Gadgetory

not that many years ago the greatest luxury you might expect from a Korean car is that it would run two days in a row things have changed let's give an example from Kia where they're raising the bar with a new top-of-the-line model the 2014 cadenza we've got a pre-production sample let's drive it and check the tach Hyundai has the Genesis and Equus sedans kind of way up market this is gonna be a new high watermark for Kia they don't have anything in this space until this guy drops so this is going to redefine what a Kia is now head designer Peter Schreyer from Audi has put some real nice sharp lines and kind of young urban tones on this car that said the overall shape and design is not revolutionary it looks like kind of a melange of GS and five series and a few other cars that are on the market today whatever their convex kind of like this bulging out at you to me that communicates an older kind of a car an older customer when they're concave like so that tends to feel sporty-er to me I don't know if you agree or not but this car is definitely in the former it kind of bulges out to you very much like a Mercedes does this day and age and I think it prints a little stayed in here as a result now within all that you've got two screens we'll get to the head unit in a minute the surprising one is that digital speedometer cars at this price point don't normally have one of those it's all LCD which means that the center of that gauge can become an info display for anything from your next navigation direction to your media state what's playing right now alerts from the car in terms of its own maintenance needs almost anything can show up in there and it's a really beautiful piece of LCD on the other hand that dial gauges around it start to look even more dated because of what's in the middle now into the main event this head unit here of course is the latest hyundai-kia rig with UVO eServices but let's start with the basics that's a great-looking navigation screen it calls out street names really well underway the navigation is exceptionally clear as it shows you the next event coming up it's almost doing a sort of a Sim City to show you the next intersection or what have you it's really top-notch in that respect but it does not have any of that 3d bird's-eye stuff that's an interesting omission Kia does not use a controller like I drive or anything you just use touch or voice touch command on this guy is rather quick not the fastest I've run across but very crisp but the real star here is the voice command this is arguably as good or better than any I've driven yet even BMW check it out navigation navigation street address find address 235 second street San Francisco so as you can see I convert out entire street addresses I can say two three five or 235 and understands both there's a lot of good smart comprehension in this system let's get to media now you've got am/fm and satellite radio of course with a very clear display is one of the least busy you're ever gonna see when you have an HD station pulled up you do have the tagging button so you can tell your iPod to tell iTunes to remind you later to buy the song there is an ability to rip to a hard drive here nobody cares it displays HD radio stations very well in terms of the one two even three channels they're sending out under media you're gonna find access to your aux jack your USB port here on the dash for iPod or thumb drive you've also got bluetooth streaming audio of course all of this stuff is standard as is rear camera has his navigation on this car by the way what we're missing though is any sort of apps base no Pandora no Yelp no Google services nothing like that what you do have is UVO eServices which are mostly telematics you can use your phone app with this car to remember where it's parks you don't lose it to do maintenance updates to do emergency roadside service requests off your phone but that's more in the telematics world not the infotainment apps world that is really hot today so this car is a step behind in that respect and it's interesting because the new Kia Soul also a 2014 will at least have a Pandora app support in an almost identical head unit but this car doesn't have that now one last note this car is a tech trim level that's not a package it's a trim level of the vehicle they're gonna be bringing to market and that rolls in three major technologies adaptive cruise control so you can maintain speed and distance and it's interesting the digital speedometer here will show you with a yellow band on the speedo where you have your cruise control speed set it's very digestible you've also got departure control for lane drift and blind spot technology both of those though are passive they do nothing to bring you back into your lane they just beat like hell and make little lights up in the bow we've got nothing too dramatic in terms of hyundai-kia they've been doing direct injection gas engines for a while that's what we have here 3.3 liter v6 front-wheel drive on this guy rear-wheel drive tends to be what the competition does on the German side but that's not where they're going 293 horsepower 255 foot-pounds of torque good numbers we don't have 0 to 60 or the weight of the car dialed in yet because this guy is pre-production but we do know it 20 to 28 is the expected mpg according the key is testing not bad for a big boy with a lot of mass to move around only one transmission choice at this high-tech trim level which is a 6-speed automatic with interestingly no sport modes so you do have paddles on the wheel but what really intrigues me is you can get a base trim cadenza with a six-speed manual now that's interesting let's hit the road how do you know you're a pompous ass when you're shopping for one of the Affordable Mercedes models but refused to consider a Kia or a Hyundai those days have got to be over because this car is an absolute contender in what they call a the the near luxury or near premium class it's not the really high-dollar boats but the cars that are really much finer than an Accord let's say and the standard vehicles of 4-door variety this is a really nice car in specific the power comes on in a very smooth linear fashion there are no hiccups and no hesitations on the other hand the transmission does mute that performance or responsiveness to a degree that's where I like to have a sport mode instead all you have are various versions of manual mode that's not the same thing and for the most part I think Kia's got the ergonomics down in fact this is one that I rarely see the visibility out of this car is actually quite good never mind the fact that it's got a standard rear camera you almost don't need it and that's pretty rare this day and age and every control and button falls to hand properly and then that is backed up by a ride that is firm enough to be to feel young and to feel like it's not an old person's car but at the same time insulated enough from the road so that it's a refreshing enjoyable car to drive in everyday commuting I think they've got a nice balance here but of course I've got to see what the pricing is for real and I also want to know how the final delivery is going to be on all this technology this car is still pre-production as of the day we're shooting today so I don't have any hard prices for you he is telling us low 30s faced with that fascinating six-speed manual low forties loaded up on the tech trim which will be their top-end car so pre reasonable for the amount of Technology performance and I'd say refinement in this vehicle we'll wait to see a final production version to see how the pricing works but I have a hunch I would take almost all the tech options because of the value and how well they seem to work