Driving Sports

In this episode of Driving Sports TV's Extra! you'll see dancing girls, a plug-in Toyota Prius, Mitsubishi iMiEV, BMW Z4 sDrive35is and Gran Turismo.

Transcript:

Ryan

Welcome to Extra! The weekly news report from Driving Sports TV.

Aaron

This week: GM learns some new moves, Detroit is fat and happy, BMW doubles your turbo pleasure and we have some unfortunate news for the few remaining Gran Turismo fans.

Aaron

Admittedly, we were kind of harsh on the Chevy Volt in last weeks show. But then something like this comes along and it makes everything right in our world.

Ryan

Crazy acts aren’t too unusual at these type of shows, to pretend otherwise would be bending the truth. Over the years I’ve seen dances, gymnastics, and jousting robots all vying for attention of show-goers. But, there is a time and a place -- you don’t go and post it to your official YouTube page! Let alone one as horrendously bad as this. It’s marketing suicide. Either that, or GM is just messing with us now.

I suspect that what we have here is GM playing the old game: if you can’t deliver, distract. Which seems to be working this week: Instead of talking about how the Volt will deliver against increasing competition in the 2011 EV market, we’re talking about the Volt Dancers. If this is a sign of things to come from the Volt PR department, it’s going to be a very long road to 2011.

Aaron

In related news, Toyota is expected to have a plug-in version of its own Prius, which will be rolling off the line in 2011, just in time to square off with the Chevy Volt. The plug-in Prius will get the equivalent of 134 miles per gallon – we’ll just pretend that’s a relevant figure for the sake of this report.  We also expect it’s not going to cost not much more than the current model, or $10,000 less than the Volt. Given Toyotas history with Hybrids , we don’t think any song or dance will be required to get their plug-in hybrid to market.

Ryan

The 2010 Detroit auto show is just around the corner and folks in the motor city are saying that floor will once again be at capacity. This, following the devastating withdraws of Porsche, Mitsubishi and Nissan in 2009. In total, 54 car makers will be represented this year, including Porsche and Nissan. No word yet if the Chevy Volt dancers will be making an appearance.

Aaron

Mitsubishi will be represented at the 2010 show, but will be solely focused on its electric vehicles, keeping its full-line reveals and revisions to the New York and Los Angeles show. Show goers will have an opportunity to drive its iMiEv mini electric on a landscaped track in the basement of Cobo Hall. Which is actually what they did last year, too, now that I think of it. The iMiEv is currently scheduled to go into production in 2011.

Toyota has already announced it will be showing a new pint-sized hybrid. If you want to see what the whole car will look like, you’ll have to wait for the official reveal on January 11. Our guess is it will be something like a Toyota iQ, with a teeny tiny hybrid drivetrain.

Ryan

With all this talk of electric vehicles, we’re happy to say that BMW will be showing off its new, hotted-up Z4 in Detroit. Called the Z4 sDrive35is, it’s powered by a straight-six motor, sporting twin turbos. I know we’ve given BMW a fair amount of crap for it’s Z4, calling it a “hairdresser’s car” and whatnot, but this edition just might be the one to finally win us over. Probably something to do with its ability to pull off a claimed 0-62 in a scant 4.8 seconds. And, well, it looks damn good in red.

Aaron

Oh, we should probably mention that gamer site Joystiq is reporting that Gran Turismo 5 for the Playstation 3 has been delayed… again. (offstage) Does anyone care anymore?  Seriously?!

Ryan

That’s it for this installment of the Driving Sports TV Extra! Remember to Tweet us, subscribe to our YouTube feed, find us on iTunes or hit up our MySpace.

Aaron

We also have full transcripts of each episode and full reviews of many of the cars we cover at www.drivingsports.com