Gadgetory

I'm rain coming to him here with antuan goodwin at the 2012 new york international auto show we got some pretty nice cars behind us there's a mclaren an aston martin and ugly aston martin yeah no ugly mess today Aston Martin's there's a Bugatti over there pretty nice stuff but we're not going to talk about those we're gonna talk about some of the new cars they've actually shown off here none of these are really new yeah that's the same thing is this show has been all about like regular cars that regular people drive I mean pretty much everything here is something that you'd probably see on your commute into work next year yeah except for well maybe next year the RLX concept by Acura right I just saw that that's actually pretty close to production so you know I expect to see a production version of that at the LA auto show this is really the replacement for the RL sedan and that's a cure is big you know full-on sedan who they're showing off here as a concept and it's going to have that super handling hybrid powertrain right that they talked about last year and released in the nsx too so gasoline engine up front and then electric engine spinning the back wheels when you need it kind of like the the alexis RX yeah yeah how they do it yeah kind of a similar kind of thing to that so acura is really kind of catching up with the whole toyota lexus hybrid power system this is especially pretty cool i mean they're talking about Oh 370 horsepower with this and 30 miles per gallon to which is a nice combination you think they're gonna keep the RLX name where we'll just be the RL when it comes out next year I think it's going to be the RLX because I think they want to put that whole RL thing behind them and also X means all-wheel drive although the little secret is that this car will also come in a non hybrid variant with just front-wheel drive yeah so maybe it will be the RL in the RLX it'd be interesting good be weird split that could be the RO of the e sh-awd yeah whatever just like they do with the T oh yeah the RL is interesting but what really got me interested was just debuted a couple hours ago it's the infinity le concept now essentially this is a small sedan a little bit smaller than a g sedan in its all electric powertrain so this is like the infinity version of the leaf yeah actually heard someone in the press room say it's like they just left the AF off of leaf ndle but what's interesting is that it's a concept so it looks very conceptual but they say that it's about eighty-five percent accurate to what we're actually going to see on the roads and 24 months and I'm thinking that puts this car a luxury sedan that has a full electric powertrain about 240 pound feet of torque hit in the market within about a year of the tesla model s so I'm thinking it's going to get really interested for people looking to spend about fifty thousand dollars on an electric car that could be yeah so they are definitely to put this in a production they're definitely going to put it into production and it should look pretty much like what we saw here at the show yeah I walk by it and it's definitely not a kind of car that infinity currently has I mean it doesn't really look like the g it doesn't seem to keep that same kind of styling I guess it looks a little bit like the larger em in some ways looks a lot like the JX the big SUV but they shrunk those sort of bulbous proportions down to a more of a sedan sighs and they did kind of like want to emphasize and this is like their company line it's like they didn't make an EV into an infinity they took the tailpipe off of infinity and made it in EV so they want you to know this is through and through if you're a fan of the the G in the M or even the FX SUVs you'll probably like what they're going to have here so yeah I'm Pierre electric drive they said anything about the rain journey of those kind of specs yet they haven't officially quoted it but unofficially they're saying about the same hundred miles of the leaf and if it's exactly like that then we can expect the EPA give leaf or like 73 miles range so oh yeah still a little bit less than what Tesla's guessing with 160 miles range on their Model S but I think when it comes out it'll probably end up chalking up a little bit less than now also yeah so no real breakthroughs as far as powertrain technology electric power clean technology in that but now what about the the cabin tekken that if they'd seen anything new as far as infinity goes well they've got like a very conceptual cabin technology package in there right now so i don't think that anything that we're seeing in that car like on the show floor is actually going to make it into production that's the fifteen percent that's not going to be in pretty precisely but what is interesting is that it has built-in wireless inductive charging and what infinity has done that amazing is that they've built that system they've tied it into their intelligent park assist system in there around view camera the idea being that you're not going to have to spend 20 minutes back in your car up and going forward trying to get the inductive plate lined up with the inductive charger on your car just pull into your garage you hit park and it lines itself up I'll be convened it's actually very interesting and I saw that the Nissan company which owns infinity obviously also launched the ultimate here right now that had pretty high hopes about the ultimate have been on a bit of a roller coaster as far as how i feel about this vehicle because it debuts and it kind of looks like they just took the headlights off the maxima and slap them on the ultimate called it a date the powertrain is pretty much the same 2.5 liter four-cylinder no direct injection or anything like that they've got six more horsepower so nothing new really happening there so that's a bread-and-butter card yeah and the 3.5 liter v6 also exactly the same no change in power or fuel efficiency this year still all cbt but when you get on the inside of that car it looks like a completely different vehicle we've got really nice leather on the interiors lots of different materials you know metal like looks like a mental on the dashboard nice wood finishes and what they're calling the zero gravity seats that have based on nasta technology I guess that means they're really comfortable okay and they've also got their new infotainment system nissanconnect which is actually rolling in google maps pio I and Pandora internet radio integration when you pair it with a Bluetooth smart phone so we're probably going to see like a connected car connected cabin teksystems from Nissan Infiniti right and we're very interest to see what they're doing there so it kind of seems like they took a if it's not really broke don't fix it sort of attitude with the Ultima for this next generation it never really was a bad-looking car and the CVT and the basic powertrain is never it's not really that bad i mean the 2.5 liter they've got in there with a cbt will get about 38 miles per gallon on the highway in the Federation so that's pretty close to 44 big sedan can't really complain about that but when we left have the also man we hated the cabin tent and they fixed all of that good yeah that's their midsize sedan I did see a new car from Alexis this is there LS which is kind of it was their entry levels today I'm that's what they termed it your front wheel drive and now Alexis is saying oh this is actually more than just an entry-level sedan for Lexus now they're saying they're actually comparing it to the mercedes-benz e-class so this is the the ES 300h that I saw spinning on the the platform in their boots that everyone's walking passing out looking at yeah well that's that that's actually maybe the coolest thing about it they're actually offering a hybrid version of the es so they've got the ES 350 like they had before the same 3.5 liter v6 engine no changes there that's a new capitec they've got that new Lexus enform system which is very much like Toyota Entune right so I'll have that stuff in there and they've got that little remote touch controller oh my god that thing yeah I kind of works like a mouse a little bit so they've got that and you know you kind of expect them to build those things into the refresh of the es it's about time but really it's the hybrid version that I think is the most interesting because that uses well actually it's the same hybrid our train is the camry hybrid right so a 2-liter Atkins cycle a 2.5 liter acting psycho 100 horsepower combined yeah yeah so basically if you like the Camry Hybrid which I did we just reviewed it not too long ago and I really like that car and you want to spend five thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars too much for it that's my car yeah I mean supposedly luxury you got that Lexus badge on there yeah any better sound system you know there's a few things you'll get with that over the Toyota but I don't know I mean I certainly you know the Toyota that powertrain the Toyota is great and they're talking about 40 miles per gallon with the lexus ES right so that's really good yeah I mean I couldn't actually think of anything that I would have changed about the camry hybrid though it's a tough sell for me yeah of course the es has always been a tough sell for me what are the cars that I probably responded to the best at the show is the BMW x1 which is it's just a compact SUV but it looks cool it's nice and practical it seems like it's actually one of the cheapest BMW you can get it is very base it's gonna be about 31,000 I know as soon as you like add and you know ipod integration it'll jump up to 35,000 like 75 yeah that's what navigation but you can get that car in just rear-wheel drive or with all-wheel drive or and with a the four liter engine or the six liter engine both turbocharged right so you know I think there's some really good powertrain combinations in there and it also has BMWs latest head unit technology which is really good stop i think i've been given cars with that editor choices every time I review them lately so essentially this is a you know for all of us who were basically compact complaining that we didn't get the hatchback version of the the BMW 1 Series this is BMW going like we had someone just kind of like a hatchback if you don't mind sitting up a little higher and like a lot of people like sitting up a little higher well there's that and maybe if you got some lower he's lowering springs or something and be kind of like a BMW 1 series hatchback I don't think about definitely never quite Paul okay and it would at all what else have you seen at the show that you are um well I mean it was along the same vein of the small you know crossover SUV there's the hyundai santa fe they've got two models of those a five-seater in a seven seater one of the things that i really am also kind of mixed on is the new infiniti not infinity lincoln MKZ i really like the fusion in the new 2013 fusion that debut last year earlier this year actually right around the time we were at CES and the MKZ is pretty much that same car with a really nice interior and what i would consider to be a polarizing exterior I'm not a huge fan of that mustache grill that Lincoln's got going on right now the big wings that go all the way across the front yeah they say wings and I see mustache I don't see how they're not seeing mustache it reads a little bit big on them k zi machine in on some of the other cars i'm kind of like but I'm MKZ it's like that's kind of a smaller car and the wings go all the way around well they integrate into the headlights so it's like yeah they're going all the way back darn near to the a-pillar but then the interesting thing about that car is that it's got this glass rough like for maybe 14 and a half square feet of glass on the on top of the vehicle and all of that lifts up and slides back so you can have an open top experience and kind of like that it looks a little weird when it's open but when it's closed you can barely tell if they're and along the lines of that hyundai santa fe s2 saw the subaru outback whichever he loves it out back and they've you know refreshed it a little bit they haven't changed much but one thing they did do is they made the prop look Maura it's and I'm not sure Subaru buyers will like that because I kind of think the reason why Subaru buyers like it is because they're all progressives and they like a car that doesn't look so super macho I mean no cowboys by Subarus well I think the reason Subaru buyers by Subarus is because they're Subarus and they're expected to buy them so I mean you've got that sort of thing going on there I think regardless of what you do Subaru is the company that drastically changes there like visual identity every couple of years I mean you see that with the Impreza we're at cars changing like every five years like to a completely different looking vehicle so I think super buyers are going to pick it up as long as it's a good car and it delivers that all wheel drive performance that they really kind of want yeah they I mean they have the reputation for dependability and in all-purpose pneus to which that Phil you know people like that okay now the worst thing at the show in my opinion all right you know where you're going back the flying car which is not even a flying car Terrafugia the transition right it's not so much a flying car as it is a plane that you could drive on the highway if you want it to yeah and the company does say they just call it a rootable airplane they don't call it a flying car everybody else seems to it's like come on people get over this car it's not that interesting you will never buy what none of you will ever buy one of these and drive it to the airport take off why do another airport and drive somewhere else I think somebody will someone with like almost two hundred eighty thousand dollars just to throw away on a toy add a pilot's license and who absolutely hate standing in line yeah so I guess if you're like one of those people who may be like takes a commuter flight maybe from San Francisco to LA four times a week and you just don't want to deal with Airport lines maybe you could get a pilot's license and drop almost three hundred thousand dollars on this and fly it yourself but I mean I feel like for maybe ninety nine point nine five percent of people this is a completely useless endeavor and a very odd ball sort of situation well actually there's a key statistic here the cruising speed of this terrafugia in flight the transition in flight is hundred five miles per hour given maybe 500 miles from San Francisco to LA that's a good five hour flight and I think most people say like I'm going to get on a 737 757 and get there in an hour yeah I think maybe you save like an hour over driving at that point yeah there you go and just you just ruined it for me and is now is a one hundred percent useless I think the people that you know the same people who buy this flying car thing at the same people it by amphibious cars and that's like milk people would just kind of want to be able to say oh I've got it we'll see one in Jay Leno's Garage that's that's it memorized it'll never get a single mile put on it alright well we've been Karthik live here the car tech crew myself when Cunningham antuan goodwin here on the floor of the 2012 new york international auto show you