Gadgetory

a new Ferrari a new BMW M car a new Nissan add a new Fiat meanwhile Land Rover makes the book go topless these cars and more in our geneva auto show preview that's right folks on this car tech live march first 2012 we are going to be talking geneva auto show which happens next week yes I'm really looking forward to this not not only for the free trip Switzerland but definitely there there have been some interesting cars that have been popping up over this last week especially there's a lot of cars that we've been seeing we you know every car company usually releases a few photos or some sketches or some kind of indication of what they're going to be showing at Geneva but well the big one of course anytime there's a new Ferrari everybody goes crazy except for like no one seemed to really care about the California really i mean i like the FF but yeah the FF did it didn't have as much impact it didn't seem in the good the California can't get excited own it it's the porsche boxster of Ferraris the California is but what we're talking about right now is yesterday morning actually Ferrari unveiled on their own website the new f12 berlinetta one long alphanumeric mess of a name but it's basically their 599 replacement and it is the most powerful the fastest Ferrari that they've ever built is more powerful even than the 599 double X the race special that last week we said there's no way possible they'd match that because this one output 740 horsepower wow so that's just 700 they get it 740 Italian I don't know is nothing Italian something something to tell you I don't know if they basically have their they got the engines really light the I guess they're using a lot of the same technology that they were using in the 59 XX but then with the new v12 engine I think that they've kind of debuted on the on the FF that we just mentioned right they'll be using the direct injection and that which they've been using in their most recent cars to pump up the horsepower that more efficiency but no turbos in this thing now now all naturally aspirated right that's a classic Ferrari if you got 12 cylinders and you really need a turbo yeah what's a displacement on the 6.2 6.3 liters it's in between there depends on how far i choose to round that but it's like sixty two hundred some-odd feces Wow it's impressive that they can get that much horsepower out of this car yeah well I mean it's it's an f1 kind of thing you know it's a it probably makes a very f1e noise the red lines pretty lofty the interesting thing here also is that it's putting out somewhere in the neighborhood of five hundred and some-odd pound-feet of torque lost the number in there a little more horsepower a lot more horsepower than pork yeah which basically kind of lets you know that that all that horse I mean the way that works when you see that much more horsepower than torque you know the red line is going to be pretty high up yeah so yea high compression engine I'm sure you have this car looks looks I don't know i'm not sure if it looks good yet it's actually got some pretty distinct features distinct contour lines i don't even really like the side contour line and this is of course seeing a photo and lots of times you see a card person and it's like totally different experience yeah i mean it's actually looking more like a rendering i'm pretty sure that this this was have been heavily dr. to kind of bring those those contour lines to the to the forefront make them more uh more and more work obvious i guess someone someone mentioned that it looked like a snake with wheels and i can't unsee that now but yeah they've got some interesting sort of uh they've even though the engines in the front the transmissions in the back kind of like we were used to seeing in this class of ferrari vehicle so they've got the weight balance is biased towards the rear by about six percent the the vehicle overall is a couple hundred pounds lighter than the 599 that goes out and then they've also made it not only slippery ER through the air it has less a lower coefficient of drag but it also generates about two hundred and some-odd pounds more downforce so it it's both generating more downforce and generating less drag at the same time and they do some very interesting things to make that happen now they start with this thing called an air bridge at the front of the at the front of the vehicle that kind of like pushes down on the front of the vehicle but at the same time brings the air up and over the body so it reduces aerodynamic drag and also reduces that sort of pocket of air that you get is you behind the vehicle and then they also have these active shutters on the on the brake vents so they they break Vince at the front of the vehicle only open up when the brakes are hot so you're not just like generating aerodynamic drag cooling off brakes that are already cool when you're just blowing down the Autobahn for example right and he says these contours are probably mostly functional I imagine that you know like when the Nissan GTR came out they you know people comment on some of the weird minds and that but Nissan said hey every little bit was designed for maximum arrow efficiency and downforce and all this kind of stuff so everything really worked right well I mean there's probably definitely you know they work with pininfarina to kind of maintain the kind of style so it's like they want similar proportions to the 599 that's sort of like long hood the passenger sit way in the back the close to the center of the wheel well they want that GT car sort of sort of form factor so a lot of this is just telling me I'm pretty sure those headlights look that way because that's the way for I wanted them to look yeah but then yeah they also kind of brought their own sort of design center in on the design so that the the aerodynamic things are they want it to happen are also integrated in now what do you think of the face of this car I'm going to picture the front of it and it has a very distinct face it's got a big wide sort of grin little evil looking grin and certainly the headlights make eyes I mean they certainly have an eye look to them well I mean I think you kind of hit the nail on the head when you're talking about the side and I mean my personal opinion is that this is probably the ugliest vehicle Ferraris ever built it just it doesn't look good it just doesn't that's competing with the 308 but yeah not a good looking vehicle but I mean it does it looks purposeful yeah man it looks fast and who knows maybe it'll grow on me when I see it in person maybe nobody cares what I think because I can't afford a Ferrari anyway so I'm not really their target market well if you can't afford a Ferrari then there may be the BMW m6 which also will be a pretty good performance car they have a new one they just announced that's a little while ago and this is also should be at the show here this one so the 0 to 60 time with that Ferrari the new f12 is what 3.1 seconds i think they said oh yeah 3.10 262 yeah just take under 460 and the new m6 is 4.2 seconds so it's pretty slow compared Ferrari but yeah so this m6 is based on the new 6 series which we actually have one in the garage right now not the m6 but the new 6 series so it's got the same body lines is that new one but also has the M stuff like the kind of slightly bulging hood and some of the other things they're also boasting with this car though and I don't think this is going to be the case with the Ferrari with the m6 that they're looking at an average fuel economy about 24 miles per gallon yeah I think I did the math on the Ferrari I think it's like just under 20 highway because they're saying it's thirty percent more efficient than the old 599 so I went back and looked at the old 599 and added thirty percent to it yeah and about 25 well this new m6 will have the BMW z8 win scroll or a 4.4 liter engine with two twin scroll turbo chargers which gets a ton of power out of this thing though this is like the the engine on the m5 yeah it's sort of like four Scrolls total exactly and that's you know that's one thing that makes the the new m6 somewhat less exciting because it really has the same driveline the same character or the same technology driving technology as the m5 where the invite was pretty exciting in and of itself and if you don't want a sedan the the m6 definitely looks better than the last generation of m6 even though i still take she with the rear end of it um but I mean if you if you want that sort of like m5 vehicle but you just can't live with the idea of two more doors get an orange m6 right it's like the m5 oh that that's for family man oh yeah I want a race car I want left Headroom of course they also make the m6 in a convertible for you if you want that which convertible m cars make me roll my I just you yeah how can you got an odd I'm sure this will be a stellar performer although like most of the the Big M cars like this using them on the road is all is such a waste because when you're just driving around on public roads you you use maybe ten percent of the potential well as I understand the new m5 is really comfortable though oh yeah even if you're not using that potential that that trip to the track right is really nice yeah then once you get it on the track you can blow you can rip up your tires have you seen all those videos on YouTube comparing the the m5 to the GTR Oh No there's like all these videos on YouTube popping up where it's just like putting them hit the head and it's just if pure linkbait as if the cards do not belong in the same class for the money that i think i'd buy the m5 yeah interesting that well sir I mean I think if you my my rationale is the GTR is definitely a faster car but I think you pick up more chicks with the m5 right everybody look at the GTR do I like it fell out of an anime yeah you must be one of those nerdy car guys and when somebody rides in the passenger seat there going like let's take my car instead really rough let's take my jetta instead on the comfort mode yeah listen to the premium audio system well that's the dual personality nature of BMWs I'm always so impressed with those they they have sure they have their they're incredibly aggressive sport mode then you turn to change a few buttons and suddenly just like a drive through the country yeah just like me haha just like me just like you let's take it down a notch to something a little more pedestrian maybe okay mitsubishi there uh that's a bit she has been kind of crap crap but confused they've been a very confused brand yeah they they've been doing some weird things in the u.s. you know watching different cars and none of really quite caught on although they do have the I me which there you know was this kind of opinion of their green credentials and all of their Lancer variants are interesting and by Lancer variants I count the Outlanders right yeah and then that's kind of big become their their whole stocking guards I think they still make the Eclipse but i don't know why i think the eclipse I think it's due to be discontinued yeah but it's it I I mean the eclipses is a classic case of oh how the mighty have fallen yeah one of the the first real you know performance cars that you can get as a Japanese imports kind of become a two-door gallant now and this horrible right this set but the probably are going to launch something new at Geneva and they've just released a picture of the front of this car it's it's got some intriguing styling things and the idea is that they're they're relaunching sort of the brand in Europe is gonna my takeaway from this mmm that they will have a new line of cars they'll have new technologies new stuff to show up maybe you know hopefully a really cohesive brand identity will come out of this or they'll just start putting this news on their letter variants that could be too that might be the case it looks like it's this very is a very SUV look to the front end it does yeah so I mean I'm guessing it's like some sort of Outlander design steady yeah I think it could be that and I also think they're trying to maybe game more European market share so whatever we see there may not have any impact on the US market you know hopefully I mean I love like to see this company come up with some uh you know a cohesive vision and stuff like that do something kind of like he and Hyundai have done and really you know come out with new cars and new exciting cars but you know we'll see well they could like you know basically kill the Eclipse wait a couple years and bring it back awesome again that'd be great a smaller Eclipse cuz the thing got huge oh yeah bring back the all-wheel drive system that used to be optional it used to make it great and the small turbocharged engine and they'd have something to fight the ft-86 people will start caring about mitsubishi again and then from there they could go all I mean I guess they've got the Lancer the lancer evo kind of already is that yeah although I hear they're gonna that mean those rumors are going to discontinue the evo well me there's rumors that super is going to discontinue the WRX oh I think we may we may start this may actually be the beginning of the end for those like you know 3 400 horsepower all-wheel drive econo boxes which is too bad plumbing because we've got this new generation of veloster turbo and the genesis coupe people are starting to be more interested in real lightweight rear wheel drive vehicle so the genesis coupe turbo and the end the the toyota and subaru ft-86 colognes are probably going to fill in that space right but i also more efficient yeah but I think Anton mitsubishi Antoine is just giving you your prescription for success here that was the yeah the new eclipse the Eclipse back right you'll be whisked away to Japan to design this new car I think soon definitely I'm all over that nissan is coming out with a new vehicle in geneva this is actually a concept called the invitation but it shows what looks like a actually production level car although i was like if in an alternate reality nissan designed the fit yes this is what it would look like and it without a sense of scale this may be a smaller car yeah because i think the verse is about the same size of the fit and i don't really know if this is going to replace the Versa cuz it couldnt the verse that just came out right yeah I don't think this will replace the verse I believe this does look like it might be smaller because if you look at where the rear doors they come all the way back there's not much cargo area behind their right and this is sort of a very European thing to have you can either have rear seats or you can have cargo space but you know you can't really have both those would be like fiat 500 sighs yeah could be that would be nice actually a really cool like tiny city car that that sort of uh that class of vehicle is really hot right now yeah and I like the look of this design you know again a concept but it does show some some nice lines and all that and you know it'd be great to see Nissan actually come up with a coherent design language to get the same thing as all of their cars look like they were just designed by reaching into a box of design cues and pulling them out blindly right everything's different everything's I think yeah they're just you can't really there's no brand identity this is the problem here you look at you know three different Nissan's and it's like is that from the same company this kind of has some like Nissan Quest sort of things happening on the front and as much as I don't like the way the quest looks though that the sort of trapezoidal grille and and in you know the kind of the way that it works with the lights do work better on this smaller vehicle in my opinion yeah yeah like the cut outside of the way the girls would have cuts into the the headlight space which is actually a cue I've seen and some other design things coming out recent like taking their boomerang headlights and flipping them yeah and then using that to kind of mission with the grill so you know it's some interesting things going on there yeah and in a engine for this I would assume they've got that 1.6 liter direct injection they've been using in the Juke which could show up in something like this and give it great power actually probably more power than something this small really needs yeah definitely way more than this car would probably ever get to market with ya if it ever did get to market let's take it down a notch further well actually kind of up and down a notch right this is the new Fiat 500l so Fiat is taking the the 500 which they just launched in the u.s. recently small city car and stretching it making a bigger I'm so it's like the Fiat clubman yes exactly the 11 club in all it needs is the hospital doors in back yeah this is probably still about the same size as a regular Mini Cooper yeah I mean it's gonna be small i think yet it's probably not much bigger than the standard 500 either but it does have four doors and for headlights i just realized that i looked at a picture like 20 times and i just realized that it's got that sort of like dual hit like Nissan Juke thing going on there that that's you lookin yeah it's because it mimics the look of the running the guess those in the DRLs with the yeah the actual headlights and it's also got fog lights too so yeah just just like the Juke there are way too many lights out friday this is like those old Vespas where you put like a ton of lights I you know all over the front of them yeah definitely so you can see and but they really got like a Cooper thing going on here with the black the black pillars a contrast colour roof that makes it look like exploding so it's definitely a very Cooper alike in my opinion yeah the question is do people want a larger 500 I don't think people have figured out they actually want small five there are people who want a tiny car um and if they're looking at the Fiat 500s because it's tiny uh I mean well I mean granted the 500 is the only car that Fiat cells in America right now so I mean at some point they're going to have to add more models to that line up and let you know unless they just kind of want to be like sion and only have like three or four models and that's just it well I mean kind of like mini that many is based every car off their the original Mini Cooper and they're just slightly longer or slightly fatter or slightly I refuse to count the country man is being based off the original cover it's just it's styled similarly but it did that everything about that vehicle is just completely different and weird well let's sit in a second yeah we will get back to that actually I don't know if the 500l will come to the u.s. although I'd imagine they do need to pump up that line if the 500 proves successful it's certainly successful in Europe right ah toyota is actually showing off a couple of new cars or previewed a couple cards for geneva and we talked previously about a new small hybrid which seems like maybe a prius next gen kind of thing but they've also got a car a fuel cell car we haven't I heard about fuel cells in a little while this is the reason the FC v dash are the R stands for racing yes I don't think that this kind of has a somewhat Prius like roofline but actually everything from about the the front fender back looks like a Prius right but then it's got the strain front hood thing going on which I don't know almost looks like construction equipment yeah I don't know what's going on there it's I I don't even have the words to describe it for the the audio listeners it looks kind of like a whale with a mustache yeah there's a little bit of a boat's bow yeah yeah there's a little bit of yeah baleen sort of whale teeth down in some sections of weird stuff going on pictures yeah they did they haven't really said any specs for this car but it is interesting that they're saying we're still working on fuel cell cars and I think they want actually put the scar into production at fuel cell car into production in 2015 so I would assume that wouldn't be like full-on production is it would just be like some sort of like FCX Clarity least type program yeah it might be a you know fuel cell cars may be ready for production by mid this decade what two years from now yeah three years from now I can't do math today they will uh you know I mean I think there's going to be some test plates out there maybe they'll be on the same scale is like the electric cars you know there's certainly Nissan Leafs being sold but not in huge quantity and not in every region another story we have from Geneva this is kind of cool is that Mercedes Benz this is more of a text or emo of our kind of thing mercedes-benz has announced that for their new a-class they are going to integrate the iphone for the infotainment system and actually integrate siri with it they're going to have to integrate it well because if you look at the picture they put the i applied doc exactly where we hate it yeah in the dual of compartment where you can't actually do anything right if when you ever get in the driver's seat it's like you gotta reach way over plug it in always bring someone with you yeah then go like hey plug that in for me or just have an iphone just dedicated to being in the car you leave all the time sicard the second data plan and all of that but yeah like Nessa that one cool thing about this though is that people have found that trying to use Siri with their current bluetooth hands-free systems it doesn't always work because Siri needs a little more direct connection I guess right think the thing is if your car has its own voice command system and it doesn't defer to do whatever the the regular phones voice command system would be in any case then theory can't jump in so it looks like there are they just giving you an option to choose to use their voice come in or Siri it'd be nice if there was just a switch you know or like an option in a menu that you could kind of go to and go like hey I got an iphone I want to use Siri I don't really care about your command voice command system yeah I think I mean my takeaway on this is there really basing this new infotainment system in the a class which is not a car they sell here although they are thinking of selling it here around the iphone and series so it I mean and this is the kind of integration that people have been saying like my microphone is great I'd rather use that for my infotainment system so why aren't you giving that to me and I think they are you know maybe going in that direction and if that's something that works in a class it could certainly work in you know other other vehicles right further further up maybe trickle up sort of thing in its good exactly trickle upwards so if they're putting that much focus on the on the iphone this always as an Android user this always annoys me because it's just I understand the iphone is a very popular phone it's pretty easy to develop or because it's constant but I can't help but think like all right so something like a simple switch that says I want to use my phone's voice command system means that not only are you given that option to iPhone users you're also giving it to Android users because there's a perfectly good voice search or a number of purply good voice search apps on the android that can be accessed that exact same way you'd be killing two birds with one stone there same with windows mobile but by developing specifically for the iphone you're essentially saying to me as a non iphone user well if you want to use your phone in this car probably not buy it yeah well I we prepared to like work around whatever they've got in place well there's certainly I mean I found or talking to BMW for example who develops mostly the most of their app connections for iphone they're saying you know we'd like to develop for android but there's so many flavors and everything and it's hard to get any sort of standard out of it edge sounds like a cop-out yeah well yeah I mean they they'll come up with something soon certainly and you know if they get this voice yeah command working well then if that could be integrated well there's a lot of ways this could go but let's move on to our mini news from that will be at Geneva yes I've just a second ago I voiced a little bit of disdain for the mini cooper countryman and now I get to really kind of dive into that because man is actually going to be debuting a junk cooper works version of the countryman at geneva this year and it is the most powerful mini that they've I guess ever made it help with 211 horsepower that's only three more horsepower than a standard cooper countryman i don't know how much just the countryman weighs more than a standard like cooper coupe but i don't know if that 3 horsepower is enough to make up for the weight difference so they're actually cracking more power out of that JCW system though this is a four-cylinder twin-scroll turbo charged engine so i don't know if this is exactly the same one but i mean i think yeah i assume so one point six liters yeah it's got to be the same one maybe it's slightly different turbo because this has that over overboost function that we saw on some BMWs where for a brief moment your normal torque output is 207 pound-feet at max but if you need like a little bit of extra grunt for a you know a passing maneuver for example it can over boost the 221 so I think there's a new turbo in this vehicle right that is definitely a new new version of the John Cooper Works system so that that's pretty cool actually you know the most interesting thing I could take away from this is that eventually that engine will find its way in a proper mini but I mean this one this other than that I mean this is pretty much everything else you would expect from a john cooper works just been Shin tweaks a button that has sport on it you know red all over the interior this also has the all four wheel drive system so this is the first all-wheel-drive John Cooper Works vehicle ever also sounds like a rally competitor to me except for the fact that's only got 200 horsepower 211 horsepower which you need a little more in rally I suppose well i mean i think if not really yeah rally cars it's kind of really more about maintaining your speed and handling that's your balls out power well that's a one of the minis will be looking for in geneva the other one is a concept they show off recently they really some photos for and i don't know if i'm going to be too excited about looking for this one lady divisive everything it's the mini clubvan concept and they took a they started off with a mini club man and they changed the m2 a V 0 and then they just call it a day right they also would covered up the side windows in the rear which is like like you could have done that with a vinyl wrap it looks like they did it with the vinyl wrap yeah I mean maybe they just put some boards over the windows or something i'm pretty sure middle if they want to call it a concept but i mean as concepts goes it's pretty lazy yeah i think they still have the the rear seat even they they have the doors are in the same configuration the doors are in the exact same configuration is the club club man and you know there's not a lot of room in the back of the club club man to begin with so this club van doesn't exactly have a lot of room and actually whenever i have been thinking about this car for some reason webvan always pops up into my head failed grocery delivery service from the dot-com glory days i don't know i'm thinking i mean if you just didn't need to move a lot of stuff around like I need to have a cupcake delivery service yeah maybe but I don't really understand why you would buy this over a regular club men unless it was less expensive yeah unless they were just like hey we took the windows out so we're gonna charge you less for it or if there were there were a stripped-down trim a la ford transit connect where you just get it doesn't have anything in it yeah yeah this doesn't really get interesting this doesn't really get me excited about the mini bright I mean they've done much cooler concepts in the past this one okay I don't know but speaking of like that was a lazy concept this is probably in my opinion the stupidest concepts we're gonna see at Geneva this year it's the range rover evoque convertible concept um and it's just like someone at land rover looked at the murano crosscabriolet in the Fed that's crap but I mean yeah we could do it too right so they basically stripped the roof back on the Murano Burano on the range rover evoque a perfectly good crossover mind you and replaced it with a power folding hardtop they've also got a rollover protection system so if you the vehicle detects it's about to flip over hoops pop up on the rear passenger so you don't crush yourself mmm but other than that is the exact same car with a convertible top and it's like this something you expect to see it's seema and if it's just like hey like I we basically got rid of all of the trunk space in the range rover and made it less useful right you except to get that hole open air thing which they leave oak at a pretty bit the milk had a huge glass glass roof I mean you don't get air was like one your windows down here about 80% there yeah and you can see this guy and everything this you can just see all around maybe this is like a beach cabana sort of drive around the thing about for c convertible is there only really good for the first two passengers in the back seat it's just like all that wind comes with the cleaning directly into your mouth right you don't want to be on the freeway instead so it's like you get two seats back there that no one's gonna want to sit in any way i don't know i think it's done yeah y'all get there i'll look at it and i'll sit in the fed this is the car for me i think what they should have done better here is just instead of doing the whole convertible risk just remove the roof just like all together yeah just you know maybe have some canvas you could air with her own hole up over like a range rover evoque spider oh you don't think it had done actually has made the whole interior weatherproof so it could rain it could snow in the thing it wouldn't matter wouldn't like mess up she's like a jeep wrangler exactly what you want I guess Jeep already makes that yeah alright well that reedom top on this that is our Geneva preview and my headphones are falling off my head yeah that is our Geneva preview will be there next week posting will have a special package up on cnet com showing all of our coverage from the show that will start on Tuesday will be posting from the show Tuesday and Wednesday of videos blog post photos all sorts of stuff everything we can find at the show that's cool so he's trying to steal that lytro camera from price that would be awesome did give it its first real test in a real situation yet but let's go on the road now we are on the road in the BMW 328i this is the new engine the BMW is putting into the 3-series in the low end they are bringing back the four-cylinder to the US which they haven't had here for years right so as we've been seeing over years 28 no longer means 2.8 liters in this case we've got a two liter so it's a about the thing side of the engine in a regular Honda Civic yeah but it is that got direct injection so they're more precision there in the beating of the fuel better efficiency and more power right and also a twin-scroll turbocharger which BMW has been using a lot lately yeah so it's a geared more towards comfort no images anywhere so I'm guessing there's no support plus mode so you just got regular sport you got normal and eco pro which is actually I think what BMW wants you to pay the most attention to because they put the pro suffix on it yeah and you know part of the thing with this new engine two is that you can get an average I think fuel economy is something like 25 36 and you can get a fuel economy average of about 30 miles reality in this car if you drive it normally I mean if you're always hammering it now you won't get that good but you know normal driving i'd say about 34 a BMW right so we've got a couple of efficiency technologies at work here the first is there like efficientdynamics regenerative system which kind of ditches the alternator in favor of a regenerative braking system so you don't have that alternator drag all the time when you're driving the second is a start-stop system so when you come to a stop at a light for longer than a couple of seconds the engine will actually shut it off off and re-engage Sue's you lift your foot off of the break fortunately there is a button right there and you're the start/stop button now lets you turn that function off yeah now we have all the electronics in this car this car is pretty well optioned up so we have a screen here actually I think the screen is standard but we've got a navigation system which has good 3d maps and all the stuff we've got a nice Harman Kardon audio system too and a lot of audio sources as well I we pretty much got the full range of audio sources bluetooth streaming even that Pandora integration which is nice yeah there's a BMW apps thing that lets you use an iphone to get all sorts of music integration with this car and one of the coolest things that one of the new things is this that I'm looking at right in front of me projected on the mirror I can't see it I thought when I was in the seat and it is really cool it's kind of a can show your speed as you're driving along so you have to glance down at your speedometer if you're doing turn by turn direction that kind of show the the next turn the distance to the turn of the street name is you're looking for and it's also in color so it's a really cool so that is the new 2012 BMW 328i which is as we mentioned a pretty drastic change over the previous one is they've dropped a couple cylinders from the engine right they've also kind of tweaked to styling a little bit on the outside I think you look I don't know if I think it looks better or not but I like it I you know it's not drastically different than the three Serie than the original 3-series I guess some BWW aficionados might be like going oh this is way different but you know I mean they lowered the front down or the front end down a little bit yeah it looks like but the hood has a slightly more prominent look the grill seems to be a little narrower or not quite as high so but yeah I think it's a good look yeah I mean it definitely looks I think it looks better when you start adding the sporty or things onto it the bigger wheels for the the 335 or you know the when you start getting into you know the this sort of m sport package the more aggressive front building that the lower air dam but I guess in the 328i biggest luxury trim is that what we had yeah this is the luxury law design yeah and I would have preferred to have the sport line because frankly even though this thing did handle well I did feel that the suspension was a little bit floaty a little move too little too much in the corners well mean it kind of like place to the the 3-series being all things to all people for some people I mean it is just like a really nice alternative to a Camry its just oh yeah well it's just like I looking at Alexis you know such and such but then I decided to get the BMW because it's just got a nice three interior you'd be amazed how many times I hear people say that they're not thinking about the ultimate driving machine and so by basically kind of splitting the the vehicle into those different lines and yeah I think it's interesting that they're doing this sort of line thing instead of trim levels yeah well I guess in addition to trim levels they allow the vehicle to kind of let people to kind of cater the vehicle to what they're looking for right and and like you're saying I think this is a car I mean that through 28 has often been a car for the the person who isn't really like really in the BMW's or isn't really into you know aggressive driving or anything like that they just want something transportation it looks nice and they hear BMWs are good quality so and they got money to spend right what did you think of the auto stop thing it only really happened once while I was driving it and did I mean it I it didn't really bother me yeah I was a little the first time but the only time it happened I kind of looked down and went oh I don't start that's interesting and then I took my foot off the brake and I went on my way and I would assume that over time I would just kind of either stop paying attention to it or just get used to it force I mean I feel like if they put a button right there and you're the start/stop button lets you turn it off so if you're the kind of person who just really if you're in a rush and you're going to be like taking off from every light with everything the cars guy turn it off and it won't really bother you but I think I think it's good that it's an option yeah o our missing can Patriot here Brian Cooley love the button the turn off that idle stop he hated that idle stop function it certainly I found it certainly made itself felt the car you know when it when the engine shutdown he felt it when the engine kicked in you really felt it and you didn't really feel the same thing like in the buick lacrosse had recently which also shut off its engine at stop lights and stop signs and wherever you happen to stop that was a lot smoother mm-hmm this BMW was not the whole idle stop experience was not smooth now i think in Europe they're sort of used to this behavior they don't mind it so BMW saying you know what's good for Europeans is good for Americans yeah well I guess I suppose I think from from my frame of mind I haven't driven very many cars that have the feature that aren't hybrids and when you're in a hybrid you can cheat so it's just like oh yeah the engine shuts off and you can stop on the gas and the vehicle start moving immediately because you're cheating with electric power yeah with this I feel like it would take a mental switch to know that you can't just go off brick on the gas just like if you can't be late has to be like a I'm off the brake the engine started now i'm on the gas and it i think just in America we're kind of used to like green go Fran it's just sometimes you the lights green and you have to make sure no one's got to run the light and it's just you know that extra half of a second I think people were just so afraid the car behind them is gonna start beeping because they're in such a rush that you know that people are kind of a little bit weird about taking that extra half a second right just kind of get the car going smoothly well that's one thing I found with this car is just because I'm was very sort of aware of what the engine is doing I would lift off the brake and wait for word does it really feel that engine kick in and come up to full power before I push the accelerator and I don't think I needed to wait quite that long and it's certainly nobody was really Hawking me because the way people drive in most cities it's just like oh wait the light turn green Oh behind your texting yeah exactly it's a yeah there wasn't any urgency to get off from the light you know what's up for myself and so I didn't really have fine it troublesome or difficult to keep up with you know people leaving off the light but it yeah it is a little bit of a hesitation and is a little weird and you know it's hard to sort of judge where that is now see this is the thing I think is that people you know your casual buyers of this car who maybe don't really know how an engine works well I would say like this is weird why is it doing this and they'll go to the dealership and say like can you fix this in the dealer will I hit the button right exactly like 600 bucks that's a BMW dealership right so I mean I don't know I think that's kind of one of those things that I think would be explained when they hand you the keys to the car like oh yeah it's got start/stop function so you save fuel that may be as much explanation as you get during the buying process but I feel like if someone lets you know that then I don't think people just be caught off guard with it now it'll definitely happen during the test drive yeah what one thing I notice tutoring it's idle stop when that was engaged is that the wheel you can't really turn the wheel because it's still hydraulic boosted power steering really yeah I haven't made the jump to electric like everyone else yeah apparently not but if you did really tug the wheel around hard like if you really wanted to turn the wheel usual start back up yeah what oh that's awesome yeah because it would realize oh but we need boost here so it would take a little bit long but you know would do it yeah I wonder if this just like you know laziness on POWs part or it is like the hydraulic steering helpless prenup reserved our ultimate driving machine cred hi thing yeah I mean and I'm it behaved like a hydraulic steering boost I can't imagine it is electric but it is interesting that they have held back on that if they have because I think other companies have done a decent job of tuning electric power steering systems and you know if you're using boost its you know there's already some interference from the real Road feel but I think BMW wants to stick to that hydraulic boost for preserving one more generation yeah that'll happen eventually well I'm sure they'll go to electric eventually and it's itching to because this car was getting that we're averaging like 30 miles per gallon which is great and if they added electric power steering that might boost it even more couple miles per you coming well maybe like one or two yeah I mean not a lot every little bit counts though when you're you're trying to reach 40 certainly trying to reach a cafe so whatever cafe wants them to do in a couple of years every little bit counts right last thing I kind of want to discuss about this car is the app integration which is cool you saw me I was actually driving a different BMW starday but I was twittering tweeting like I'm gonna be arriving in 20 minutes yeah it was like can tweets from the car this has that to the app system where it only works at the iphone which leaves out half of the populace but it's kind of cool stuff it does integrate with Twitter and Facebook and it was funny actually I was looking at my Twitter feed on the screen I saw your tweet about the Ferrari that 12 that we just talked about earlier and that was on the screen so I selected it and then there was an option to make the car read out the tweet uh wonder how it pronounced if Jill berlinetta it I think they did AAA at that point that it took I should try to pronounce the or tried to read out the URL of the picture nice too but it was a female's voice so I was hearing your tweet in a female voice hmm it was pretty funny but it was smooth it was a very good rendering of the text in and it didn't sound robotic at all these tweets look really robotic I'm looking at now is like it's cold out 50 degrees Fahrenheit and I'm driving my BMW yeah i'm online in my BMW with BMW connected arrives and arriving at the street address in all caps at about 350 pmo surprised that tweet doesn't say in my BMW yes a lot of them do although I was looking at the app that lets you do that kind of stuff and I think you can edit the templates as well oh yeah the first thing I would do is take in my BMW off for the end of every day yeah it was a it was an amusing time out there and I could actually retweet to every tweeted your uh oh yeah I meant to ask you that if you if you'd actually done that retweet from inside of the vehicle oh yeah everything very interesting all right well that is the BMW 328i that well let's take a look at what's in our garage XE that review is that but looking up in the cnet garage we just can we the reviews of that 328i that review is up posted videos up and the twitter yaris antoine spent a good amount of time in that car finding out all its virtues in I got 11 virgin in the car the hits ago next up we have our in the graduate now we have the BMW 650i this is the new sixth series of 2012 60 Ruiz so good time driving that car a lot of good stuff there tons of technology oh and then coming up well we've got our Geneva show next week so we look at a lot of cars not driving any but we'll beat the duty of a show that's been car tech live for march first 2012 I've been wind Cunningham here in studio with antuan goodwin and Mitch Tang at the board you can take a look at our show nuts look at the stories we just discussed get a preview look at the geneva show at car tech cnet com you can also follow us on twitter you can follow me i am waveform WWAY WWAY for any huge under grint that yet sort of Antoine is aunt hbu a and t g 00 and brian cooley who is that gonna be on the show for a little while I think we'll have to catch up with them at some point Brian Cooley frankly just one word on Twitter