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Ford Police Interceptors win acceleration war against Dodge, Chevy

Just last month, Ford announced its first-ever non-pursuit-rated version of the Police Interceptor sedan for agencies looking to maximize fuel economy, but that doesn't mean that Ford is giving up on chasing down the bad guys. While the Dodge Charger can lay claim to the fastest lap time at the Grattan Raceway test facility held by the Michigan State Police, the results are now in for the Police Vehicle Evaluation acceleration tests. And Ford's Police Interceptor duo (sedan and utility) came out on top.
In the acceleration tests, Ford says that the Taurus-based PI Sedan with the newly available 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 was the quickest among prospective police cars in both 0-60 and 0-100 mile per hour times. The sedan posted a 0-60 time of 5.66 seconds with all-wheel drive and 5.71 seconds with front-wheel drive, besting V8-powered competitors like the Chevy Caprice and Dodge Charger by more than 0.3 seconds. These rivals close the gap on the AWD sedan in the 0-100 test with the Ford taking 13.5 seconds compared to the Chevy's time of 14.35 and the Dodge's time of 14.7.
As for utility vehicles, the Explorer-based PI Utility, which accounts for 60 percent of Ford's police vehicle sales, essentially went head-to-head with the V8-powered Chevy Tahoe with similar results. Equipped with the new EcoBoost engine option, this big SUV hit 60 mph in just 6.28 seconds and 100 mph in 15.51 seconds compared to times of 8.22 seconds and 21.95 seconds, respectively, for the Tahoe. Other important tests in the PVE include braking and top speed, but while no automakers have stepped up to boast about their numbers in either of these categories, Ford's images show that the V8 Caprice had the highest top speed of the cars at 155 mph while the Tahoe's 139-mph speed made it the fastest utility vehicle.

Watch these Australian Ford and Holden muscle cars duke it out

Australia's Motoring has put together a little video on two of the great performance vehicles available down under - the Holden VF Commodore HSV GTS and the Ford Falcon FPV GT R-Spec. And while both FPV and the Falcon might be on their way out, there's still plenty of time for a little head-to-head comparison between the two.
The cars aren't all that well evenly matched, though. The Ford boasts a 5.0-liter, supercharged V8, which the Aussies measure out at 449 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque. The HSV, though, with its Corvette-derived, 6.2-liter, supercharged V8 is just too powerful - 576 hp and 545 lb-ft of torque.
Predictably, it doesn't end too well for the Ford. As the guys from Motoring point out, the new VF Commodore is just too new and too good, with its extra power and its adaptive dampers (GM's excellent MagnaRide). Interestingly, Motoring did point out that the Holden's electric steering is better than the Ford's hydraulic steering, which is a lot like a Porsche purist saying they prefer water-cooled engines to air cooled.

Popular Science magazine's Best Of What's New 2012 all ate up with cars

Popular Science has named the winners in its Best of What's New awards, the victors coming in the categories of aerospace, automotive, engineering, entertainment, gadgets, green, hardware, health, home, recreation, security and software. The automotive category did not go wanting for lauded advancements:
Tesla Model S: the Grand Award winner for being "the standard by which all future electric vehicles will be measured."
BMW 328i: it's 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder gets called out for being more powerful and frugal than the six-cylinder it replaces.