Mark Rogowsky:

The numbers at first glance don’t seem quite so bad as BMW and Mercedes are both registering double-digit sales increases for 2013. But a deeper dive (thanks to GoodCarBadCar and the California New Car Dealers Association) paints a different picture. As the accompanying chart shows, five competitive vehicles are all down significantly against their 2012 sales numbers. Given that overall U.S. auto sales are up by 7.7%, and 12.5% in California, the performance of the Mercedes E-Class, the BMW 5-Series, and the Lexus GS are especially disappointing.

But it’s in the BMW 7-Series and Porsche Panamera that the presence of the Model S is probably being felt most acutely. Both are performance luxury sedans capable of seating families comfortably and both are fairly commonplace in the wealthy neighborhoods of the San Francisco Bay Area. Those neighborhoods are now rife with Teslas. More than 4700 Model S registrations have been recorded in California and at least some are coming at the expense of the competition. Nationally, the Tesla has matched the total sales of the Lexus LS, Audi Audi A8 and Panamera combined.

It’s certainly true that for the moment, BMW and Mercedes are still going to sell plenty of cars. Together, their midsize sedans will have a 5:1 edge over the Tesla in 2013, and much greater if you also include the large sedans in the mix. But by the end of next year, Tesla hopes to double production and deliver as many cars outside the U.S. as it’s selling here. The competition is clearly heating up.

Dan Neil:

Indeed, the new word in the Stingray’s vocabulary is “structure.” Every good thing about it—its refinement and drivability, the fine-tuning of each of the five driving modes (Eco, Normal, Winter, Sport and Track), the “sportivity,” as the Germans would call it—is thanks primarily to its new rigid cartilage of alloy tubes, panels and extrusions. This is pretty much the technology Scaglietti uses to build the monocoque of the Ferrari 458 (except that car has a stressed aluminum skin); Aston Martin, Jaguar, and Lotus use something similar. Corvette doubters are going to have to show me a better mass-production chassis that is priced anything like a new Stingray ($52,000-$70,000).

Wait, there is actually one. Anybody? The Tesla Model S.

Arcane figures about Stingray’s torsional rigidity translate in the cabin to a sense of things being tightly tamped and torqued down. That is definitely novel for Corvette. The new car is almost entirely cured of Corvette’s distinctive cowl-shake or unpleasant noise, vibration and harshness. In previous ‘Vettes, hitting a big pothole would send an undamped shudder through the structure and, if the car was cornering, it would take a moment to recompose itself and regain the trace. In the C7, such impacts are reduced to a single, tympanic thump, instantly dissipated.

In fuel-saving Eco driving mode, the Stingray can deactivate four of its eight cylinders (itself a neat trick in a cam-in-block V8), helping the base car to lope to a 30-miles-per-gallon highway mileage rating. And yet the fluttering off and on of these cylinders, in this high-compression (11.5:1) V8, is virtually undetectable.

Code, you want code? In order to better calibrate the behavior of the various adaptive driving modes (weather, eco, tour, sport and track)—modulating no less than 12 vehicle systems including the electric steering and magnetic adaptive dampers—the Stingray Z51’s 19- and 20-inch wheels (front/rear) are fitted with tiny temperature sensors, because warm tires behave differently than cold tires. But because these sensing thermocouples heat up more slowly than the air inside the tires, their signals go through a special temperature-estimating algorithm before they are processed by the driving-mode head office.

Volkswagen:

Re-imagine PunchDub
Every time you encounter another Volkswagen with SmileDrive, you get a punch. At the end of your drive, you’ll learn how many punches you’ve collected.

Earn stickers
You’ll receive stickers for special moments on the road such as late-night rides, extra long hauls and crack-of-dawn commutes.

Get your Smile Score
Each trip ends with a report that includes a Smile Score, which measures the fun factor of that drive.

Share and save Smilecasts
Friends can see where you are, who you’re with and what you’re doing while you’re on your road trip. Once it’s over, your Smilecast is saved so that you can revisit the adventure.

Interesting. I wonder what the data sharing & financial incentives behind this app might be?