Auto News 5

This 2009 BMW 750Li is virtually identical to our long-term test car, except for the addition of nineteen-inch wheels and high-performance tires. I've spent a lot of time in this generation of 7-series, and I'm generally very pleased with it. The interior is luxurious and most of the controls are very intuitive to use. Despite the fact that I've driven more than 2500 miles in a 7-series, I still don't know everything the new iDrive system is capable of controlling. There are so many functions that relate to the incredibly advanced technology in this BMW, it would take a lot of effort to really learn them all. Thankfully the controls relevant to daily driving (things like the radio, navigation system, and transmission and suspension settings) are easy to find and take almost no time to master.

If you've lived through a few complete economic cycles, then you know that tough times tend to breed innovation. It's during difficult times when conventional thinking gets challenged.

Here are four sneak peeks in one: the Volkswagen Touareg in these pictures hides a new hybrid system that will be offered not only in a brand-new Touareg to be launched at the Frankfurt auto show in September, but also in the new Porsche Panamera and Cayenne and - mated to a smaller gasoline engine - in the Audi Q5.

New Yorkers would have been impressed if we'd told them that the makers of the Aptera 2e, the two-seat, three-wheeled oddity we were driving around Soho, promised the equivalent of more than 200 mpg and a 100-mile range between charges of its battery pack. But we never got that far. The mind of every single New Yorker who saw us was blown at first sight. We could have told them anything.