Gadgetory

tangible breakthroughs toward the self-driving car is this the best EV for the average driver and we could be at the end of the era of the cracked windshield it's time to check the tap PC 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 cnet on cars welcome to cnet on cars to show all about high-tech cars and modern driving I'm Brian Cooley and this is our annual special edition coming to you from the Detroit Auto Show and also rounding up my favorite pics from the just-concluded consumer electronics show in las vegas which is also a pretty darn good auto show we're gonna start here at Detroit though which is where we came to launch our major new Auto website if you haven't already heard about it roadshow and you can find it at the roadshow calm scene that's never gone so deep into automotive I think you're going to love it you will still find cnet on cars at cnet on cars.com and our content will be showing up in rhode show as well so you can't miss us now let's get right down to it here at Detroit ok this is my pick of the show not the most audacious car not some supercar it's the new Mercedes e-class this will be their biggest announcement of 2016 for reasons why this car is so important first of all it's got advanced driver assist up to 80 miles an hour it'll maintain your lane it'll also maintain your speed through braking acceleration it'll even do automatic lane changes something only Tesla really have on the market until now it's also got self parking outside the car you use an app on your phone to tell the car where to park that's pretty advanced stuff as well inside look at the LCD screens two of them as we've seen in the s-class before but this one is under one piece of glass to give it a feeling of almost one super wide band of interface and for the first time Mercedes lets you choose different looks for their instrument panel that's new for them as well and finally a little more ethereal is the idea of this being the first production car with car 2x communication that means it can talk to other cars or up to servers in the cloud initially that means that these 17 es will talk to a mercedes server to relay things that they've learned with their sensors about road conditions and that can be shared back down from the cloud to other 17 ease that have that technology it's very narrow right now but it's a building block for some big stuff in the future now part of what they want to do here with all this high technology and some really nice lines kind of s-class like is to lower the average age of the buyers of these cars the e-class buyers are on 55 years old average they'd love to get that down to get more generations of car buying out of that person arrived summer of 2016 now as we flew her to Detroit from Las Vegas and CES we knew there was going to be a new e-class coming I can't quite say the same for what Lexus unwrapped here Alex Coy's got the story of a car that perhaps for the first time challenges Mercedes vaunted SL head-on Lexus has pulled a blinder by bringing this the LC 500 to Detroit now it may look like a concept car but it is actually a real car it's got wing mirrors and doors and everything now its power comes from a naturally aspirated 5 liter v10 with 467 horsepower and 390 eight pound foot Lexus says it's good for nought to 60 in 4.5 seconds and that gets the road thanks to a new 10 speed transmission legs has also said that it's actually stiffer than the LFA supercar thanks to use of materials like carbon fiber reinforced plastic aluminum and super strength steel lexus is aiming for some serious performance here the car shop with Michelin Pilot Super Sports and it said it's been tripled the amounts of time developing steering feel and handling than it usually does now the interior looks stunning it's absolutely beautiful almost as beautiful as the exterior that screens everywhere so you'll have all the information you possibly need at your fingertips what's heartening here is that this isn't the porsche 911 fighter that you think it is instead it's gone for luxury speedy luxury but it's more looking at things like the Mercedes s-class coupe a and the BMW 6 Series what Nexus is created with this is a halo car a proper halo car but one that the likes of you and I might one day be able to afford the LFA you could look but you couldn't touch once you figured out how to get one well chances are it was gone this though one day you'll be able to walk up to a dealership and exchange money for the keys to one of these I can't wait it is beautiful okay I brought you here to Christ or to go a completely different direction to the new minivan they just rolled out this is the pacifica it replaces the town and country this is a big deal from the company that invented the minivan this is a very different animal I think the styling I'll be honest I was quoted here saying it's a hot minivan I'll stand by that it looks great they've done some nice sculpting to get more of a crossover look and look what they've done with that rear back of the glass and the deep pillar they gave it a nice look that is more than just a box on wheels this is an interesting vehicle because it has 20s as one of its wheel and tire options independent rear suspension it's got a nice stance as minivans go they want you to think differently about the outside inside no Android auto or apple carplay just yet they'll get that in the next version of you connect there are children screens though in the rear including a are we there yet map that's kind of cartoony to keep them engaged now walk on the side of this vehicle wag your foot under its edge and the side doors will open automatically that's a trick we've seen in tailgates before but never before in a minivan they've also got automatic parking on this one inside while you're still at the wheel for both parallel and perpendicular spots now the big news here on the powertrain is they're going to offer the first-ever me man that is a plug-in hybrid that guy will get 30 miles of electric running and 80 mpge it's expected then of course the standard gas v6 gets a little tweak to get to 22 28 mpg if you get the plug-in hybrid you lose the cool flip down flat stow stow and go seats because the batteries have to go in the wells that those use so the second row become traditional lift out seat watch your lumbar the IC eversion internal combustion engine goes on sale spring early summer and then later in the year we'll get the plug-in hybrid but they're both coming up calendar 2016 now as you may know most of us are carrying a corning product called gorilla glass on the front of our phones but as antuan goodwin found out here at detroit's you soon may be sitting behind it when you're on the road and here are the reasons why that will be very interesting so what's interesting about Gorilla Glass is that there are three real cool things about it for starters it is stronger and more shatter resistant we'll get to that later it's also about thirty percent lighter in a car that we're using a gorilla glass windshield you can save about 10 pounds of weight and that's going to save you a little bit of fuel as you search for optimal efficiency it's also a little bit optically clear a regular glass has sort of a greenish tint the gorilla glass is a closer to a pure optical white we look through it now in order to demonstrate how strong guerrilla glasses we sort of set up a couple of examples here first we've got the standards soda lime glass that sort of in the car that you have right now but take it and I smash it it does what you expect it's going to do and it shatters we've got a nice spider pattern there the next sample we have is the strength and soda lime this is what a lot of automakers are calling strengthened windshield glass it's supposed to be stronger than the standard stuff if I take it in smash it well pretty much the same thing happened you get a spider web pattern and it smashes predictably now we've got the gorilla glass sample now all three of these samples are the same thickness 1.1 millimeters another take it and put it down on the pad and smash the crap out of it and it's not shattered at all those little divots you see are actually in the plastic sheath it's really strong we've also got two samples of windshield material here is the conventional windshield material here is the gorilla glass they're both really strong but the gorilla glass is a whole lot lighter and if you look at the profiles you see that it's also a whole lot thinner and here we've got the actual what's known as the gorilla glass layer this is what adds strength pneus to gorilla glass you can see that this is where the actual impact sort of gets absorbed and spread out through the material so the reason Gorilla Glass is strong is this very thin layer material right here it's pretty cool and very clear now to demonstrate exactly how strong this glass is in the real world corning set up this demonstrator right here where they're going to do with spire a hailstone a little bit larger than a golf ball at this piece of Gorilla Glass that about 50 miles per hour to simulate what happens if you get hit by the hail stone from hell while you're on the road I'm gonna stand on the other side and hope I don't damage anything now before I walk you over to the carmaker they just want our vehicle of the Year award let me give you a few quick notes on things that caught my eye the Chevy bolt came here from CES with some further updates like a fast DC charger that'll give it 90 miles of range in 30 minutes and cabin customization based on you just carrying your smartphone everything in the cabin will remember you and customize itself instantly Lincoln's continental arrived in full production form a 400 horsepower v6 a new seat with variable five supports sync 3 and Android auto and car play and they've moved away from THX audio which I love to rebel audio the new Infiniti q60 replaces what you recall fondly as the g35 and g37 coupe that left two three liter twin-turbo v6 s and a 2-liter turbo core they've gotten from Daimler all with a 7-speed automatic and infinities edgy steer-by-wire view it once again stole the show with the prettiest car here the avista concept but unless they can bring it to showrooms intact it won't matter going into production they shows the new compact crossover the envision truly a brother from another mother in terms of styling we brought you an early peek at the volvo xc90 some months ago I took you to Los Angeles for an early taste of that and here at the detroit auto show it just won our first annual roadshow award the shift award for the best vehicle of the year impressive now let's meet its sibling that's this guy right here this is the volvo s90 sharing a lot of technology with the XC but as you can see a beautiful looking sedan going after BMW 5 and how da 6 for example a few notable things is the very large immersive census connect display in the console that's relatively new for Volvo Android auto and car play going to be in there they're really embracing it here's what's really interesting they've got advanced driver assist being able to maintain your lane and your speed almost completely up to at 80 miles per hour and you got to stay engaged with your hands on the wheel that's almost more of a policy decision than a technology requirement but so be it and that advanced driver assist will be standard on all s 90s no one else has ever done that in the US market under the hood fascinating three engines all of them two liter four cylinders little bitty guys the base one is a turbocharged engine the next one up is turbo and supercharger and the next one on top of that adds electric motor so you work your way up with how many layers of boost you want to add to that small motor the top engine by the way with electrification gets over 400 horsepower this is going to be no slouch when we come back I'll take you to another auto show that doesn't even have auto in its name my car tech pics from the consumer electronics show that just concluded in Las Vegas when cnet on cars returns welcome back to cnet on cars I'm Brian Cooley it's our annual special bringing you the best of two mega shows the north american international auto show where i am right now in detroit as well as the just-concluded consumer electronics show from Las Vegas and we turn there now I just mentioned we had a few new announcements about the chevy volt electric car here in Detroit but we actually got a deeper drink in Las Vegas Tim Stevens got an early ride and drive check it out before electric cars really revolutionize the market they need to be two things cheap and practical a lot of people have been waiting for tesla dope crack that nut with the model 3 but Chevy's about to beat them to the punch with this it's the new bolt it has a 200 mile range we got to drive it I'm going to start with an acceleration tests the car will do zero to 60 in under seven seconds and it's pretty good that's certainly on par with pretty much any other small economy car that you'd expect in the segment Sam the car is very nice and roomy flat floor as well which makes getting from the lesson of the car to the right side nice and easy which given the partnership will lift you can see being a good thing dropping off a test means of God's wish I the curb you're on you can adjust the regenerative braking here by shifting into low which means that the car will allow one pedal driving meaning you don't have to worry about using the brakes too often it'll mean that the brakes will last longer they'll also mean you can go longer on a charge which is good of course we're talking about 200 miles to a charge but of course that'll depend on your driving characteristics how have you are on that right pedal inside the bolt we have a customized version of chevys modeling system which is completely different than what we've seen in any other cars it's actually quite customizable and it looks a lot like Android as a matter of fact you can actually choose a variety of different layouts you can even do a custom layout pick whichever widgets that you want to these will then be tied back to the driver profile so as you get in the car remember who you are and show you the appropriate things will even remember what you were listening to when you got out last time and being an EV of course the car gives you plenty of information about all the electricity and where it's going in the car how you're using it you can also get information about you were driving economy and also factors that will impact your range things like terrain and temperature basically things will help you to have optimized the amount of distance that you can get out of your battery panel also some other nice features in here like an LCD dashboard and a pretty cool mirror that actually uses a camera to see behind you instead of just optics like the Model S the bolt has its battery pack situated down low in the floral this has a lot of advantages one being handling it will help the car to corner better but it also means you get a lot more room inside a nice flat floor Chevy isn't giving us a formal price for the car this is just a pre-production model which explains why these headlights are a little bit ugly and why there's lots of vinyl everywhere but again they're saying the price will be under thirty thousand dollars after the federal tax rebate and it will have over 200 miles for the formal numbers we're going to wait a little bit longer but for my first time behind the wheel it's pretty impressive little car by the way almost the entire power train for that Chevy bolt Tim just drove is made by LG the electric motor the battery the inverter that converts electricity for the motor the control electronics and at CES Samsung just announced they're making a major push to grow their automotive components business parts you won't see but will be in the underpinnings of vehicles if you wonder why we always tie CES and auto shows together in the same breath I think you see why now now Toyota did not announce any new cars here although that's not unheard of at CES instead they announced a massive investment in figuring out the real hard work of the future of self-driving cars a billion dollar investment in the Toyota Research Institute was their most recent news in partnership with MIT and Stanford University to showcase that they brought up the new CEO of that unit Gill Pratt a guy really well-known i think legendary is not unfair for his leadership of the recent DARPA autonomous vehicle challenges and his theme was all about the fact that we've done a lot of work in autonomous car development but so far not really the hard work that lies ahead so today I'd like to tell you a little bit more about what we are going to do with the billion dollars we are going to have for initial mandates number one we want to enhance the safety of automobiles with the ultimate goal of creating a car that is incapable of causing a crash regardless of the skill or the condition of the driver number two we want to increase access to cars to those who cannot otherwise drive this includes people with special needs and seniors that's the area where we need full autonomy as opposed to driver assist and stopping accidents from happening number three we are going to translate Toyota's incredible expertise in creating products for outdoor mobility like cars and trucks into products for indoor mobility finally we hope to accelerate scientific discovery by applying the techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning to other areas of scientific discovery now beyond those partnerships with MIT and Stanford toward autonomy Toyota made another and frankly more surprising announcement here that they are going to partner with one of their competitors to work on the next generation of apps and infotainment connectivity in their cars let's go see who it is so here i am at ford talking about toyota because toyota and ford of announced are going to work together and toyota is going to use the sdl smart device link technology that is one of the underlying components of ford's sync 3 and use that in toyota vehicles now this is notable because you have two very competitors working together and one using the other ones technology that doesn't happen very often but I think it gives you an idea how much toyota will look even within its competitive set for a hedge against another competitive set namely apples carplay and google's android auto there's a friction there a lot of car makers have a very nervous relationship with those two they want to put them in the dash because we want those sorts of systems to go with our phones but at the same time they don't want to go up too much valuable connection to the consumer to these two mobile and otherwise Silicon Valley oriented companies now another interesting angle to this is Ford also announced that they have Android auto and car play coming to their platform sync three starting later this year on ford escape and there will be a bit of a retrofit program for your late model escape to also have that added to it retro actively now as you may know I'm a big fan of connecting smart home smart cars and wearables down the road those just need to all talk to each other a fair amount of that pie has been sliced up by Ford here at CES as they have announced something really interesting working with the Amazon echo by later in 2016 some ford and lincoln vehicles will be able to integrate the alexa spoken word technology alexa how many tablespoons are in three fourths cup three fourths cups is 12 tablespoons Alexa turn on the lights that means you can be in your house issue a voice command to your car like car start now as you're about to go to work get it warmed up and on your way home you're a few blocks away you might go to your dash and use the same technology Alexa turn on the heater or the lights raise the garage door this is an interesting amalgam of technology that isn't all just coming from for they're working with a partner who's got kind of a sleeper hit the echo sort of came out of nowhere from being a goofy gimmick last year to suddenly having some real cred in the smart home integration space ford also announced their formal major push to put 4G LTE embedded in many of their future car something Audi pioneered a year or two ago also $100,000 prize competition of the team that can figure out the best communications platform between Ford f-150 pickups and DJ I drones to be used by search and rescue crews and have good communication between both those vehicles BMW showed us some interesting new tricks with mirrors or the lack thereof at CES moving finally two cameras and displays instead little stubs remain on the outside of the doors in their concepts but much smaller and giving a three percent improvement in aerodynamics which leads to a one percent improvement in vehicle range on a car like an i8 inside camera fusion is conducted so the rear view becomes an LCD display in backup mode it's much better than the block mirror view you have today when driving forward you get almost a video game view of your own car in real time no more blind spots in any case and because these cams run through a computer it can analyze motion alerts about objects or cars that are closing on you or that you're closing on the MW thinks this might actually be doable in showrooms by 2017 with government approval and at CES BMW also showed us their next steps into advanced gesture command some that they just debuted on the new 7 Series and they've got gen 2 on the way Wayne Cunningham takes a look the BMW i3 already has self parking technology but you have to be in the car to do it now at CES BMW is showing gesture controlled parking with an Apple watch when you're outside the car to activate it I shake my wrist and then I just sweep it away but let's take a look at some other gesture control technology that BMW has here at CES now I'm sitting in the BMW I vision future interaction concept car which uses the air gesture technology that BMW announced here at CES so with air gesture I have sensors along the dashboard here that can read where my hand is and I've got a big screen up here for my infotainment interface so if I wave my hand across I can choose from navigation media communication smart home and I can choose sub venues in each so if i go to communication and look for my contacts i can press a button on the steering wheel and open up a submenu of contacts then i can wave my hand around to choose the person i want to talk to and once I find one I can push a button here on the steering wheel again to initiate that phone call BMW already has some simplified gesture control in the new 7 series but this air gesture concept takes it a step further this is something we could see in the future that could actually eliminate a lot of buttons and dials that we see in cars today so we think of autonomous technology coming from mostly high-dollar makers you expected at a high-end Mercedes BMW or Tesla but here we are at kia where they've made a big announcement of a new sub-brand of technology within the kia car brand called drive wise and they have several milestones partial autonomous cars in showrooms by 2020 full autonomous Kia's in showrooms by 2030 nakia is talking about five particular behaviors that they're working on right now and testing them here in Nevada where they're pretty liberal about licensing self-driving car testing one is automatic valet parking looking forward to that automatic highway driving automatic urban driving automatic car follow different than adaptive cruise control this is for cars to follow where there may be no or poor quality lane lines and auto stop if they detect that you our drowsy or you fall into sleep the car could guide itself safely to the side of the road and stop avoiding a nasty action let's be honest there is no hotter spot on the CES show floor than here at Farraday future this is their first concept car the faraday future concept 01 the idea here is to have an audacious start for a new car company that has been widely talked about it now for the first time tangibly seen this is an electric race car don't worry this is not their idea of a practical vehicle 1000 horsepower spread out to four wheels around each corner a single seat turns out 45-degree lean back isn't just for homies NASA told them that's actually the ideal performance position as well it's got plumbing for air and water into an advanced race helmet this thing's extreme all over under the skin it's got a variable platform architecture that means they can almost like a fancy Lego set dock and undock components to get different wheelbases which is the most defining single characteristic of what kind of a car you make in the future now we start here a billion dollar factory coming to North Las Vegas not far from here imminently in the next couple of years and then we'll see what they've got for the average folks we're not driving supercars most of us but there's some interesting thinking going on here thanks for joining us from the two best auto shows in the world they happen to be back to back here in Detroit and in Las Vegas at CES and don't forget to check out road show at the roadshow calm scene that's major new auto site and of course we're still here at cnet on cars.com as well coming up next episode we get our hands on the amazing laferrari if you want to be here for that one I'll see you next time we check the tech you