It's a tough job, but someone has to do it [Back Story]

On a fairly regular basis, it's really fun to be Lawrence Ulrich. Here you see him draped on a newly released Porsche 918 Spyder at a Formula One test track in Spain, where he put the "carbon-fiber phantasm" through its paces. But he’s writing for IEEE Spectrum’s annual Top Ten Tech Cars, where the point is neither speed nor swoopy lines but technology.