Gadgetory

Volvo unveils the beginning of its future Android auto finally hits the road it's just like using your phone and CNET's top rated cars mid 2015 it's time to check the tech PC cars differently nice you loved 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 CNN on cars welcome to scene at on cars to show all about high-tech cars and modern driving i'm brian cooling well volvo as you know has always marched to its own beat and in recent years it kind of marched off into the weeds now they're plotting a course for comeback row and i'm doing it in that guy the all new xc90 the big launch for them let's drive one and check the tech this is the new xc90 and it's a very big story for them now I can recall not too long ago well yeah it was long ago when Volvo was the number one selling European luxury car in the US you didn't talk about mercedes and BMW and Audi that much in those days where sounds have changed in the first third of this year luxury car sales in the US have gone up about five percent and Volvo sales about zero percent that's what they aim to fix with these guys these xc90 s come in two basic flavors a t6 and a t8 the six of the eight share the same combustion powertrain but then the eight adds plug-in hybrid electric motivation on top of that they're both three row seven seat vehicles and as you can see they've got a new but identifiable Volvo look this is their first big project since the acquisition by Chinese money five years ago so a lot of eyes are watching both t6 and t8 xc90 s have the same unusual engine a small 2-liter four-cylinder but it gets bulked way up by not a turbo or a supercharger but both the supercharger kicks in first the turbo takes over at higher rpm at which point the supercharger disengages to reduce drag then the t8 steps it up with more tech because we've added the motor in the back the battery in the middle and all of our transfer and control circuitry 400 horsepower now 472 pound-feet of torque zero to 60 comes down from around six seconds to 5.3 even though the weight goes up about 400 pounds efficiency is expected to be around 59 MPGe which is typically how you start to look at these cars that can spend a fair amount of time running electric we don't have it fully certified EPA yet in front of you is an LCD instrument panel that's becoming almost required in luxury vehicles over here to the rights of one that your eyes been tending toward right there's a tablet style interface and it's more than just tablet in its size and orientation it's also tablet it's muscle memory you got a home button at the bottom you drag down here to get your settings you go left and right to go to specialty screens on the left or all your vehicle and car functions go back one more to home go another one to right and there's all your infotainment functions it's a whole lot of settings for your different driver assist controls including parking including collision avoidance lane keeping aids reading road signs to get that up on the head-up display and things of that nature let's talk about the driver assist now since that's what's controlled they're the ones getting a lot of attention handles your injuries or hopefully prevents them if you go off the road but it doesn't prevent you from doing that that's already existing in lane keep and lane departure management this is one that handles spinal injuries if you go into those ruts on the side of the road at high speed so it's going to give you more of a crush zone underneath the seat it also cinches up the belt they say it's all about spinal compression protection there's automatic braking during left turns at intersections so if you're about to turn into someone and get yourself t-boned the car won't let you it's gonna cram on the brakes this is all camera and radar based the same camera and radar looking out front for pedestrians and cyclists both day and night and with automatic braking there's a rear-end protection system here you know it's the worst feeling in the world you're sitting there a sitting duck and you see someone's about to plow in the up and if that's the case it's gonna lock its own brakes to prevent its movement as a projectile and it's also gonna cinch up your belts to prevent your movement as a projectile pilot assist is similar to what a lot of carmakers are bringing out which is the first step of autonomy it'll handle adaptive cruise so slow speed stop and go and keep you in your lane and your drive controls in the xc90 begin in a very Swedish manner with an RO force crystal drive control handle which gets you into your PRN D and B high regeneration mode because we're in the electrified t8 here is your start/stop you rotate this thing and behind there is this nice little neural drum which you turn and click to get to your different drive modes now all-wheel drive is where you force it to go into AWD using that rear electric apparatus here's a mode that says don't use the battery I want it for later hybrid is kind of as you can imagine a mix of both for general use power is your sporty self explanatory mode here's a rough road mode again adaptive suspension all-wheel drive this vehicle can stretch itself various ways and you can set up and cook your own mix under individual so not only is that third row pretty credible I'm gonna have seen much smaller here's a sign of our times the middle seat in the second row can be moved forward and back forward so the little one back here doesn't get separation anxiety I wonder which country's market research told them they needed this I'm in the t8 right now some numbers on its electrification it's got about 17 miles of pure evey range what's interesting is it can run electrically in the right conditions up to about 80 miles an hour so it can be a full freeway electric car and your charge time if you've got a 240 volt high amp circuit which you're going to want for a plug-in car is about two and a half hours and of course it regens as you go none of these drive modes I find that the you know pure eco drives what you'd expect it's quite muted as you can imagine this power mode the sporty mode is the one that gives you your best engagement really feels the best but it won't be the most efficient I'm hearing a lot of sort of electric power train sounds which sometimes can be oddly intrusive whining sounds but I need to wait till we get a final us spec production xc90 in our hands to really judge this powertrain one thing I can tell you now you will hardly believe that there's a small 4-cylinder at the heart of this rig really comfortable ride and then a great job dialing in the quality of the ride now it doesn't matter what of the modes I'm in it's never harsh and it doesn't feel like it's weight to be honest this doesn't feel like the poundage that it reads on paper which is always a nice trick for a car now when I'm liking in this t6 that I'm getting a chance to sample is the lane-keeping technology that Volvo uses it's very nuanced it's very confident feeling that's going to be important as we roll out semi self-driving cars soon to consumers the vehicle feels like it is really in charge and knows what it's doing it's gonna go a long way toward getting people to leave the skeptical range and say you know what this works okay let's wrap up now five points that make the xc90 very notable first of all you see the whole new look it's a fresh face for Volvo and it's gonna have to make a market impression get inside you've got the new look and feel of the census Kinect technology under the hood they've made a bold move two four-cylinder engines not even big ones that have turbos and supercharging they've got the plug-in technology added to the t8 variant and finally they've got some state-of-the-art driver assist technology that in some cases nobody else has or at least has as aggressively this will be important cars to watch when the t6 arrives July 15 the t8 in October find our full take on the new xc90 over at car cnet.com well there's been a huge amount of tech innovation in headlights in the last 10 years or so but it turns out one of the biggest needed innovations is not technology but technique that of the smarter driver using those headlights we'll get into that when see that on cars continued well it's dusk evenings approaching you're about to out drive your headlights you're probably driving in the speed or what you can hit is out there beyond what you can see you can remedy it with better lights and more use of them a recent study by the Automobile Club of Southern California's Automotive Research Center says bottom-line better headlights should be standard on a luxury tech option they examine the real-world performance of three basic families of headlights first halogen headlights like what I've got here on the 88 Ford and what maybe 80% of cars on the road in the u.s. today have as well this high-intensity discharge headlights those are the ones give you that kind of whitish blue really intense beam and finally LED headlights which to be honest are still pretty exotic and rare they examine each kind of headlight technologies for its reach that would be how well it can illuminate something non reflective like an animal or a typically dressed person on a road without overhead street lights which by the way to couch for something like forty percent of the miles we drive each year they say the results well first of all halogen just doesn't cut it you can overdrive them as low as 40 miles an hour high-intensity and LED low beams extend illumination by about 25% beyond halogen high-intensity and LED high beams got out to nearly 500 feet and that covers you up to about 55 miles an hour and both those advanced types put out less light here in the US than the same ones on cars sold in Europe to regulatory things now the behavior piece is interesting they also found that most of us are kind of shy about using our high beams we're afraid to blind the guy in front of us there were too lazy to sit there and flick on flick off all the time so we overdrive our low beens typically but this is kind of a shame because your high beams can buy you 28% or so more reactions on that's really a big deal so three takeaways first use your high beams see if the next car you buy offers Auto high beams to do all the flicking for you second opt for high-intensity or LED headlights they really do make a difference in reach and third check your car for cloudy headlamp lens they don't just reduce your range they also scatter more glare at the other guy it pays to double check if your car has the most modern lighting technology especially buying a new one now if you're using your high beams and not getting lazy and ignoring them and realize that no matter what mode you're in you're very likely out driving your lights welcome back to see net on cars coming to you from our home at the Mount Tam Motor Club just north of the Golden Gate Bridge well is almost exactly a year ago we told you here on the show of the announcement of Android auto and now it's actually coming to showrooms for the first time in 2015 Hyundai Sonata it's a big step for the car maker and for the industry as this is part of the new vanguard of what you'll see in the dash and how it's going to get there let's see how Hyundai's done it first on the road to the future well here I am in my car with my Android phone and that combination normally means some hodgepodge Bluetooth connection for streaming and calling some contacts transfer some variable basket of apps with different interfaces and this thing clipped on the windshield or worse juggled in my hand here's how we go into the future this new Sonata has the first production rollout of Android auto an affordable car it all starts down here you cable your Android phone into the system as if you were going to charge it let's say it's not Wireless right now then you lose the phone look up here on the dash that icon just changed to Android auto when you press that you're about to enter the world of your phone but on the dash for example right here your home screen if you will is kind of a Google now look things you've done or looked at recently are relevant to where you are right now your round home button you recognize that from your phone your phone icon your nav icon here's music and here's a return to main screen you get over here to navigation you recognize that interface that's Google Maps your Google search box and this is live and connected through your phone plus the voice command to do that beautiful freeform search that we love that goes through the steering wheel AT&T Park San Francisco here is AT&T Park and of course the routing and traffic calculations the same ones you have on your phone but notice it's not literally taking the whole screen and putting it there it's artfully translating it to the automotive experience and limiting it to these main hits of apps calling is very straightforward again touch the call nice big Clear button interfaces as well to get things done on the touch screen over here under music it goes to your last streaming source from several on your phone and if you want to get to other choices it's got a drop-down next to it here are some music services with more to come now if you were listening to say radio before you hit Android auto it respects that and doesn't force you to suddenly switch to streaming customers have told us that's what they want so they want the phone experience that's where where their life is in a lot of ways their music their calendar the places they want to go it's in their phone so they bring that into the car and they bring it in a way that minimizes driver distraction the beauty of this is that it lets you live with your phone the same way in the car as you do outside the car okay so your initial takeaway on this is how consistent it is with the experience on your phone how it strips away things and aren't essential to driving you basically get what the big three here on the screen imported from Android also your interface is rock-solid you've got a bigger screen mounted with good touch response and integration to the voice command button on the wheel though blessedly the voice command is still handled by Google in the cloud not by a car system now specific to this car the cost will be nothing if you've got a 15 or one of the pending 16 sonatas this is a free retrograde or upgrade now that free upgrade has to be done at the dealer right now but later this summer Hyundai says they'll make a download available at my Hyundai comm and that it will be simple enough that you won't have to figure breaking your ride it takes a little bit of time a tree flashes the head unit you basically plug it in and you do nothing until you remove it when it's done and it will tell you it's done so really almost no interaction with the vehicle other cars will follow later within their lineup the other thing is you don't lose the other Hyundai features not in this car if you already have nav in the vehicle you get back your places icon and you can drop back down to Hyundai navigation all the Hyundai media the Hyundai radio choices so this is a dual stack strategy later on Hyundai will have something called a display audio system where they're going to strip out navigation and a few other bells and whistles and you get a lot of the Google goodness in there as a primary function not an added function and one of the most interesting things about this is that it may signal the beginning of carmakers admitting to some degree that they don't do mobile as well as the mobile company it would be essentially impossible for us to keep up with every infotainment option out there so by letting Google handle that we're able to bring used a variety of apps into the car and meet the customers needs send a message to Amy Johnson now the other shoe to drop soon is carplay which does basically the same things in the same way but on your iPhone Hyundai has that coming in early 2016 and the day after Hyundai put Android auto in showrooms Chevy announced virtually all its 2016 will offer Android auto and apple carplay by 2020 it's expected that 40 million cars will be running Android auto and nearly that many carplay according to a recent estimate by IHS automotive so here is our first case of the new vanguard apple carplay Android auto together they are a massively important story of Mobile's becoming consistent in the - and finally here hitting the market at a very affordable price point in a moment pick your tech turbo diesel or turbo gas and top five high tech cars we've loved so far this year when CNET on cars returns the gt3 has always had a special place in a lot of people's hearts where other 911s offer a great experience all round the gt3 offers a more hardcore time without being you know the actual race car in the back there's no real sign of any seats just a bigger roll cage it is quite noisy in here which for some it might be great for others it might great by more from the ex car team of CNET UK @c Netcom / welcome back to CNN on cars i'm brian coolie that point the show we take one of your emails this week it comes in from bob d who has a diesel versus gas truck question he says hi there brian i'm considering the ram diesel versus the up-and-coming ford f-150 with the 2.7 EcoBoost and expected 10 speed transmission i wonder about the price of diesel long term as well as the up charge for diesel engine versus the cost of a turbo v6 well Bob there's a few things I can look at here for you in a few I don't know that only you can answer first of all you got to take a look at first the up charge for the engine type it's about four thousand to get an eco diesel in a ram it's about eight hundred to get an EcoBoost v-six in the Ford look at the fuel cost in your area and you can do that very well from the government's Energy Information Administration website where they look at gas and diesel prices and do a nice job of showing them by region and by trend and of course look at the different fuel usage between the two power plants the best way to do this is to go to the EPA's fuel economy website and look at the fine print where it talks about gallons per hundred miles that's the best factor to use it's a lesser-known metric but that's the best way to say how much fuel am I going to eat up across a given amount of driving now the unknowables for me are which kind of torque do you prefer the kind that comes from that Ram diesel or the kind that comes from that turbo gas v6 and the four they they're both good grunty motors but they get there differently what kind of towing capacity do you need and will you have in the way you can figure either one of those trucks with your options and your bed and your engine and all that and you've also got a look of course at the total bottom-line price because you're not just gonna buy an engine and try and earn that back with fuel savings you've got to pay off the whole truck that's the real-world calculation and the unknowable for all of us right now is what mpg boost will the Ford get when it has the expected 10 speed automatic will it catch up to ram go from 26 to 28 or will it surpass it and get all the way to that magic 30 on the highway hard to say but it's also hard to imagine that a 10 speed transmission alone could make that happen well it's that time of the year we turn the corner into the summer months and wall a lot of folks take a vacation to a degree so does the car industry new car introductions quiet down quiet the next couple of months which gives me a chance to look back here our top five highest rated CNET review cars of 2015 so far number five the 2015 audi s5 getting a CNET score of 8.3 the v8 engine is gone but we love the 2015's supercharged v6 and of course the essential Quattro all-wheel drive on the downside this car's infotainment rig was a step or two behind other outies no 4G no touchpad no really big LCD track purists won't care otherwise you should number four the 2015 BMW 740il DX Drive in be number one on a list of most vowels it gets a score of 8.3 BMW has proved best that modern turbo Diesel's can be tuned for sporty performance and even this big car proves it that diesel torque feels like it shaves about 1/3 off the cars perceived heft while the cabin delights with I Drive 4.2 that has connected nav and about the best hood in the business number three the 2015 Audi a3 Cabriolet 8.4 score also an editor's choice that's right the lonely a3 ranks a couple notches above that s5 it's a great driver that doesn't just rely on its convertible top to make friends and the a3 was the first us Audi to bring us integrated 4G which utterly transforms Google Earth and Street View and live search oddly enough no voice command you would have figured a company this smart would have found some other place to mount the sealing microphone when the ceiling went away number two the 2014 BMW i3 gets a lofty 8.9 this one's gonna be a little controversial especially since there isn't an eighth after the letter i' it has carbon fiber underpinnings though and a dwell magazine like interior combining with iDrive and those interesting coach doors that make the i3 feel a lot bigger than it is it's a lot more money than a Nissan Leaf for about the same range but we got the range extender option which Nissan doesn't even along with several other aspects of this car before I get you to number one let's take a look at dead last our lowest rated car reviewed so far this year it's the 2015 Chevy Trax mini crossover a 6.3 not so much that it failed at its mission its that its mission is rather Spartan its LCD head unit doesn't even offer factory navigation there are almost no driver safety assist mpg wasn't even quite that good and that ugly black body cladding all around screams this is all I could afford but if that is the case you'll move a surprising amount of people and stuff for a little over 20 grand the number one car we checked out so far this year is the 2015 tesla model s p85d an amazing 9.3 score and an editor's choice adding a second motor to this car gave the big battery model s insane acceleration it says so right on the dash more importantly it gave it all wheel drive this is also the Tesla that ushers in their big move toward autonomy mostly via over-the-air software updates it's a near-perfect car if you buy into IDI religion at all the downsides include a $120,000 price none up seen that style and the fact that owning a Model S today is becoming kind of like owning a BMW in the 80s if you know what I mean thanks for watching hope you enjoyed this episode by the way quite a few of you asked where can I find a particular top five or car tech 101 those are all waiting for you at Z net on cars comm along with our full episodes so you can dive into each one of those specific areas and find just the topic you want if you haven't looked there already check it out we've got a lot waiting for you I'll see you next time we check the tech you