Besides the entire press of the games industry, our affiliate WorldSims has also visited the E3 yesterday. They bring some news, for instance that The Sims 2 has been nominated for the "Best Simulation Game of the Year" award. But there's also some more information about those cars:

"What about Cars? Well they are nothing more but decoration folks, according to Tim. You can acquire them when you gain a significant level of wealth, however, well they don't serve much of a purpose other than decoration. "Maybe in a future expansion pack, who knows" Tim told me. On another note, our famous Riverside is now called "Pleasantville." I saw four neighborhoods at E3: Pleasantville, Waterside, StrangeCity and Veronaville. The house tools are really impressive. I was awed at this one house that was built in StrangeCity. It was just a house built with glass and columns, and stairs. It was really impressive and I MUST show you guys a picture. However the above aren't really what's important. What's important is the game has a new twist."

There are some other details about things people have been wanting. Weather, for instance, is definitely out of the game. As for basements, these will be possible, but it will count as one of the max. 3 floors. Basically how it's done is editing the terrain in such a way, that there's a floor underground. The length of all stages of a Sim's life are still being tuned, but Maxis is aiming for about 20 human hours for an entire lifetime. There's some more information in the complete article. You can also submit your last minute questions to WorldSims now, and they may be answered personally by a Maxoid.