Gadgetory

Ford's new f-150 hits the street with a splash or a fuss the hidden killer of cars and toyota wages it's green tech cred in a big game time to check the tech EC cars differently we love them on the road and under the hood but also check the tech and are known for telling it like it is ugly is included at no extra cost the good the bad the bottom line this is CNET on cars hello and welcome to CNET on cars show all about high-tech cars and modern driving i'm brian cooling well I would say literally millions of words have been written about these guys the new Ford f-150 due to its radical new aluminum structure it's a little-bitty 2.7 liter engine that's available and much better cabin but it's time for the talk to stop we got our chance to go not just on the road but off the road in the 2015 f-150 Lord is dramatically recast the f-150 it may be the biggest gamble you see a major automaker take in your lifetime are they thinking and why let's dig into it as we drive the all-new 2015 f-150 and check the tip there are two big stories going on in this vehicle that come into the category of lightness it's an aluminum truck by that they mean the outer shell the body the cab the box then there's the frame made of high-strength steel this is a steel that they get from their suppliers that is particularly strong for weight that means it can be pressed very thin in places but it's not so much strength through bolts now for it's likely gonna have a lot of company in the aluminum shed soon in fact word is the next Jeep Wrangler might make the switch as well according to Ducker worldwide consultancy by 2015 the average vehicle in the US will have 394 pounds of aluminum ten years later that will get to almost 550 pounds what used to be a rarity in big Jags and Audi's is now looking like a fact of automotive life they can do more work more efficiently this is a game changer for full-size pickups the bottom line is they've shaved some 700 pounds of this vehicle off from the last generation they've gone so far as to even redo the logo on the fender to express lightness by hollowing out the F now adorning that body are some interesting details on the outside first of all they've got some optional LED headlights for the first time LED tail lights are also part of blind spot technology because the radar sensor is built into that red lens take a look at how they've sculpted out the door here they say they brought down the Beltline a little bit so you can get that truck pose even when the windows up and then they really scoop it down here to give you more visibility down around the corners of course I'm obsessed with the technology under the hood and this is the story there the 2.7 liter little itty-bitty sort of EcoBoost v6 that's a very small engine for a full-size pickup what they're doing here is applying the turbocharged direct-injection combo they call it EcoBoost the numbers are pretty impressive 325 horsepower 375 pound-feet of torque turbo engines tend to be torquing now the mpg needs to be pretty good to make the 2.7 engine worth having in the line it does nineteen city 26 highway in 4x2 that's better than a similarly laid out Ram tundra or Silverado powered by gas now the towing capacity when you have this engine is a little bit reduced it's the lower end of their range at 8,500 pounds now if you think a 2.7 motor is too modern for your full-size truck hang on Park Assist will be a ford exclusive in this truck adaptive cruise is also class exclusive there's forward collision warning brake assist available blind-spot cross traffic and lane keep assist also spoken here 6-speed automatic is your only choice across the whole range and of course rear-wheel drive base or you can buck up to all-wheel drive let's call that correctly four-wheel drive now some more tech and engineering highlights or around the back end of the f150 first of all look at this piece of glass here on the rear it's all one piece and they just cut out the glass and reset it against a gasket and they motorized it this way it's not just slick looking it also allows your heating coils to be more continuous across the piece and do a better job clearing your view now coming around the rear nothing too unusual about a rear camera on a truck but this one's also hooked up to what they call a trailer hitch assistance gives you a special view on the main LCD in the cabin lines up a dotted line right to where you got to go to hit the hitch to hits on the bump right here on the key fob and you can do this little trick brings down the tailgate with a nice soft release on a hydraulic damper now inside the f-150 my Ford touch greets us I'm not going to go into that we've seen it on many Ford vehicles it basically carries over here but notice what is not touchscreen lots of clusters of related controls here that are big and tangible here are the knobs and the butt for media below that the very large knobs and buttons for climate which Ford says they did intentionally after a lot of research where folks said sometimes functions get scattered all over the cabin and they hate that similarly your light controls are all down here in a pod oh well next to your left nice what you won't find here on the dash is a bunch of replication of what's on the center screen they found that a lot of their f-150 buyers said why do I need it in two places that are 12 inches apart so over here you've got a physical tacking speedo and then you've got a bunch of virtual gauges for things like engine oil pressure and temperature and fuel level and then below that is a big region that I would typically use for what they call my view you can click down through your favorite seven displays chosen from dozens as I mentioned all f-150s have a standard six-speed automatic there's no variation there on those vehicles it's a pretty straightforward vertical gate that comes down into manual shift mode and which is handled by a rocker here on the side no paddles and obviously a two in one position rear view camera hops up and looks pretty good it's pretty sharp and available on these vehicles is a surround view as well using front left right and rear cams now the cabin is two inches wider and they took that space and as opposed to giving it to you here they gave it to you here they put two more inches in the center console that leaves you with a pretty big boxes you can put almost anything in hope my laptop whole bunch of laptops and Ford says they did something to control glare in this vehicle they went through and they said all right what do you want to put in here designers in terms of shiny stuff then they ran that through some computer modeling probably some light ray tracing to say what's going to glare at the driver and changed it we tediously go through every surface and change the shape of it so you don't get those big spots that glare they're annoying as you drive crazy to the autocrossing the truck with the lighter platform nothing better than that for a car that handles well as well as is efficient you haven't driven a full-size f150 lately you're thinking it still drives like a truck well no it doesn't actually it drives like a large car now I got the two-seven here as you know and I'm doing manual shifting in this case but the power is really good and responsive that's the thing you might not expect in a car like this it's very nimble and the engine is right there where I want it which is what I really wanted to find out now I'm out here on ice kind of a simple two lane country road let's open her up and see how this 2.7 v6 does this is a nice delivery of power driving this thing around right now has just an everyday vehicle this is a very substantial engine it's got a nice note to it do you hear that kinda gets down there and snarl cars don't catch fire on their own very often but those that do have fire related defects tend to have higher insurance claims even after a recall has been issued in a moment why fire-related auto defects are scary and headline-grabbing and the need to fix them should be real obvious so why don't fire risk recalls get owners full attention well us car owners aren't real good about bringing their cars in for recall work hearing on average 65% of recalled cars are ever brought in for the work according to a Government Accounting Office study of recalls from 2000 to 2008 wheels tires and brakes seem to get customer's attention the most cruise control seats and amazingly airbag issues have lower compliance level compare that to Germany where you can't register a car that isn't up on its recall repairs their compliance rate is a hundred percent now a fire later recalled they actually Center on something like an electrical switch for a hose clamp or a seal so don't try the gas of a recall is serious it really pays to double check if there are any fire or other open recalls on your car and tend to it because we also differ from Germany in another useful way here the car makers on the hook to pay for the reef welcome back to CNN on cars I'm Brian coolie you're about to see a little theme bubbling up in our show right now that have major car makers putting the crown jewels on the line now we saw a bit of that with Ford taking their backbone vehicle the f-150 and rather dramatically reinventing it here at Toyota it's a little different they're putting the reputation for green visionary technology on the line as they try to come up with what's next after Prius they think it's the Mirai fuel-cell vehicle which they believe is the road to the future if your Toyota your Prius is both a huge triumph and kind of a nightmare then set the bar really hot after you did that and kind of change the auto industry what do you do next they think it's this this is called the Mirage Japanese for future they tell me it is a production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle at a time when most people think hydrogen fuel cell is either a yesterday's failed experiment or distant tomorrow's technological wish the moriah is fascinating because it's a big bet being made by the company with the most to lose in terms of its cred as a powertrain visionary let's tour the guts of a Mirai now in the back you've got not one but two hydrogen tanks one kind of here around the axle line and one under the rear seat those are filled at 10,000 psi with hydrogen gas that gets down to a liquefied level but it's only about five kilograms total weight of hydrogen you'll put a lot in here notice it's got a battery this is a hybrid but it's an electric electric hybrid sometimes the car will take this hydrogen and run it through this fuel cell stack right here I'll use that directly to power the electric motor but other times or at the same time it will also create energy in the fuel cell stack and send some into the battery for storage while also driving the vehicle that's why it's a hybrid of two kinds of electricity the idea is to be able to have a nice buffer and not create at all on demand and then of course you've got an electric motor with a power control unit that is red simply like other electric vehicles the really interesting stuff is from midships on that the simple version of a fuel cell is that it takes in hydrogen crosses plates and as that happens the hydrogens electrons are coaxed off in different directions which is where the electronic flow is generated that creates current at the final stage hydrogen combines with available oxygen to form h2o in the form of water vapour enough water vapors produce that the mariah has an h2o dump button that empties out it's splatter if you will so you can leave all that outside instead of it puddling on your garage floor notice you can also use this vehicle to power other things like your home in an emergency it's a weird little side angle to this vehicle but there's a great big high current port in the trunk so if you were to have a power outage at your home they will have accessories that will let you break that out into household current 120 AC 300 miles of range on a fill three to five minutes to fill up the tanks and no plugging in whatsoever now in the market the key to the mariah is actually not so much the Mirai as it is Toyota's ability to sell a vision and that turns on making hydrogen available but they say less available than you might think if every vehicle in the state of California ran on hydrogen we could meet refueling logistics with only 15% of the nearly 10,000 gas stations that are currently operating in the state based on the assumption that owners would want to reach a refueling station within six minutes of their home or work okay what's a light driving this advanced technology well as Twitter is actually kind of proud to point out it's sort of unremarkable if you've driven an electric car before it doesn't feel that much different that's really different at all high torque very quiet the occasional whine of motor and reduction gears but it feels like any other electric what they were going for we don't want this to be jarring or something have to get used to other than the different way you fuel it I'll say this though it does feel torque e'er and generally more powerful than a lot of other sort of mid class electrics or plug-in hybrids I've driven there's no lack of power or power assist things like seat eaters and heated wheel things you'd normally be nervous about in the battery cargoes you want to preserve that precious charge in this car they point out the behavior should be different because you'll be able to charge readily if you can fill it up at all in your area and then you won't worry so much about being so parsimonious with the bolts size of the vehicle on the outside is kind of closer to Camry than it is to Prius and notice in the trunk you do not have folding rear seats you do have a little bit of a limited trunk space they're not bad but there's some intrusion from where they have mounted the twin hydrogen tanks now if you're adjusting this to save money sit down sufficient hydrogen to cover say 300 miles will cost you around 50 bucks in a Mirai you can do that same distance for about $33 and a four cylinder gas Camry that cost a lot less upfront and for just $10 in a Nissan Leaf but with all the charging stops it by taking days to get there and as anybody's guess where hydrogen prices would go should there be widespread adoption because we're nowhere near that now saying Toyota wants this to be the next bigger Prius is an apt statement but the Prius required no changes in infrastructure the world was already set up for it if you will the mariah arrives on a very different stage okay the Mirai hits the US fall 2015 price will be around 50 75 that's steep of course new technology look for about thirteen thousand dollars in federal and California credits the only state where it's going to be sold initially later they'll expand out to some northeast markets they have to follow the infrastructure of course but this is a major stake by Toyota a vision not just of a vehicle but of where they think infrastructure can reasonably go and if they're right this short circuits a lot of the headaches that surround battery electric today in a moment the costs of going electric and cars that are good choices to be your life see that on cars returns you I'm in a DeLorean and the doors open upwards and it's made of stainless steel and it's one of the coolest cars on the face of the planet and it will forever be one the brakes are terrible also we're doing 40 miles an hour on the brakes come on come on come on and still buy more from the ex car team of CNET UK at cnet.com slash welcome back to CNET on cars i'm brian coulis time for some of your email this one comes in this week from eric l who's asking about evey maintenance he says I would like to see some discussion about the tech of car repair he writes it occurs to me that the ownership costs of some of these electric cars like a Tesla may be considerably lower than that of a conventional car and when you bring an electric car to the shop what do they look at well Eric I can generalize here every Evy is going to be a little different but first of all certain things go away Eevee's don't have oil filters or oil changes no air filters no transmission fluid changes or transmission filters to deal with no belts to wear out no spark plug wires to get A's and need replacement a lot of things go away got to be fair combustion engine cars have made amazing strides lately in reducing the frequency of servicing those things as well so it's not quite as stark as you might think electric motors are the core of an Eevee they have a reputation just generally in industry as being incredibly tough and long-lasting the planetary gearboxes that move the power to the wheels and adjust the RPM a little bit those are kind of a mixed bag it will vary by make and model of Eevee and none of them have been on the road that long tires are interesting because v's tend to be rather heavy and have a ton of torque so depending how soft and grippy attire they spec those may wear out rather quickly especially if they're on the drive wheels but all EVs are heavy and put a lot of weight on the tires finally the brakes are interesting consideration Eevee's do much of their braking by electromagnetic regeneration basically reversing the motor electrically not so much putting pads on discs so your brake wear costs should go way down now in this show we took a look at two cars that are turning the page on new chapters and their manufacturers history at f-150 and the Toyota Mirai but a lot of you have asked about cars that are kind of durable evergreens cars that go incredible amounts of miles and never seem to die they're really durable ones so we've got a great top five list for you the top five cars that are on the road with incredibly high mileage with the average age of cars on us roads these days at a record 11 point four years and climbing to nearly 12 years old by 2019 we clearly no longer have a problem with old cars here are the cars you want to be in twelve years after the purchase cars that seemingly run forever according to data from our L pulp which is the Bible of this sort of thing by the way these are cars I'm taking out trucks and big SUVs they tend to run forever anyway and that's a separate video number five the Nissan Maxima the max can trace its roots back to the mid 70s but its father the Datsun 810 rather godly roamed our streets by the time it got the oddly Roman maxima name in 1980 it was one of the first Nissan's to use any American parts namely from General Motors number four is the Honda Odyssey this is quite an achievement because the Odyssey only dates back to 1994 but that honda reliability has made up for lost time in the market this is where fold-flat rear seats were invented by the way most recently Odysseys innovations have veered off toward a built in shop vac which I find oddly wonderful number three the Toyota Avalon I have a secret hunch that if you also ranked cars by average owner age the Avalon might be number one it had old-school oddities for a Toyota like a front bench seat and a column shifter whose that aimed at however your grandparents may have to now shop for a used Crown Vic because the Avalon got all sexed up last year duh be entombed one number two is the Subaru Legacy soubise parent company has roots in buses train cars and garbage trucks I don't believe they know how to make something that breaks combine that with the fact that sube buyers for whom driving something old and worn just fits the look and you have a tag team almost surprised it doesn't add up to number one except that would mean bumping the Honda Accord are number one when the Accord launched it was a sensation the question for a year or two wasn't would you be buying an Accord simply how much you were willing to bribe the dealer to allocate you won the Civic had already established that you'd be getting one tough ride only now with room and great looks borrowed from the classic Scirocco generation 1 damn making myself want one by the way the Camry the best-selling car ahead of the Accord and from the company that most folks equate with durability wouldn't quite make our list it would come in at number 6 thanks for watching really glad you were here for this episode and don't forget you can find us where you are go subscribe to our channel on YouTube or head over to Roku and just search CNET on cars across services or go to see Netcom slash apps to find us on your device I'll see you next time we check the temp you you