Kiran Upadhyay

  As part of its lineup overhaul, Harley-Davidson officially pulled the sheet off its new 121-horsepower Sportster S model, topping off the performance bike range with double the output of its Iron 1200 model. Harley has been teasing the new Sportster S for a while now, touting its performance and hinting that it would render the bikes it replaces obsolete. Power comes from Harley-Davidson's new 1,250cc water-cooled V-twin, dubbed the Revolution Max 1250T. It makes 121 horses and 94 pound-feet in the Sportster S (as opposed to the 150 horsepower it produces in Harley's Pan America 1250 adventure touring bike). Despite nearly doubling the Iron 1200's horsepower, its fuel economy is expected to be 1 mpg better (49 vs. 48). “The Sportster S is the next all-new motorcycle built on the Revolution Max platform and sets a new performance standard for the Sportster line," said Jochen Zeitz, chairman, president and CEO, Harley-Davidson. "This is a next-generation Sportster...

  The custom van craze of the 1970s was huge, but relatively few have survived. They were unlikely to be squirreled away by collectors, nor were their original owners the type who only drove them to church on Sundays. All of which makes this 1974 Ford Econoline, with just 873 miles from new, a most unusual time capsule. And it's for sale right now on eBay Motors, offered by Classic Auto Mall. Bought new from Miller McVeigh Ford of State College, Pennsylvania, in November 1974, this Econoline sold new for $6,791.02. The bill of sale shows the original owner as Larry A. Brown, and his Econoline Custom 100 was equipped with a 302-cubic-inch V8, three-on-the-tree, and a high-output heater. Moreover, it was decked out in full-'70s regalia, with an 8-track stereo, Cragar slotted mags, side pipes, and bubble porthole windows. A flame-design stripe encircles the exterior, and there's the must-have mural. In this case, a trippy mountain scene with a dead tree in the foreground. The ...

    Zoom is taking advantage of the impressive rise in its stock price in the past year to make its first major acquisition. The popular video conferencing firm, which was valued at about $9 billion at its IPO two years ago, said Sunday evening it has agreed a deal to buy cloud call centre service provider Five9 for about $14.7 billion in an all-stock transaction. 20-year-old Five9 will become an operating unit of Zoom after the deal, which is expected to close in the first half of 2022, the two firms said. The proposed acquisition is Zoom’s latest attempt to expand its offerings. In the past year, the video conferencing software has added several office collaboration products, a cloud phone system, and an all-in-one home communications appliance. The acquisition of Five9 — which has amassed over 2,000 customers worldwide including Citrix and Under Armour and processes over 7 billion minutes of calls annually — will help Zoom enter the “$24 billion” market for contact centers,...

  BERLIN — Germany will in July have 1 million electric cars on the road, hitting its target six months late, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told the Tagesspiegel daily on Friday, saying subsidy programs had boosted demand. "We will reach our target of 1 million electric cars by 2020, which everyone thought was unattainable, this July, just six months late," the minister was quoted as saying.   Read More

    Wally Funk, a woman who trained for NASA's "Mercury 13" program in the 1960s, is Jeff Bezos' guest for the trip to be made by his aerospace company, Blue Origin, on July 20. The 82-year-old Funk was trained as an astronaut in 1961 in a class known as the "Women in Space Program," which was privately funded with the goal of including women on NASA expeditions. However, after the group of 13 women finished their training, they were not selected to travel to space because they were women. "They told me I had done better and completed the job faster than any of the guys," Funk explains in the promotional video for Blue Origin.   Read More

  With the controversial design of the BMW 4 Series, we've anxiously awaited what the company would do with the 2022 2 Series coupe. The good news is that the über- grille has not reappeared. In addition, the 2 Series packs even more power than before. Although the grille is relatively normal by BMW standards, the 2 Series coupe is still distinctive. It has shark-like headlights and bulging, blistered fenders. The long nose and short deck seem even more prominent than before. And some of that may be a result of the fact that the new 2 is in fact larger than its predecessor. Depending on whether it's a 230i or an M240i, it ranges between 3.5 and 4.3 inches longer overall. And both versions have a 2-inch longer wheelbase and are 2.6 inches wider. Powering the 2 Series is a choice of two engines. The base 230i models will get a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder making an extra 7 horsepower and 37 pound-feet of torque for totals of 255 and 295 respectively. The M24...