Nother CarGuy

Chinese luxury brand Hongqi is one of the surprise exhibitors at this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show considering that so many other brands much more popular in Europe are missing. Hongqi’s stand features only two exhibits but it’s safe to say they serve the purpose of raising awareness of the FAW Group-owned luxury brand among the show visitors. The first and more spectacular of the two design studies is called Hongqi S9 and is the brand’s first hypercar designed and built in house. According to FAW Group chairman Xu Liuping, the Hongqi S9 Concept packs a “V8T hybrid power system,” leading us to believe the powertrain combines a turbocharged V8 gasoline engine with one or several electric motors. Hongqi claims the S9’s hybrid powertrain delivers a maximum power of 1,400 horsepower, allowing the hypercar to sprint from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 1.9 seconds and hit a top speed of 400 km/h (249 mph). As crazy as it sounds, Hongqi will put the S9 hypercar into production. “S9...

Last year, Samsung walked out of the ashes of the Note 7 debacle and launched the Galaxy S8, which was one of the best phones of 2017 and one of the best products Samsung ever made. So it’s not much of a surprise that this year’s Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, which will be available for preorder on March 2nd and arrive in stores on March 16th, aren’t hugely different from the S8 phones. In fact, the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus are so similar to their predecessors that on passing glance, they look and feel exactly the same. The S9 pair maintain the S8’s attractive and efficient design, with extra tall 18.5:9 screens, curved sides, and glass front and backs. The 5.8-inch (S9) and 6.2-inch (S9 Plus) screens are the same Super AMOLED panels with 2960 x 1440 pixel resolutions, though Samsung says they are slightly brighter this year. Also interesting, though the phones look and feel the same as last year’s models, they have slightly different dimensions and weigh a little more, so don’t expect to b...