Gadgetory

Honda's CRV 20 years on what did they just change forget your flying car your invisible car is coming first and the top five car makers in the world it's time to check the temp PC cars differently 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 CNN on cars welcome to CNET on cars the show all about high tech cars and modern driving i'm brian coulis well the honda crv is just about the most humble car we've ever featured at the top of our show but it deserves this slot as it celebrates 20 years it is currently the best-selling compact crossover in the US market and that is saying something for 15 they gave the vehicle a pretty good refresh a little different look outside whole lot of new tech under the sheet metal let's drive a 2015 tour it with all-wheel drive and in root beer brown and check the tech now as you can see to be sure they didn't do major surgery on this latest CRV but enough to make its potable take a look at the front face it no longer has these kind of fussy 3 chrome bars of the outgoing model now it looks more like a Civic and it's a little more aggressive or sporty looking out back they got rid of this kind of goofy smile like feature line straightened it out in general the car looks a little more macho a little more present now inside the CRV one of the first things you'll notice is a new set of head units that are the big 7-inch touchscreen type this is the high-end one in this vehicle I've ever been a big fan of Honda navigation as you know it's a clunky interface it's kind of poorly rendered since Honda locks out lots of inputs while the car is moving and has no control a knob or hand riding pad you better love their voice rec I often don't go to nearest Chinese restaurant basically they can't put any bins in this car that hold razor blades cyanide or a gun but you use one or all three after you try to figure out what mode you can be in to issue what voice command gap luckily you've now got a new option at least on your iOS device for 60 bucks you can download and install this Honda link navigation app which is cloud-connected you can enter addresses via voice here in one phrase it's fundamentally better than this you've also got a new AHA app in here that runs from the phone shows up on the dash as does the nav now to get what's on the phone on the dash you need to get a $100 cable kit that they sell which is a combination of USB and HDMI from your iOS device no Android yet to get that on the screen that is a horsey expensive mess but here's what they call their amid their multi information display this button on the wheel takes you through a few helper screens it allows you to split things up put entertainment away up there while you focus on nav down here is a common scenario when it comes to your media sources you've got the usuals plus nice touches include Pandora integrated here HD radio you now have two USB ports here in the console and the onion for drive controls in this vehicle are going to be a one choice only CVT gearbox if you've got a sport mode here as a gear position not as an overall powertrain modifier there's no sport button for example beyond that all of this is nestled in one of the nicer-looking cabins in its class this is a mature quality feel for not much money and if you thought Mazda's SKYACTIV was a stupid name for an engine try earth dreams what does that mean well it means different things in different Honda engines in this one it means they've introduced direct injection and reduced the friction of the internal moving parts the results are good 185 horsepower same as last year but it comes at a lower rpm and 181 pound-feet of torque that's 11% better than last year while the mpg went up for city and up three Highway that means 26 City 33 highway through this all-wheel drive powertrain with now a CVT continuously variable transmission that's also new in this year's CRV now a CRV is not a high performance vehicle power though is adequate I don't have any problem with it and clearly that additional torque and lower rpm ceiling for max horsepower are helping and an awful lot of a kind of a crappy engine note coming through the engine bay even though they supposedly put a lot more sound insulation in they could add some more to of all of that rather grating into the sound coming in is a rather grating ride quality and it's been improved they tell me from the last generation but it could use some more it's a nervous ride that can be fatiguing you feel every crack in the pavement unless the pavements really nice this transmission the CVT I give a lot of these knocks this is a real nice one I didn't even know was a CVT when I first drove the car I always drive these cars knowing nothing about them to try and feel them without preconception I thought this had a standard automatic which is high praise for the CVT no paddles or any other nonsense as I showed you earlier it's a straightforward drivetrain there's also no settings for the all-wheel drive it's just there and it's working now all new on the CRV this time around our driver assist technologies like lane keep warning and active lane keep assist you hit a button right here on the right side of the wheel and this guy is gonna steer itself within the lane lines and it's actually really aggressive in fact it's kind of earring to be driving the car and feel how how hard it's pushing the wheel when it wants to keep you in the middle of the lane the various adaptive Drive technologies take over in a patchwork of speeds Lane cape tech works from 45 to 90 miles an hour forward collision braking up to about 62 miles an hour and adaptive cruise only above 22 miles an hour so it can't handle a really congested freeway mess still this is a lot of pseudo self driving tech for an inexpensive little compact crossover and one of the most useful driver assist technologies is this one I hit the right signal and there's a camera over there on the right hand mirror that gives me this excellent view on the dash to see if I'm about to cut off someone like a cyclist over there or whatever is on my right side that's one of the best visual technologies in a car today I don't know why no one else does it unless these guys have it tied up with a back our CRV is a touring model so it's got just about all the bells and whistles included base that's about thirty to five if you want all wheel drive it's 1250 more there are a couple of dealer-installed options you might want remote start and some rear sonar to augment your rear camera all in we're looking at about thirty four seven is about as hard as you can push one of these overall as you can see honda has not changed the mission or the role of the CRV they just made it nicer all around under the hood you're getting better power and more mpg inside the cabin a better attempt at cabin tech though it's still a work in progress and the adaptive driver assist technical if you like the CRV before there's more to like about it now it's basically grown-up market a bit find the full review on the CRV the new 15 at cars cnn.com well a Ledge tether is either something you know all about or have never used depending on whether you're a parent or not they're those hooks that live in the backseat of your car for lashing down child seats it turns out a lot of them don't do their job very well the first review of them by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is out we're gonna explain why so many fall down on the job for the smarter driver you see that on car insurance latch lower anchors and tethers for children the special child seat connectors you're supposed to use to secure your kids car seat not the seat belt they've been required on new cars in the US since September 2002 but of 102 cars just reviewed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety three were found to have good latch tethers the rest not so much parents shouldn't have to struggle to install a child restraint latch is meant to simplify the process but it doesn't always succeed it's not that poor rated latch tethers aren't safe and solid it's that they aren't easy to use and in the practical world that's tantamount to a lack of safety too often they're hard to connect right parents get it wrong the feds say three out of four times so the IIHS set these five simple criteria for a latch to be considered good lower anchors not buried more than three quarters of an inch down in the seat at least a 54 degree angle of approach as you're trying to connect to the lower anchor less than 40 pounds of force required to attach a connector upper anchors must be on the rear shelf or no more than 15 percent of the way down the seat back on an SUV or a truck for example and no other connectors should be near the latch tether that could be confused for some vehicles make it a challenge to find the tether anchor in this Toyota Sienna which gets a poor rating this is the tether anchor it would be easy to get confused by other hardware the three tested vehicles that nailed all five were the BMW 5-series the Mercedes GL SUV and Volkswagens Passat but that doesn't mean you can shop with confidence by brand other tested Mercedes only scored acceptable all other tested BMWs marginal and VW's Jetta poor it pays to double check that you know how to fasten the latch tethers in your car even if they're not very good and if you have kids and are shopping for a new car make sure you know which ones make using this technology less of a pain in the latch welcome back to see net on cars coming to you from our home at the Marine Clubhouse of the Mount Tam Motor Club just north of the Golden Gate Bridge well most of us some time ago gave up on the idea of the flying car but amazing us in its place is the coming invisible car this is not entirely science fiction at least parts of your car may be see-through some time soon makes for a fascinating car Tech 101 Mercedes got some buzz a few years ago with a car wrapped in LEDs on one side and cameras on the other passing through a live image that created this illusion of invisibility but that was just a promotional stunt check out Nissan's rearview mirror that uses a back facing camera to feed an image that is free of rear seats body pillars or the heads of backseat passengers why is it every car doing this already Jaguars looking forward in its current work to develop interior pillars that are upholstered in flexible display material and that fed by exterior cameras no more losing pedestrians in those ever thickening pillars these days the cameras are the easy part and judging by what LG has been showing lately the screens may be as well Jaguars sibling Land Rovers developing a full-width HUD that could fill the lower part of the windshield with an image from chin mounted cameras seemingly rendering the engine bay empty and see-through beyond off-road precision imagine the reduction in things run over in garages Samsung isn't in the truck business yet but they think their displays should be on the backs of them connected to cameras on the front that give the car behind a view through the giant thing making that judgment to pass or not more based on knowledge and less on prayer and Minnie and Qualcomm are working on augmented reality glasses that would do more than that usual display of information in your field of vision turn to look over your shoulder to park and suddenly your eyes are on extension cords having to look like a housefly is perhaps a small price to pay to avoid curbing your nice alloys in a moment better headlights on your older car and top five car makers when CNET on cars returns you it's been a while since the last honda civic type-r bowed out from 1997 to 2010 it was the poster child of low caste high tech naturally aspirated foolery now though in 2015 it's back this time it got turbo it's a Honda Civic it's a shopping car but it goes too quickly buy more from the ex car team of CNET UK at cnet.com slash welcome back to see net on cars i'm brian coulis it's that part of the show we take one of your emails and this time it comes in from jamie m he's got a headlight question he says thank you very much for covering the topic of halogen HID and LED bulbs in the past i was wondering if you knew of any resources or techniques to improve the lighting on cars that are too old or just don't have the option for HID or LED lamps well interesting question jamie with about four or five answers to it let me start with this idea of HIV because everyone's talking about that these days those are those bright white almost blue white headlights you see on most modern cars if your car doesn't have them you can possibly get an adapter kit like this that will let you install those bulbs now you have to have a car that has removable bulb modules and once you do that this graphs on new bulbs that are HID and these little ballasts you see in here that are going to step up your car's twelve volts to thousands of volts that are required to get that bulb fired and that's why it's so bright I've never seen a brand name of one of these I'm not even sure how to pronounce that but there's a ton of them out there on Amazon and different shopping sites they're not terribly expensive but shopper beware in terms of LED headlights those are really the latest and as far as I know that's a factory installed technology right now there might be an add-on kit out there but I'm not sure how it's got to actually match the mold and shape of the headlight module that's why it tends to come from the factory now the exception to all this is if you just want LED bulbs as opposed to a true LED headlamp assembly you can get old-school LED headlights now for vintage cars or LED bulbs that pop into the lamp of a more modern car replacing either a halogen or HID you've got in there now but remember this gives you LED bulbs not a complete headlamp designed to take advantage of LED now much simpler than going to hid and the results will be a little less is to just make sure you've got a good halogen sealed beam if your car is of that age and you didn't say how old your car was Sylvania and the other guys make these kind of retrofit headlights that are sealed mean you can't take the bulb out but they do have a halogen bulb inside instead of one of the more yellowy incandescent from back in the day you just pop these in put the plug on that's it this is like a 5-minute upgrade now if your car is new enough to have replaceable bulbs instead of a sealed beam like that make sure you've got some good quality bulbs and these are also a quick retrofit it's the same process that's changing a burned bulb you just put in one that's got a little brighter whiter light and you can look this up on the application chart of any of the companies that make these like Phillips in this case and several others down at the auto parts store by the way upgrade these in pairs so you don't have different kinds of light coming off each side of your car now if you've got a vintage car I mean like 70s or earlier and you want to upgrade the lights consider putting in European headlights I'm not sure these are strictly legal even today in the US but I've got them in a few of my cars and they're not a lot of complaints here's one from CBA for example one of the legendary French headlight manufacturers the Europeans back man always had better headlights because they had a different cutoff pattern and they just threw more light these modules can drop into a standard 5 or 7 inch round headlight port that you have on your car now but it's not a sealed beam you pop in a nice light bulb here in the back kind of like modern headlights which tend to give off better light combined with this better cut off and beam pattern and you're gonna get a lot more satisfying flow on the road most importantly for any older car I would suggest that you make sure the headlights are running through a relay to the battery let me show you on this old Alfa now on almost all older cars here's what they do that isn't really cool power comes from the battery works its way over here to the fuse box then from the headlamp fuse goes over to the headlight switch that switch then sends it on back up here to the headlights that's a lot of run of wire which tends to be not the heaviest wire so it gets overheated by having a lot of current running through it it's just asking for trouble what you do when you relay your headlights is run the power from the battery directly to the headlight in the shortest possible run using a relay a relay is just an electrically controlled switch it does what your headlight switch does but does it electrically so your headlight switch now all it's doing is turning the relay on and off that requires very little current just a tiny little amount while the hard work is all done locally up here and you're not sending all this headlight current all over the car to get there the key benefits here are brighter lights more consistent headlights that are less likely to be interrupted by things like tapping on your brakes it's also less likely to have overheating fraying old wire that can cause failure or a fire it takes a few hours to do if you know a little bit about automotive wiring if not an independent shop can knock it out for probably a couple hundred bucks we've had requests from several of you to cover cars that aren't sold in the US market namely French and Chinese brand cars and we're working on that but in the meantime as we're crunching some of the numbers around that plan we notice that there's a good top five to be told top five world automakers not automate automate number five the hyundai-kia group eight billion cars sold up seven percent year-on-year now Hyundai Kia has been a huge growth story for several years taking its solid place as a member of the big five their portfolio of car brands as perhaps the simplest on today's list basically Hyundai and Kia but they are part of perhaps the most diversified family conglomerate in our list that includes steel shipping machine tools finance aerospace and their original industry construction number for Renault Nissan eight and a half million of two and a half percent these two formed a tight partnership back in 1999 under it our Nissan Renault Infiniti Dacia Lada an important stake in Auto Vaz in Russia and a partnership with Daimler that will soon produce the first Mercedes pickup truck no not coming to the u.s. here Mercedes is seen strictly as a luxury brand never as a taxi or a truck now we enter the tight race between the global big three number three General Motors nine point nine million up two percent GM was number one for over 75 years but it's the only car maker now to have slid a spot on this list from number two in 2013 to its current number three now not because its sales dropped but because number two grew even faster GM is huge beyond its American brands in Chevy and Cadillac for example they've got Holden in Australia Opel and Vauxhall in Europe ten different car making operations in China which is also where Buick does most of its sales number two the Volkswagen Group 10.14 million up four percent last year and crossing the 10 million line for the first time in company history they've been talking about soon being the world's biggest automaker now if the VW Group succeeds it would do so with the wildest portfolio in the entire big five be WOD Porsche Bentley Lamborghini se OTT Skoda Scania trucks Ducati bikes a big slice of suzuki and two joint ventures in China its ownership is also rather interesting largely split between Porsche and the government of Lower Saxony before I get to number one where are all these cars made according to numbers from the International Organization of motor vehicle manufacturers China makes the biggest slice of the world's 85 million cars followed by the US Japan Germany and South Korea oh by the way take out commercial vehicles and the u.s. drops from number two to number four the biggest car maker in the world is Toyota ten point two three million up two and a half percent tight race at the top as you can see but Toyota has nudged out VW so far for number one using its namesake brand along with Lexus Scion he no trucks Rams V's in China majority control of Daihatsu that got a stake in Fuji Heavy Industries that Subaru as well as a piece of his Susan the interesting story to watch at the top of 2016 is will Toyota drop to number two and BW go to the top spot for the first time so far mid here Volkswagens ahead by 82,000 cars thanks for watching hope you enjoyed this episode don't forget to look for us on your favorite streaming platform or probably there as well as of course at CNET on cars.com and keep those emails coming that's on cars at cnet.com this is our show we build it together I'll see you next time we check the tech you