howitzer

Actually E-Tron GT does have a 2-speed transmission in the rear axle, so that would make for some functionality even if it's far from the complexity of 8-speed gearboxes in previous cars. The stators and rotors for electric motors could also be brick-built. Beyond those, introducing some novel functionality could be done (there are tons of stuff that cars do but official Lego car hasn't done), though I'm not exactly holding my breath on those.

I think the inspiration for this contest should be drawn from 8852, rather than 42140.

Looks cool, gets me excited to get more info. Regarding the price, it might be the inflation at play, there's a lot of pressure to increase prices across many kinds of goods (at my country price of electricity is at record high for example) so there's no way TLG can ignore it. The Cat bulldozer seemed to suffer from the same effect.

Well, you could also have sensors or hard-coupled motors in the extra ports, which means that the code still has to support those, even if the remote doesn't. Anyway, thanks for the info, maybe I'll try to tinker with it myself at some point!

Very nice! You could also use this: in place of the 36T gear to make it slightly smaller. It would also allow using 8T gear for the output axle, if you wanted more speed without additional upgearing.

Wow, very nice! I'll have to build something to test it out! Perfect timing for the current contest too, as it would make controlling the vehicles easier with the remote rather than smartphone. Does it also work with the RI hub?

For me it seems to be much larger than 42095, but unless there's something surprising that the (admittedly blurry) catalog photo doesn't show, it doesn't appear to do much beyond what 42095 did. And yeah, physical remote would be nice to have here...

Like the 42082 Rough Terrain Crane? But yeah, I agree, two pullbacks per year is fine but it's getting out of hand, especially as it seems that the larger pullbacks are replacing other similar scale sets instead of being an addition to the lineup. Why not add them as a subtheme of Speed Champions?

Indeed.

Yeah... well... as much as I generally hate stickers, this set really depends on them for the looks.

I wondered about that too, but I imagine it won't look good, I'm sure the stickers are here for a reason. The number of them is pretty absurd though...

Doesn't produce the same effect.

The real bike also has a blue spring, does it not? But I'm guessing it's coated with blue plastic for protection, and while similar solution would've probably been possible for Lego, it would make the manufacturing more complicated and increase price, so we got a shock absorber that looks just like the real one but hides the actual functional part inside. I'm entirely OK with this kind of approach.

Fake engines also do whole a lot of nothing, they just give the illusion of being something that they aren't. But they are still very much an essential part of a Technic car, not having a fake engine would remove the need of transmission by extension too (which, also is itself completely pointless from practical point of view, you can push a car around and play with it even without transmission) and make the entire theme (at least as far as cars are concerned) pointless. The blue coil also suggests a spring the same way a fake engine suggests ICE or pneumatics suggest hydraulics. Also, there are lots of other sets with traditional springs where one can see easily the action happening. On the other hand, neither the new front shock absorbers nor the Ducati ones show how a spring works, with their functionality being entirely hidden. With the blue coil the kids at least get the idea of how it should work.

I believe more lengths will be introduced, but TLG won't do that just for the sake of doing that, they'll have to justify the cost of adding a new element in their inventory. There are tons and tons of potential and useful elements (additional gears, the panels you mentioned and many times I've wanted a 3x4 L-shaped liftarm or pin with axlehole and who knows what else), but having them all introduced at once just explodes the cost and leads to similar problems that TLG faced in the turn of the millennium. On the other hand, almost anything can be worked around, just look at some of the marvels TLG created in the early 90's and before with much more limited parts selection. They could've stopped most of the development there but they didn't, and now we have even more and better stuff available. I'm sure their R&D department has all the flipflop beams and tons of new exciting panels and gears ready to be released, when the need for them arises. The rollout of the PU system is indeed problematic with half-baked software, nonexistent documentation and missing some important parts. But yeah, that's another discussion.

I don't think the windshield is much different from excavator buckets or the catamaran hulls. Single-use part surely, but necessary for the purpose. (And I'm sure the space-guys are happy to use it in their ship cockpits). There are tons of things I'd rather have than the new shock absorbers, but I'll take what I'm getting. New gears and a micro motor would be awesome too, but especially the hard springs are far too expensive in the secondary market. And let's not forget that this set also gives as many important recolours.

I'll join the chorus of praises on this great review, the photos are great and all the necessary information is there, thanks Milan! As for the set, if I were a bike guy I would certainly buy it. As a non-bike guy I'm still impressed, and I love the new parts. If I get a good deal I might even buy it, and I will certainly buy those new parts separately soon. So much new goodies to get from B&P...

Technic indeed was really innovative in the 90's, and that's true for other themes too. The company nearly went bankrupt for it, so even if that was a great time to be a fan of Lego, I think we're better off with the current management where they don't develop tons of new parts which are more expensive to manufacture than they can be sold for. As for the bike, my immediate reaction is impressed, and I'm loving the plethora of new parts and recolours. I'm not a bike person though, so I'm probably not going buy it.

I believe the blue in the coil is important aesthetic aspect, and ignoring that in the Lego model would be kinda bad. So why not have a cosmetic blue spring that will act just like a real spring (=compressing) and hide the steel-coloured part inside? When working, it will look exactly as if the blue part was doing the spring-action so I see no problem there. At least now they have duplicated the workings of the real-life counterpart instead of, dunno, putting 4 old-style springs in its place or something...

I'm sure we'll get more lengths in the future, but it'll take time as the designers must justify the need for a specific, not-existing length for a new set before we'll get it. It took 20 years for the whole range of even length bricks to be released (1977 to 1997, 2L to 16L) though the range of straight odd-length liftarms (3L to 15L) were completed in only 4 years between 2000 and 2004 and 1L was introduced in 2015, though I'm not sure it counts... If you think 3L flipflop beam, it's basically 32184 with just pinholes instead of axleholes, which has been on the wishlist of many people for a long time. I wonder if we'll get that too in a few years?

Rear lift and the stretcher itself could make a pretty interesting functionality. While it wouldn't break any new ground, I think it would make a fine midrange set - especially considering the minimal functionality with many of the recent sets. I guess you could even add a sliding side-door (I don't think there's ever been a proper Technic van, and those tend to have sliding door on one side).

Yep, there's a neon yellow colour coming for emergency vehicles etc. Perhaps we're going to get a proper ambulance set?

Indeed. Sometimes attaching panels can be a real headache, as the easiest point of attachment would be perpendicular to the panel surface...

Hopefully you're right and some proper Technic sets will be released too. I guess the small chopper is fine for a small set, but I'm more interested in the mid-to-large range.

The motorbike is yet to be seen but other than that it seems to be a really bad wave as far as sets are concerned, but a very nice wave as far as the new parts are concerned. Many useful recolours, and the new panel parts mean a shopping trip to B&P.