Gadgetory

or GT a real lesson in lightness cars that are allergic to accidents Wow and worrying about parts for your car down the road time to check the tech EC cars differently you 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 CNN on cars welcome to see net on cars to show all about high-tech cars and modern driving i'm brian coulis well it wasn't that long ago that we first met the new Ford GT January 2015 at the Detroit Auto Show where it was an unexpected surprise unveil and the initial story was lots of power audacious styling exotic materials to be honest we've heard that song before in the supercar cannon what was really interesting was our more recent trip to Ford Silicon Valley Research Institute where we got a look at the car from a different angle and learned that less truly is more when it comes to the new GT let's face it we hear about lightweight technology in the auto industry all the time but for most car buyers it doesn't really print but what lightweight is all about is everything that a vehicle is all about better performance better fuel efficiency which leads to lower emissions and better handling dynamics in every direction the vehicle goes committed to this epic is becoming for GT 600 plus horsepower from a turbo v6 mounted in the middle on an aluminum subframe behind a carbon fiber centered tub driving the rear wheels to be honest that architecture has been done before and you can buy a 700 horsepower Dodge Challenger for 60 grand so what's really going on here it's how the new GT will seek performance by burdening itself less lighter weight and less envelope the vehicle's physical outline it's the essential story of this car now ROG this is such a big effort got a car with incredible performance but it's got less weight less bolt right so our performance you know now is a lot about efficiencies if you look at our latest f-150 all aluminum body we took more than 700 pounds out of that vehicle and there all the attributes get better when you take weight out improve your fuel efficiency we can soften up the suspension the ride gets better so it all feeds on itself some of the parts we're seeing that you're also displaying here have a lot of carbon reinforced plastics things that were exotic and used in small volumes you're seeing this is a high-volume technique to make a lot of parts in affordable cars well we can use performance vehicles to prove out some technologies then bring it to high volume iterate the designs take those learnings and bring it to high volume mainstream manufacturing so what used to be went on Sunday sell on Monday is now lightweight on Sunday absolutely for the engineer it's it's win on Sunday and then take that and mainstream on Monday how important is it to use carbon fiber versus aluminum carbon fiber is lighter and it's strong and as a designer what it does is give me greater flexibility to create unique forms that I can't create in steel and aluminium one of these flying buttresses are one that you point out why couldn't you have made those flying buttresses out of aluminum we hear that all the time we couldn't have done that in metal steel or aluminium needs to be pressed it needs to have you need to have a die and it's and you have maximum draw depth and then you have radiuses which which are really restricting based on your maximum depth of draw it would tear or be too thin yeah we too thin I wouldn't get the draw depth between between this point and this point yeah in a tool put the first things you notice is you come back like so is this thing gets real narrow real fast in fact you could reach across and touch the other glass it's three key factors in creating the ultimate performance call one is lightweight second is aerodynamics it has a really really tapered cabin it's really narrow at the cabin and it allows us also to manage the airflow much better than on a traditional full volume car this tapering here helps the wind to see less car yes as it's coming yes we would normally think the face is kind of where it all in so a normal car you would fill out this volume that you just ever because would be here but imagine how much that's a foot that's yeah on each side which I'm not pushing through the air we're managing the airflow to direct it straight onto the aero devices like the real witches and we hear so much about light weight of products but it's also light footprint the rage in supercars these days has been hybrid Porsches 918 Maurice laferrari the McLaren p1 but to stay light and lean Ford skip the added motor big battery in the inverter that would have meant weight and volume to put somewhere less under the skin means less skin to move through the air main reasons we chose this engine is it is compact it's one of our you know mainstream engines yes it's got a little bit you know few of the components a little bit more exotic with a little more the foundations of this car are the same that's in your f-150 and it allows us to shrink wrap all this body around this engine it also produces high power over 600 horsepower from this engine it's also fuel efficient if we didn't need the extra two cylinders why do why do we need to put them on if they added weight and they added fuel consumption yeah yeah I did we need them as I look at it here I see these buttresses come back and they seem to almost be supporting these these pods over the rear wheels what's in there is an intercooler there's a vent a grill on the front it's real isn't it's an intercooler and ray later the air feeds through the buttress so it's not just that that is your bleed off to go in into the air feeds into that your intake run yes so we exhaust the air through the middle of the lamps these engineering ideas created great aesthetic design ideas you know it's it's a beautiful looking thing yeah right but it's also clever and innovative and in it and that balance between looking amazing but also delivering a clever solution is what this car is all about now lightweight technologies do have some hurdles they tend to be exotic in terms of rapid workflow and production they tend to be more expensive right now as we've heard about some of the carbon fiber technologies and let's face it the auto industry is one that is known for inertia doing things the way it's done things although that's changing quite a bit lately still the GTS wholesale light weighting approach is a leading-edge look at what is and will increasingly happen to mainstream cars light weighting is no longer optional or limited to cars in the stratosphere like this it makes every motion a car accomplishes better and does it with less energy now all the specs and hard details I know you're craving like its performance numbers and of course its price are still out in the future away this car doesn't go into production for 2016 and arise as a model 2017 and you can bet they'll be spoken for prior to hitting showrooms now we may differ on self-driving versus the joy of driving but nobody takes any joy in the dumbest part of driving a collision but your next car may not even allow them as the smarter driver we'll find out when you see that on cars returns along the way to the fully self-driving car we're going to make a few stops one of which will be the crash proof car the concept is a car with sufficiently sophisticated driver assist technology that it can avoid or alert you to avoid almost any collision ESP initiates a one-sided braking intervention that can move the vehicle out of the danger zone that's a talent that is distinct from being able to drive itself Volvo's new xc90 for example is a first step toward its goal of crash free or at least injury from crash free cars by 2020 among the tech to get it there is automatic braking to prevent frontal collisions automatic braking to avoid turning left into oncoming traffic pedestrian and animal detection Road edge and barrier detection adaptive cruise control with steering assistance and vehicle-to-vehicle communications none of this is science fiction although the v2v technology is still being brokered between regulators and car makers at CES Ford gave a very realistic look of coming v2v technology that can let cars signal each other Wow providing another layer of inputs to help them avoid collisions really important and efficient way to run someone is the audible warnings I heard a difference of room shaking okay which means get out the way warning exactly yeah BMW is showing how an array of laser scanners looking out from around the car can detect almost anything that is about to occupy the same space as the vehicle the purest definition of a collision from another car to a pedestrian to a wall we need to keep in mind that the driver is the best sensor that we have however drivers do time to get distracted and we need to bring him back into the loop which we do by providing the warning and assisting him with the braking situation the European Union is aiming for zero road fatalities by 2050 and sooner than that cutting them in half by 2020 largely relying on these kinds of technology bundles even in showrooms today it pays to double check if the car you're considering buying has as many of these technologies as possible on the march toward crash proof driving welcome back to CNN on cars coming to you from our home at the Mount Tam Motor Club just north of the Golden Gate Bridge well it's early days for the Apple watch of course and separate from Apple's incursion in the dash with their carplay technology the watch is already getting a bit of a head start on a lot of wrists as a way to make driving perhaps a little easier hopefully a little better makes for a good car tech 101 Apple's Tim Cook has gone so far as to suggest that this their watch well one day replace the keys to your car and that elaborate wireless remote we're not quite there yet however even in these early days we're seeing a fair number of apps being offered by car makers and other car technology companies to hopefully make driving a little simpler a little easier a little better because you're wearing something smart on your wrist BMWs eye remote was the first Apple watch car app we ever saw it came out on the debut day of the watch and it works with the company's eye line of highly electrified vehicles you can do what is basically telematics that you're used to on your phone but now on your wrist check the charge of your car lock the doors unlock the doors get guidance back to where you parked it precondition the climate you can do that easily cuts an electric car doesn't really need to start the engine in any sense and you can also see how the charge is going to map out to where you might want to go the car will even through that watch app suggest the best time to leave to use the least electricity to get there but again not really anything you couldn't do on your phone already ditto for Porsches app which is the same basic basket of telematics although it works in a broader more conventional array of their cars they apply it to Cayenne makan and a few others as well as their 918 hybrid supercar but we're basically still in the telematics area Hyundai's blue link app is actually on Android first since that was the first SmartWatch platform of any scale but as of our show today it's still in the process of being ported to Apple watch now automatics a popular app you put on your phone it talks to an obd to wireless dongle you stick up under your dash and it gives you all kinds of information about your trips your driving style for economy or safety also where you parked your car and which trips you want to tag as expensable for business now in terms of their watch app they've chosen to keep things pretty lean and taken just those last two functions where's my car and tag this trip as business expense and port those to the watch as the primary functions they can bring everything there they're just not sure it all belongs here which i think is good savvy restraint now pay by phone is one of the class of connected parking apps that lets you check your status of the meter feed the thing find parking spaces in some cases of these apps it seems like a natural to have on your wrist that's when you're away from the car but you want to have a very quick glanceable reminder that hey your time is running out and perhaps you can extend the time right from your ribs now you don't have to buy a new car to use Apple watch with it add-on telematics makers like Viper for example know that porting their existing phone apps to Apple watch is a sexy headline allowing you to go to your wrist to unlock precondition or get the location alerts about your car that you already can get on their phone app and command a lot of these things by voice again not new but different okay a couple of organizing principles to help you think about where the watch fits in your driving first they have two basic locations one is wall driving glanceable on your wrist which tends to already be up high and in your view while you're driving tends to be good ergonomics and keeps your gaze roughly where it should be if those notifications are worthwhile the other area is of course out of the car when you're away from the vehicle and you need something to very quickly and cleanly remind you that if you need to get back to your car time running out on your meter or an easy way to get back to where your car is if you forgot where you parked it or tell you if it's charging or needs to be charged and then you've got two competing areas of platforms that are coming to compete with other perhaps augment the watch and that would be things like apple carplay and android auto which are going to bring a lot of this smartphone DNA to a richer fixed display in the dash that is better integrated with the car you've also got to keep an eye on head-up display which car makers are going headlong to adopt and that can give you an extremely elegant presentation information right where your glance already is and should be and again highly integrated to the vehicle either way the watch is showing some early legs for the driver but as with most of its modes that it's promising it is yet to promise that it is better not just different from how we're doing things now in a moment how old is too old when it comes to buying a used car when seen at on cars returned what Jaguar needs is a small family exec saloon something to really hammer home to the Germans just how good Jags could be and it hopes the XE is the car for the job it's taken all its best bits and put them right where the Germans can see them now two questions remain is it worthy of wearing a Jaguar badge and should the Germans be afraid can answer both of those with one word yes buy more from the ex car team of CNET UK at cnet.com slash welcome back to CNET on cars i'm brian coulis so time on the show we take one of your emails and this one comes in from Luke M who's riding in from Pennsylvania got a question about older cars and parts he says when buying a used car that he intends to last a long time how old is too old what I mean is he says what is too old when it comes to repairs due to brittle or worn parts well Luke I can't speak to any particular car about how fast it will age there's too many variables about the car itself what make model and year how it's been driven how many miles how many years and in what kind of climate I have to leave that to you but as long as parts are available for whatever car you buy you're generally in pretty good shape to either do it yourself find them an expensive shop or go to the dealer but as an owner myself of mostly older cars my youngest is 13 my older ones are 47 and 48 I can tell you that parts availability is kind of the linchpin to keeping a car running and doing so affordably let's talk about the parts world automakers generally are on the hook to make a full array of replacement parts as long as a given model of car is out there under warranty now those warranties will vary dramatically some car makers are three year warranties some are ten years and you've got different warranties for emissions bumper to bumper and powertrain so that's kind of your universe of fresh off-the-shelf new parts now once your car has been out of production so long that the carmaker no longer builds a lot of parts for it you've got five other avenues to keep it running and to keep the right parts on it first of all you got the aftermarket these are companies that make parts that are virtually identical to the factory parts but they're not made by the factory next is remanufactured or what they could also call recondition these are old parts that came off a car worn out and got rebuilt up to hopefully factory spec to have another go down from that you just get plain old used parts that may still have plenty of life in them we used to get these at junkyards exclusively now you get them at eBay as much as you go to the boneyard and carry your wrenches around and pull your own parts the ladder is a lot more fun than going online but maybe not as fruitful there's a concept of nos this is new old stock that means a part that was sold new by the dealer or the factory but never moved off the shelf it's obsolete now but there may be a little bit of stock out there these are prized by a lot of folks that have older cars you can find these again typically on eBay or from specialty nos parts retailers and finally if your card cheats classic status and has enough people out there that own it there will be companies that retool to make parts for it again they often buy the tooling and the dyes from the factory or the factory supplier and they're making virtually identical new parts again but this is a bit of a crapshoot your car has to be among those that achieves true classic status and have enough folks crying out for the particular part that you want made again the bottom line to keep any old car running and flush with parts that you need is popularity I'd rather chase down parts for the oldest Accord then for the last model near core it's a matter of numbers if you have enough people who drove the car for enough years there's enough residual demand for many cases decades to keep the factories cranking out the parts thanks for watching hope you enjoyed this episode keep those emails coming on cars at cnet.com we use a lot of your input for the topics of our show segments we're also open to your suggestions about new segments you like to see us cover I read every email respond to as many as I can I'll see you next time we check the tap you