Kotaku elder, lover of video games, toys, snacks and other unsavory things. I realize now that the Volkswagen I bought under an oak tree in Sacramento has been here to New York City for a few months now and I haven’t written anything about it. Last year, the Tesla Model S P90D shot up the 12.4-mile, 156-turn Pikes Peak International Hill Climb course in well under 12 minutes and set the record for the. Fact: I take a lot more Lyfts than I do planes. Now, however, I earn miles for doing both. In May, Delta quietly announced a new partnership with Lyft, where riders.

Faraday Future's Prototype Beat The Tesla Model S Up Pikes Peak By 2. Seconds. Last year, the Tesla Model S P9.

D shot up the 1. 2. Pikes Peak International Hill Climb course in well under 1. How To Install Windows Xp On Ibm Thinkpad 600E Battery there.

But this year, the long- doubted Faraday Future destroyed its time by more than 2. The Tesla Model S was a gutted version of the car, typical of street- cars- turned race- cars, and Faraday Future’s car looks pretty stripped as well from the on- board camera.

Tech giants Elon Musk and Mark Zuckeberg have been engaged in a very public, somewhat silly and self-indulgent battle over artificial intelligence lately. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have a new crew member—an adorable robotic ball capable of recording video while moving in zero gravity. Today is Bastille Day in France, and President Trump is there to celebrate it. And what exactly is the holiday all about?

Racing in the “electric production” class in 2. Model S went up the hill in just over 1. It wasn’t blistering fast like the top- finishing Norma M2.

RD Limited, but that thing was built for racing and had a reported one- to- one power- to- weight ratio. It clocked an 8: 5. Faraday Future’s FF 9. The company said in a press release that its car was, indeed, the fastest electric production- designed car to go up Pikes Peak, so it must have met the same requirements as the Model S did last year. But the FF 9. 1 and the Model S are a lot different on paper, as far as production numbers are concerned—the Model S makes 7. Ludicrous mode, which seemed ridiculous for a four- door electric sedan at the time of its announcement in 2.

Then came Faraday Future, promising 1,0. HP in its electric four- door crossover- type thing. So, yeah, that’s a big horsepower difference.

But the FF 9. 1 does look chunkier than the Model S’ 4,6. Anyway, forget about numbers for now and watch it race: Confirmed: Faraday Future has a car that can race up a hill faster than a Model S. That’s a step up from the catastrophe the folks on the inside described it as late last year, at least. Now let’s see if FF can pull off..

My Grubby 1. 97. 4 Volkswagen Made It Across The Country And It Only Took A Calendar Year. I realize now that the Volkswagen I bought under an oak tree in Sacramento has been here to New York City for a few months now and I haven’t written anything about it. Let me tell you, it is an incomparable joy.(Welcome to another installment of The Little Engine That Couldn’t, wherein I try to drive across the country in a 1. Volkswagen Beetle that I bought semi- running five days before departing.

It all seemed pretty doable. After all, I had only needed to do a single engine- out repair in a driveway.)I have so many sweet memories with this car when I decided to fly out to California, find and buy it off of Craigslist a day after landing, then set off to drive it home to NYC with next to no knowledge of what was deeply, fundamentally wrong with it. I remember it breaking down the first time I took it around the block. I remember it breaking down the first time I tried to take it out of town. I remember it breaking down before it left the Central Valley. I remember it breaking down in the foothills leaving the Central Valley. I remember it breaking down in the mountains the following day.

I remember it breaking down at a diner on the far side of the mountains the day after that. I remember it breaking down getting into Arizona, and New Mexico, and in the middle of the night in Texas while a state trooper pulled me over. I remember it dropping a valve in between Memphis and Little Rock, where it sat for a year waiting on a new engine. It was a clunk, then loud banging from behind me, and then the engine cut off. Any other time. It gleefully ate up the highway miles from Arkansas to Memphis to North Carolina, only hiccupping once or twice along the way. It wasn’t much. Well, it was enough to get me mugged, but it wasn’t all that bad.

And now the car is back here in the city, where it has its own toasty garage spot to keep it safe from New York City salt. I have rarely felt so happy and accomplished seeing it cruise past little New York ponds. It felt like yesterday when this same car had cruised past Mono Lake in the waning moments before the sun dipped below the Sierras. It has been so nice just to use this VW as a car. I even washed and detailed it, something I’d never have done in my rust- and- primer Baja Bug. People smile as it putters past them on the street, a blissful blue blot in their day. I could pinch myself, how dreamlike and easy this car is to use.

Its almost hourly problems are like echoes from a past life. Wait. What was that clicking sound? Oh, the clutch cable just snapped in the middle of stop- and- go traffic on 1.