantom costs at least $380,000.) When asked how much it cost to develop the 102EX, Rolls-Royce representatives would only say, "buckets."
Rolls-Royce provided an opportunity to drive the car during a New York City stop on its around-the-world tour.
Click ahead for more about the world's only electric Rolls-Royce.

The name, 102EX, comes from the age of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars at the time this car was built -- 102 -- and EX for "experimental."
Rolls-Royce claims a total driving range of 125 miles following a full eight-hour charge. If true, that's remarkable, considering this car weights almost 6,000 pounds, or about 500 pounds more than a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV.
The 102EX can be recharged by either plugging it in through the elegant-looking charge port, shown here, or by using "induction charging." Induction charging works without cables or plugs. The car is simply parked in a special parking space and electricity is transferred magnetically between the ground and the car.

All the leather inside the 102EX is tanned using natural vegetable dies. There is no wood trim here, either. The surfaces that would ordinarily be covered with wood are, instead, coated with a material made from woven glass fibers.
Despite all the use of natural, renewable materials, the project manager for the 102EX insisted that this was not a "green car" project.
Most Rolls-Royce buyers are not, apparently, terribly concerned with that sort of thing. The emphasis has been, instead, on exploring how Rolls-Royce can remain relevant as technology -- and consumer expectations -- change in the future.

One benefit of being such a massive car is that there was plenty of room to fit a gigantic battery and paint-bucket-sized electric motors without compromising all-important interior space.
The back seats and trunk in the 102EX are just as big and roomy as they are in the gasoline-powered car. In fact, there's actually a little more room since there was no need for a transmission tunnel running down the center of the car.
That allowed extra space to put in a floor-level champagne cooler while still having three-across seating.

The 102EX feels -- and, in fact, is -- a bit slower than the V12-powered Phantom. While the Phantom can rocket to 60 miles an hour in a surprising 5.7 seconds, the 102EX takes about eight seconds to work up that sort of speed.
Some of the 102EX's more casual off-the-line feel is deliberate, Rolls-Royce says. If they'd wanted, they could have programmed the "gas pedal" to provide snappier response, but that seemed out of character.
As in the gasoline-powered car, the front-to-rear weight balance is nearly perfect. When pushed hard -- which we weren't able to do in the 102EX -- the Phantom is a surprisingly athletic car. The 102EX weighs more but felt just as easy and predictable to drive, at least at ordinary speeds.

The biggest question about the 102EX is probably "Who wants one?"
The answer, so far, is nobody. As it nears the end of its world tour, not a single Rolls-Royce customer has asked to buy one, at any price.
That doesn't mean the notion of a plug-in Rolls-Royce will never fly. But, for now, the world's moneyed elite just aren't ready to sacrifice their V12s and all that extra driving range..

Classic Car Heaven

Big as it is, Canepa Design is easy to miss. The discreet boxy building sits just off a busy street in the quiet northern California town of Scotts Valley, just up the winding highway from Santa Cruz. But for car lovers, this place beams like St. Peter’s, an inviting treasure chest stuffed with classic automobiles worthy of pilgrimage.

Vintage racing Porsches rub sheetmetal shoulders with iconic ‘60s Ferraris, which sit mere wheel-wells away from the last Shelby Cobra to exit the factory gates. Some vehicles are being restored for their wealthy owners, others are being spiffed up to hit Canepa Design’s showroom, while a few enjoy some mechanical pampering before being returned to their places of honor upstairs in the on-site motorsports museum.

“I never get tired of coming to work,” says Bruce Canepa, the racing driver who since 1980 — the heyday of his professional exploits behind the wheel of all manner of Porsche beasts — has quietly turned Canepa Design into one of the foremost auto restoration and classic car sales shops in the nation. “Besides, I’m too obsessed with being in control of all the details to stop coming in.”
Obsession and control can be a dangerous cocktail. But not in Canepa’s case. His hands-on personality means the cars coming out of this 70,000-square-foot shop often exceed the exacting standards of his monied clientele. When Canepa leans over the exposed engine bay of the aforementioned 1967 Cobra 427, he points out that “everything on this car is original, but everything on it has been brought back to as-new condition, every nut restored, every wire re-wrapped. We even disassemble and restore the wiper motors.”

Every aspect of this blue beauty gleams, from its reconditioned leather seats to the chome bezels on its gauges. “We’ve got 2,600 man-hours into this already,” Canepa says with almost fatherly pride. Though Cobras can be million-dollar cars, Canepa’s already has much more lobbed at him for this baby. For now, he isn’t selling, and instead plans to drive the car next year at events celebrating the 50th anniversary of Carroll Shelby’s Ferrari-killing machine.

The stories pour forth as Canepa strolls the immaculate shop - you can literally eat off the floors — where technicians quietly tinker on the stuff of childhood fantasies. To get hired here, it helps to have a resume filled with top-shelf racing team experience. Canepa says it’s not uncommon to take a year to find the right shop employee. But having the right people means that Canepa Design doesn’t have to send cars out for any ancillary work.

“Other than chrome, the cars stay with me, which means I can get them back to my customers even faster,” he says. Given the famous names that favor this shop - from well-known comedians to titans of industry — it’s critical to deliver top product on time.

Today, the show that is Canepa Design boasts a stellar cast. There’s a silver Porsche 959 undergoing some work to further modernize what in the late 1980s was the definitive state of the sports car art. Nearby, a stripped-to-aluminum “outlaw” 1960s Posche 356 is fitted with a unique powerplant while it awaits an interior. And walled off by see-through plastic is but a frame, the beginnings of what may prove to be one of the most talked about classic cars of 2012 when it finally leaves this shop.
“This should be something,” says Canepa, looking at bare metal beams fitted topped by a radiator that bares a singular word: Duesenberg. “This is the first Duesey passenger car ever made, number one.”

The car belongs to a scion of the Dole Food Company, who wants to bring back to life a forgotten and rusted car that once did duty on the family’s plantations in Hawaii. Though it doesn’t look like much right now, it promises to one day look just like it did the day workers finished their hand labor some 90 years ago. If not better.

“I’m a bit over the top on things,” Canepa concedes, pointing to a million-dollar Ferrari that came in apparently requiring only a tune-up. “Look at the list on the windshield. It’s stuffed with things I found that it needed.”

And indeed it is. Typical is a note on the Ferrari that reads: “Wipers too slow.”

Read More:
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/canepa-design--classic-auto-heaven.html

Even Batman gets flat tires in his Lamborghini sometimes

Halloween can pose a lot of challenges for America's brave police departments; ensuring pedestrian safety at dusk, keeping egg-slinging hooligans in check, and as one Maryland police department discovered, helping Batman when his Lamborghini leaves him stranded.

According to the Howard County Police's Facebook page, a dispatcher responded to this 911 call from Route 29 north of Washington, D.C. on Monday afternoon: "There is a disabled motorist southbound on 29…he’s in the left lane, he’s in like a Lamborghini. He is dressed in a Batman costume and he is hanging out halfway in the roadway."

Expecting a joker, officers instead found a well-dressed Dark Knight had indeed suffered a flat tire in his Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder while driving to entertain children at a Washington hospital. After getting the $200,000 Gallardo off the highway and arranging for a tow, Batman hung around to pose with the Howard County officer before catching a ride from a buddy to make his appearance. Lots of mysteries remain about the incident, but at least Batman got to his destination. Maybe next Halloween, he could just let Robin drive.

Source:
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/

America's 1% occupy Ferrari, Bentley dealerships

In these days of Wall Street occupied by protestors upset with growing income inequality, America’s wealthy have found a retreat from the din — at their nearby luxury car dealer.

While overall auto sales are up about 10%, sales of the most expensive luxury cars in America have grown about 13.5% so far this year, give or take a half percentage point depending on where the velvet rope is draped between high-end and “starter” luxury cars. Through the first 10 months, the trend shows that the higher the price on the sticker, the bigger the gain.

Take Audi, Volkswagen’s luxury brand, which is on pace to sell a record 120,000 vehicles in the United States this year. Yes, its big sellers are the lower end A4 sedan and Q5 SUV, both of which start below $36,000. But Audi’s real boost this year came from three of its most-expensive models — the large Q7 SUV, and the A7 and A8 sedans, the latter of which can boast a sticker of up to $157,000 when equipped with a V-12 engine, night vision and the optional $6,400 Bang & Olufsen sound system.

It’s not just Audi; BMW and Mercedes-Benz sales are also up by double-digit percentages this year. Ferrari’s U.S. sales are up 15.6% according to Autodata; Maserati’s done even better, posting a 22% increase, and Bentley sales have grown by nearly a third to 1,422. Porsche may be most famous for its 911, but its the Cayenne SUV that’s pulled sales up 23% through October.

Yet America’s well-heeled tire kickers will not drop cheddar on any old set of wheels. Maybach — at about $370,000 the most expensive new car for sale in America — has only moved 33 copies so far this year, down from 46 in 2010 despite (or perhaps because of) its starring role in Jay-Z’s and Kayne West’s video for “Otis.” And Rolls-Royce, that paragon of British luxury now under BMW’s guidance, has delivered a third fewer saloons to American shores this year. Something to keep in mind for those holiday bargain shoppers.

From:
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/america-s-1--occupy-ferrari--bentley-dealerships.html

Million-Dollar ‘Supercar’ Will Be Sold Through U.S. Dealers

Italian supercar manufacturer Pagani Automobili SpA. said today it will enter the U.S. market with its new model called the Huayra. The company says it will begin selling the 700-horsepower car in the U.S. through a dealer network beginning later this year. Its price is expected to be more than $1 million.

Pagani released pictures of the new two-seater and information about its specifications late last month, but its pending availability in the U.S is big news for the speed-addled and well-heeled. Pagani’s current model, the Zonda, has been a perennial leader in top-speed and brute-power contests run by car magazines for the past decade and has been tantalizingly out of reach for many would-be customers in the States.

Pagani will sell the new Huayra through U.S. dealerships.

Named after Huayra Tata, an ancient God of wind, the Huayra has a six-liter, 12-cylinder engine with two turbochargers built by Mercedes-Benz’s AMG performance unit, which is responsible for the German company’s most powerful models. The engine breathes through a pair of air intakes behind the occupants that the company describes as “a tribute to the supersonic aircraft of the late 1950s and 1960s.” They were designed to allow air into the engine without unnecessarily disturbing aerodynamics.

Pagani, which is based in San Cesario sul Panaro, near Modena, Italy, says it has built five Huayra prototypes and has been road testing them for the past four years. The test cars have traveled more than 300,000 miles and will cover about 600,000 miles before entering the U.S. market. The company says the car complies with the strictest European and American safety and emissions standards.

The car is to make its debut at the Geneva Motor Show next month. The company says it will reveal its specific plans for unveiling the Huayra in the U.S. in the coming weeks.