New Opparts Brake Drum, 40551193 on 2040-parts.com

One Lap of the Web: The Economist talks cars, Maria Sharapova's Porsche and crazy bikers

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- Have you ever seen two motorcycles going wheel-to-wheel at 200 mph in the rain?

Jaguar XJ_e plug-in hybrid debuts at Goodwood

The Jaguar Jaguar XJ_e plug-in hybrid research car with a 2.0 litre EcoBoost engine and 69kW electric motor on show at Goodwood. It’s been a bit of a Jaguar 24hrs with the news of prices for the new Xf Sportbrake and the debut of the new 3.0L Supercharged engine in the XJ for 2013. Now we get the public debut of the Jaguar XJ_e plug-in hybrid at the Goodwood Festival of Speed today featuring the 2.0 litre Ecoboost petrol engine from the Evoque and a 69kW (93bhp) electric motor.

BMW boss tells the truth about electric cars. And then has to apologise for doing so.

BMW US CEO Jim O'Donnell - "EVs won't work for more than 90% of drivers" Really, you do have to ask what kind of barking mad world we live in when the boss of a car company is forced to apologise for telling the truth, simply because it upsets a vocal minority (and his bosses, no doubt) We’ve been banging on for years about how useless electric cars are as a replacement for the internal combustion engine, and how they are really only viable as inner-city runarounds and as toys for the better-off. Even then, electric cars have their problems. As inner-city cars EVs certainly do the local environment a favour by transferring emissions to the point of electricity generation instead of the point of use.