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Some might say it’s a scheme to get you to buy two copies, but the way you can build and rebuild the new Porsche 911 Lego set into either Turbo or Targa versions could also be seen as bang for your buck.
When built into Turbo mode, the model shows off its whale tail and black rims, while the Targa’s removable roof fits under the hood. Both models feature a flat-six boxer engine in back and a tan interior.
The $150 set will go on sale March 1, but if you’re a Lego VIP, you can order early and get bonuses like four art prints.
When shopping for an actual Porsche 911, the decision to go Turbo or Targa is likely made early in the process. With a new Lego set, though, you don’t need to decide right away, and you can always change your mind after you’re finished.

Two-in-One Porsche 911 Set
LEGO
$149.99

Based on the late ’70s and early ’80s 911s, the new Porsche 911 set is actually the eighth 911 model Lego has produced for sale. There have been Speed Champion and Technic versions, but this is the first one to be made at this scale and with this level of detail. That means it has a working steering wheel, and the doors, trunk, and hood all open up to reveal a rear-mounted flat-six boxer engine and the gorgeous tan interior with tilting front seats, a gear shifter and a hand brake.

Lego.com

While the base of the build is the same no matter which option you choose, at some point in the process you do have to decide between the fixed-roof Turbo with the classic spoiler or the open-top Targa. The differences include not just the obvious exterior changes, but also two sets of rims (black for the Turbo, and sliver for the Targa) as well as Turbo badging, a wider rear axle and a little Lego turbocharger and intercooler on the Turbo version. When you make the Targa, there’s a brick-built rear window and you can store the removable roof under the hood.

Targa version of the Lego Porsche 911.
Lego.com

The new 911 set started as a side passion project for Lego designer Mike Psiaki, and he said in the promotional video shown above that Lego created a few new pieces were created for this model, including a new “triple bow” and a 5×5 quarter-circle that were both needed to get the 911’s iconic shape as accurate as possible in brick form.

LEGO Speed Champions Porsche 911 RSR and 911 Turbo 3.0 75888 Building Kit (391 Pieces) (Discontinued by Manufacturer)
LEGO amazon.com
$76.99

With eyes on the global market, Lego is including license plates tiles for three countries: U.S. (P51AK3), Germany (S-CU 6000) and Japan (Gunma 93 10-295). Psiaki gave away that there are Easter eggs in these plates, and the U.S. one is kind of easy. For the Japanese plate, the Kanji on the tile mean Gunma Prefecture, but they could also be read as a group of horses. All of the printed elements in this set are actually printed on the brick, so there’s no need to apply any stickers or worry about taking them off if you want to rebuild the kit into the Targa/Turbo version you didn’t build the first time around. It also means getting some cool printed Lego tiles with the Porsche logo on them, to add to your collection.

Lego.com

The $149.99 set comes with 1458 pieces and will be available March 1. The finished model measures 4.25 inches high, 6.3 inches wide, and 14.0 inches long. The on-sale date is February 16 for members of the Lego VIP program, which is free to join. If you get in early enough as a VIP, Lego will throw in a “limited-edition Lego Porsche owners pack” with your purchase. This pack includes “a certificate of ownership, an official Lego Porsche card wallet and a set of four unique art prints based on contemporary Porsche 911 adverts, all presented in a smart collector’s wallet.”

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Today Ford and Google formed a partnership to use Google’s cloud platform and Android operating system in Fords and Lincolns beginning in 2023.
The infotainment system will be Ford branded but will have native access to Google Maps, Google’s voice assistant, and the Google Play store.
Google’s cloud platform will be used to help with supply chain management and training.
The partnerships between automotive and tech powerhouses continue with Ford and Google announcing today that they will enter a new partnership called Team Upshift. Part of the deal is that in 2023, new Ford and Lincoln vehicles will have an infotainment system that uses the Android operating system. On the business side, Ford will also use Google’s cloud platform to help with manufacturing, train its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning systems, and train Ford employees.

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As part of the use of the Android operating system, starting in 2023 Fords and Lincolns will have be outfitted with an infotainment system that natively uses Google’s voice assistant, Google Maps, and will have access to the Google Play store to add additional applications to the vehicles. While the visible portion of the system will be a uniquely Ford and Lincoln experience according to the automaker, the Android operating system will be the underlying platform. In other words, it won’t look like the Android Automotive experience found in the Polestar 2 and Volvo XC40 Recharge.
On the back end, Ford will make Google its preferred cloud partner to help facilitate the training of AI and machine learning to help streamline manufacturing and make it easier to send personalized notifications to customers. The Google Cloud system will also be used to push over-the-air updates to the vehicles outfitted with the Android operating system.
Today’s news is part of a trend of automakers partnering with tech companies to help deal with processing issues around AI and over-the-air-updates. In January, GM and Microsoft announced a deal that would make Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform the automaker’s preferred platform service to help GM build its autonomous driving platform.
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Nissan has given us a glimpse of what to expect with the new 2022 Frontier and 2022 Pathfinder ahead of their unveiling this Thursday.
The new Frontier will be completing its redesign which started last year with a new powertrain, while the Pathfinder will be wholly redesigned this year.
The reveal will be streamed live at 1 p.m. Eastern time on February 4 on the Nissan website.
Nissan is set to reveal the 2022 Frontier and the 2022 Pathfinder this Thursday, February 4, and ahead of those debuts, the automaker has teased both of the vehicles, giving us a glimpse of what to expect. The Frontier, which got a new powertrain last year, is completing its redesign this year with a new look. Meanwhile, the Pathfinder will be entirely new for the 2022 model year.

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Both teasers show the vehicles darting down unpaved, sandy roads, suggesting for at least the Pathfinder—which currently doesn’t offer any sort of off-road trim—could gain some off-road attributes. The teaser of the Frontier PRO-4x shows an upright, aggressive-looking grille which matches the direction other small pickups have gone. The Pathfinder clip shows a quick shot of the rear of the car, showing that the Pathfinder name is written across the rear trunk, as on the new Armada. It’s difficult to tell from the teaser, but the Pathfinder may also be regaining its more upright and trucklike stance that disappeared in the last generational changeover in 2013.
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Nissan started changes to the Frontier last year when it introduced a new 310-hp 3.8-liter V-6 to the pickup. With that change, the manual transmission was discontinued, and the Frontier now comes standard with a nine-speed automatic. The Pathfinder could also see some changes to its powertrain including dropping the standard continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT).
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The new Frontier and Pathfinder will both be revealed on Wednesday, February 4, at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Nissan’s website.
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Ford Performance has created a trio of Bronco 4400 rally trucks racing this weekend in the King of the Hammers race in California.
The purpose-built Bronco SUVs have custom tubular chassis along with long-travel suspensions to handle the mix of rock crawling and high-speed desert rally driving seen through the race.
This Wednesday, Ford will also be revealing a “never-before-seen” Bronco model live.
This weekend, in the form of the Bronco 4400 custom-built rally truck, the Ford Bronco name will be darting across the California desert in the grueling King of the Hammers off-road race. The three Bronco 4400s, which will race in the Ultra4 4400 unlimited class, have custom tubular chassis along with huge off-road tires attached to long-travel suspensions. These trucks were purpose-built to overcome the mix of rock crawling and high-speed desert rally driving which the King of the Hammers race is known for.

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The Bronco 4400s will be tested in the King of the Hammers race. In last year’s rally, there were 105 entrants who started the race, and of those, 44 finished. The winner of that race took the podium with a time of just over seven hours; the last racer to complete the race finished roughly seven hours after the winner.
Ford Performance didn’t release many details on the powertrain going into the Bronco 4400s but said that they’ll be powered by high-powered engines and will also get custom 4×4 systems which build on the GOAT driving modes seen in the production Ford Bronco. The custom Broncos are much different than the Bronco R raced in the Baja 1000, a truck which took many of the components from the yet-to-be-revealed Bronco.

Perhaps most exciting, Ford said that it will reveal a “never-before-seen” Bronco model live on February 3, the qualifying day for the race. We’re unsure what the automaker has in store, but we’ll be checking that live stream to see what it will be.
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From the VW ID.3 and ID.4 to this solar-powered ship called the Silent-Yacht 50, VW is ready to spread its EV love around as part of its overall promotion of electromobility.
VW is partnering with Austrian builder Silent-Yachts and VW division Seat’s Cupra on the electric boat, which will use VW’s batteries, pulse-controlled inverters, and electric motors.
We’re starting to detect a bit of a trend here, since both Toyota and BMW have also looked for ways to adapt their zero-emission powertrains to the open seas.
For millennia, watercraft were the only zero-emission vehicles on the planet. But then along came wheels and then diesel engines and bunker fuel, and things got messy. Sure, sailboats have always kept their carbon-neutral propulsion system, but they’re about to be joined by solar-powered yachts powered with help from Volkswagen.

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Working with solar-electric yacht company Silent-Yachts, VW is adapting its MEB modular e-drive system (as seen in the ID.3, for starters) for use on the open seas. The two companies started working together in 2019. Silent-Yachts founders Heike and Michael Köhler have been trying to find a greener way to plow the seas since starting research on alternative-energy yachts in 2005. They built the first oceangoing yacht to “exclusively use solar energy not only for the actual propulsion, but also to power all the equipment on board” in 2009. That ship, called the Solarwave 46, turned into a business with 400 employees that has built a dozen solar-powered catamarans since then.Now, Silent-Yachts and VW will take the automaker’s modular electric vehicle platform, called MEB, to the water as a way to reduce the costs of making zero-emission ships. As with wheel-based EVs, VW says that using an electric powertrain means “maintenance and servicing are reduced compared to a conventional yacht, as the electric drive system is less susceptible to repair than conventional engines.”
VW-powered ship will be called the “Silent Yacht 50” and will use batteries, pulse-controlled inverters, and electric motors from VW. The inverter will be programmed differently for use in the ship instead of a car, and Silent-Yachts will also change some of the software interfaces to suit its needs. The Silent Yacht 50 will be able to use up to six batteries and have 500 kW of power.
Volkswagen says its expansion to yacht building partnerships is a way both to encourage excitement about electric vehicles in general and to prove that “driving pleasure, long ranges, quiet cruising, and clean mobility are also possible on the high seas.” The one asterisk there is that while battery-powered yachting is entirely possible, all of Silent-Yachts’ models have a backup diesel generator onboard in case of emergencies.

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So, VW supplies the powertrain, Silent-Yachts brings the shipbuilding experience, and that leaves room for a third partner, Seat’s performance brand Cupra, to help with design. The automotive designers at Cupra “had to think in completely different terms of dimensions, proportions, and surfaces,” VW says, as they worked on the Silent Yacht 50. We say the results speak for themselves, with renderings that look sleek and ready for action.
We have to wait to see the first physical MEB-powered yacht, though, as it won’t hit the waves until 2022, if everything goes according to plan. From there, Silent-Yachts will ramp up production over four years until it reaches the capability to make 50 ships a year.
Volkswagen has made bold claims about the power of batteries before, not only for wheeled transportation. Battery-powered options “are considered by experts to be one of the best choices for vehicles that combat climate change,” the company said last September in a corporate blog post about “Why battery power will drive the future of transportation.”
VW is not the only company interested in adapting a zero-emission powertrain for boating. Toyota and Yanmar used hydrogen tanks from the Mirai fuel-cell car for a zero-emission boat concept last year. In 2019, BMW and Torqeedo adapted batteries from the i3 and i8 for marine use in the company’s electric boats.
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The state has issued many harmless, fun car plates like the ‘HomeAK’ one shown here, but now it’ll make the vetting process stricter. More

Nissan is recalling the 2013–2015 Pathfinder SUV over a brake-light switch issue.
The problem, in which the brake lights can become stuck in the “on” position, affects more than a quarter-million of the SUVs.
Nissan will issue recall notices to owners beginning on March 1.
Nissan will recall 267,276 Pathfinder SUVs beginning March 1 for a problem with the brake light switch relay that can cause the lights to become stuck in the “on” position, according to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The issue affects only 2013 through 2015 model years of the Pathfinder, and no other Nissan or Infiniti vehicles, the report says. It’s most likely to occur under “frequent stop-and-go driving with repeated brake pedal input” and can cause “chattering” in the light’s relay that can eventually cause it to become stuck.
Although always-on brake lights can be a safety problem, more serious consequences could include interference with the brake-shift interlock and the potential for “limited engine power (brake override), the ability to shift the vehicle out of park without depressing the brake pedal, and/or the engine starting without depressing the brake pedal,” Nissan said.
Dealers will either fix the relay by reinstalling it in a better position or replace it entirely. The 2013 and 2014 models of the Pathfinder were previously recalled for the same problem in 2016. Owners can go to the NHTSA recall site to see if their vehicle is involved in the current recall.

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Sometimes, when you’re leaving a job, you get an exit interview. What went right? What went wrong? Why did you ever think it was okay to microwave your leftover fish tacos in the office kitchenette? Well, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in wrapping up its four-year tenure under the prior presidential regime, decided to give itself an exit interview of sorts, releasing a document titled “NHTSA Chief Accomplishments, 2017-21.” With 22 bullet points and about 1200 words, it’s a bit much to go through line by line, but let’s take a look at the highlights.

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At the top of the list is “Improved Safety and Affordability.” So did NHTSA introduce tougher safety standards or offer some kind of incentives to make cars more affordable? That’s what it sounds like, but no. What they’re claiming here is that the EPA’s reduction in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would result in lower car prices, thus prompting more people to replace their old (and probably less safe) cars with new ones.
This presumes that any R&D and production savings realized by a manufacturer will be passed on to the consumer, and that this savings will be pronounced enough to prompt (according to NHTSA) “three million additional car sales over the next decade.” It also assumes that car companies, which have multi-year lead times, will entirely rejigger their long-term product planning from one presidential administration to the next. And that, given a choice, car buyers will choose less efficient vehicles with some kind of up-front savings, with the understanding that they’ll pay more to fuel said vehicle over its useful life. Finally, the premise of a net public health benefit assumes that increased vehicle emissions make no difference to air quality. All righty! The bottom line is that the push toward electrification will eventually render CAFE standards moot, and like we said: that came from the EPA, not NHTSA.
Then there’s a bunch of stuff about encouraging autonomous-car development (okay) and child safety in cars (like expanding the ad campaign about pediatric hyperthermia). Then: scary batteries! “In light of recent fires involving electric vehicles that destroyed vehicles and even homes, we launched the Battery Safety Initiative to research battery technologies and develop safety standards to reduce future risks.” Here, for anyone interested, we will simply point out that when an electric car catches fire, it’s news, and when 150 internal-combustion vehicles cars catch fire, it’s an average Tuesday. That’s according to a U.S. Fire Administration report on vehicle fires from 2014 to 2016, a period that included an estimated 171,500 highway vehicle fires. The report doesn’t distinguish between EV fires and internal combustion, but it does say that, “flammable liquids and gases in general were, by far, the most deadly (67 percent of deaths)” item ignited. The Fire Administration’s report also includes some specific examples of all the ways that cars can catch fire, including this very New York scenario:
May 2017: A vehicle was parked on a city block in New York, New York, and had not been driven for about a week. When the owner of the vehicle went to drive it, he noticed his engine was overheating and then abruptly caught fire. He exited the vehicle, opened the hood, and discovered two deceased baby rats on the ledge of the engine. Firefighters soon arrived at the scene and extinguished the fire. Further investigation by firefighters found additional rats in the rims of the vehicle’s tire.
Point being: what about the fire rats, NHTSA?
Moving on, there’s a section pertaining to recalls. A few years ago, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation conducted an audit of NHTSA’s recall procedures, prompted by the Takata airbag fiasco. The essential conclusion: “NHTSA’s process for monitoring for light-passenger-vehicle recalls lacks documentation and management controls, and does not ensure that remedies are reported completely and in a timely manner.” Basically, NHTSA needed to put some teeth into its recall procedures. And they say that’s what happened, with more than 1000 recalls in 2018 and more than 53 million vehicles recalled in 2019. “We also took necessary and appropriate steps to protect the integrity of the recall program, issuing more than $250 million in civil penalties, including the largest set of penalties in agency history, for failure to comply with regulatory requirements or for a lack of candor,” says NHTSA’s report.
So the Trump administration cracked down on corporate malfeasance for the benefit of consumers? Well, maybe! The key verb here, regarding penalties, is “issuing.” Which is not the same as “collecting.” By the time a case reaches the point where a fine is actually paid, it’s recorded as a settlement, and a former NHTSA staffer who dealt with railway cases told us, “Settlements were usually pennies on the dollar compared to the original penalties.” And over the past four years, settlements have totaled less than $15 million, almost all of which is accounted for by a single $13 million payment from Mercedes-Benz for recall-related shenanigans. So, regarding that $250 million, time will tell.
Further down, there’s a whole section about COVID-19, which may prompt you to ask, “What’s COVID got to do with driving?” Well, remember when people took to the empty roads to drive like absolute maniacs? Apparently, NHTSA took notice: “As the data began to indicate troubling trends in highway safety, we conducted research and prepared reports illustrating the rise of unsafe driving practices during the national health crisis, and began coordinating with our stakeholders to identify countermeasures.” By “stakeholders” we assume they mean “cops,” and by “countermeasures” we assume they mean “more cops.” Either way, NHTSA is on to you, Cannonball idiots.

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NHTSA also apparently leveraged its access to blood tests to try to expand data on COVID spread: “We used our own research tools to help address the national health crisis, repurposing an existing blood study testing for drugs and alcohol among fatal or near-fatal crash victims, to assist NIH in assessing scope and nature of COVID infection among the public.” Given the Trump administration attitude toward COVID testing (especially at the start), it’s interesting that NHTSA creatively used its resources to help generate some much-needed data. In the context of the 2020 federal government, that qualifies as low-key rebellion.
So that’s about it. NHTSA did some good things and some things that might be good but we don’t yet know. And it did some sort of pointless things, and took credit for at least one thing that was the domain of an entirely different agency. Now we’ll have four years to see how NHTSA functions under the Biden administration, and to ponder the real question we should be asking about the agency: Shouldn’t we be calling it “the NHTSA”?
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