Edelbrock Intake Manifold on 2040-parts.com

Electric cars must get noisier, ICE cars must get quieter

Electric cars will have to make a noise to protect pedestrians It’s four years since the Lotus solution for making electric cars noisy raised its head, since when the US has had a go at the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act in 2010 to do the same thing, the Japanese are playing too, and Toyota revealed the Prius Vehicle Notification System, and now the EU has decided its time to act to make EVs emit ‘noise’. Despite the most appealing part of an EV being that it makes our cities quieter, legislators worry about the blind, partially sighted and distracted pedestrian (think earphones and a Smartphone) being mowed down by a stalking electric car and feel the need to act. So the European Parliament has decided that by 2019 new models of electric vehicle will have to make a noise in cities, and that by 2021 all new hybrids and electrics must be noisy too.

Infiniti JX (7-seat crossover) tease – now it’s the C-Pillar. Whoopee!

Infiniti JX Concept Tease - now it's the kinky c-pillar Last week we finally relented and decided we needed to cover the tease ahead of the launch at Pebble Beach of the Infiniti JX Crossover. So far we’ve had a blurry motion image which gave us a familiar Crossover/SUV shape, a glimpse of the front from low-down on the front nearside three-quarters, and a shot of the tail light with a glimpse up the side of the JX. We’re now treated to a photo looking down on the JX from the nearside rear three-quarters.

MTM de-quattros and supercharges the Audi R8

Audi tuning specialist MTM has revealed its latest go-fast package for the R8 supercar. Having already supercharged the car's 4.2-liter V8, MTM has now converted the AWD sports car to RWD for the new R8 GT3-2 package (the 2 stands for the number of powered wheels). With 560 hp and 428 lb-ft of torque on tap from the supercharged V8, the R8 GT3-2 is capable of hitting 62 mph in 3.9 seconds and has a top speed of 197 mph.