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Car of the Year: ExtremeTech’s Best Cars for 2020

How do you pick the right Car of the Year when so many cars are so good? You can choose the car you’d drive if you had Wall Street money (Flash: Porsche 911 Named Car of the Year Again). You can award the vehicle that drives over boulders (Flash: Jeep Gladiator Honored). You can call on your must-be-Motown roots (Flash: Corvette Wins Car of the Year Again), especially this year when the Corvette is a legit choice. But in the hands of others, that mindset also gave us the Chevrolet Vega, the Mustang II, the Chevrolet Citation, and the second coming of the Ford Thunderbird in 2002.

What about us? At ExtremeTech, we’re looking for a highly competent car that is forward-looking on technology, safety, and driver assists: a car that has still-desirable features and tech when it comes off lease and goes to the next owner at three our four years of age. Seventy percent of cars sold each year are previously owned. As for criteria, we have no price cap; some pubs say no more than 2.5X the average new car price, which average price in November was $38,400 according to KBB.com, excluding incentives, but we’d expect a lot more technology in a $100,000 car than a $25,000 car. Our preference is the car be available to buyers by the beginning of the year, not vaporware. Plus, it should be fun to drive on top of the technical merits. Here’s the 2020 ExtremeTech Car of the Year and, in alphabetical order, the rest of the top 10.

Seen-it-all journos give the 2020 Car of the Year Hyundai Sonata the thumbs up.

Car of the Year: 2020 Hyundai Sonata

In yet another Year of the SUV, where seven in 10 sales go to SUVs, crossovers, and pickups, the best new vehicle is a sedan: the 2020, eighth-generation Hyundai Sonata. Really. Sonata. Only once you have a) seen how good-looking the 2020 model is, b) gone through the list of standard safety technology and c) driven the Sonata can you fully understand the very neat trick Hyundai pulled off.

For starters, the following Hyundai SmartSense driver-assist features below are standard on all four trim lines of every 2020 Sonata (and the last is standard on the trims above SE that account for 85-90 percent of Sonata sales):

Stop and go adaptive cruise control (Hyundai’s term: “advanced smart cruise control”)

Forward collision warning, auto emergency braking, pedestrian detection (“forward collision-avoidance assist with pedestrian detection”)

Auto high beams (“automatic high beam assist”)

Lane keep assist (steers the car back from the lane edges)

Lane centering assist (“lane follow assist”)

Driver drowsiness detection (“driver attention warning”)

Dynamic backing guidelines for the (federally mandated) rearview camera

(SEL, SEL Plus, Limited:) Blind-spot detection (“blind-spot collision avoidance assist”) / rear cross-traffic alert (“rear cross-traffic avoidance assist”)

This is every bit of driver assistance tech you’d expect on any 2020 car, even high-end cars.

Hyundai Blind Spot View Monitor (BVM) shows what’s in your blind spot (also beeps, flashes).

There’s more driver assistance, if you want it: On the top two trim lines, Hyundai has Level 2 self-driving called Highway Drive Assist. It works well. On the top line, Sonata Limited, Remote Smart Parking Assist self-drives your car into and out of a parking space or garage with you out of the car, for about 30 feet worth of self-drive parking. Also on Limited is a Blind Spot View Monitor (photo above) that shows left and right rear video views in the instrument panel, twice as wide as what you’d see from the side mirror, and you still get warning chirps and lights. All in a mainstream car, not a Lexus or Mercedes.

There’s also phone-as-key (just what it sounds like) called Hyundai Digital Key using NFC (near field communications). There’s also a separate NFC proximity card that opens and starts your car and costs about $20 (not $250) for a physical wireless remote key if you lose it. Hyundai Digital Key works with Android phones, and would work with iPhone if Apple allowed NFC for more things than Apple payments. Hello, Apple?

Hyundai knows navigation is a tough sell on lower-cost cars, so it makes standard Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and an 8-inch color touchscreen. Plug in your own phone for navigation. On the upper SEL Plus, Hyundai makes optional a 10.25-inch center display and onboard nav, and it’s standard on Limited because everything comes standard on Limited.

Sonata Limited cockpit.

A performance Sonata, the N Line, follows in 2020 (announced), then most likely a hybrid Sonata (widely expected) that will provide e-power to the rear wheels and give the Sonata all-wheel-drive without creating a space-robbing transmission tunnel for mechanical rear-wheel-drive. Of the top-selling sedans perceived as midsize, the No. 1 Toyota Camry will offer AWD in the spring after 27 years as front-wheel-drive only, No. 2 Honda Accord is front-drive only, No. 3 Nissan Altima got AWD with the 2019 model, and the Sonata is on the verge of being the No. 4 seller as soon as the current fourth- and fifth-place Ford Fusion and Chevrolet Malibu hurry up and kick the bucket (never mind that they are very good sedans).

You get all this core safety (the bullet list above) in the Sonata for $26,430 including freight, or $28,830 for the SEL that has BSD, ten grand under the average selling price of a new car today. The Sonata Limited, maxed out with every option-that-is-actually-standard, sells for $34,530: The Car of the Year, loaded, at four grand under the price of the average new car sold today.

Hyundai’s new equipment-and-options scheme is nice: Features are fixed (no options offered) on entry and premium lines. The least expensive trim has no extra-cost options because shoppers are buying a low payment plan, such as a Sonata SE lease for $219 or 1.9 percent purchase financing; in late December, in some areas, it’s as low as a $99 lease or 0 percent APR 72-month loan. The middle trims offer options. At the top trim, most buyers want every option, so they’re all baked in. And the Sonata is made in America: Montgomery, Alabama, to be specific. Auto manufacturing is transforming the New South in Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Mississippi, and if the jobs aren’t in Michigan, they are in the US of A.

While the Sonata’s length of 192.9 inches says midsize, the interior volume of 120.4 cubic feet (104.4 feet passenger, 16.0 feet trunk) says full-size in EPA numbers (120 cubic feet and above). In every way, our Car of the Year is a cut above. And Hyundai is poised to pick up the slack as US-flagged automakers cut their sedan lines. Thirty percent of 17 million new vehicles is still 5 million sedans.

Anybody can make a great $75,000 car. It takes genius to engineer a great car for $30,000. Hyundai did it and that’s why the Sonata is the ExtremeTech Car of the Year for 2020.

Below, the rest of ExtremeTech’s top 10 cars for 2020:

BMW X5: An SUV that’s a kick to drive just about anywhere.

BMW X5: Safe, Fast Fun Has Its Price

If you want one higher-end vehicle that does it all – ultra-composed highway cruising with the family or back-roads carving on your own, carpooling or towing 7,200-pound trailers – that’s the 2019 BMW X5 midsize SUV. This the most balanced vehicle in the BMW lineup and offers more of the good stuff and good-life stuff – driver assists, entertainment, safety technology – albeit for a price. It rides well, handles well, and just feels good to be in. It’s the second year of the fourth-generation X5 that debuted as a 2019 model.

The 2020 X5 offers three engines: a 335-hp inline-six and a 0-60 time of 5.2 seconds, a 456-hp V8 (0-60, 4.6 seconds) and for 2020 an X5 M50i with a 523-hp V8 (0-60, 4.1 seconds). Near-perfection has its price: $59,895 for a rear-drive X5 (a whopping seventeen large over the compact X3), to $83,000 for the base X5 M50i (meaning parts from the BMW Motorsport bins), to $133,825 for the X5 M Competition, an all-Motorsport vehicle, fully optioned.

The six-cylinder X5 comes standard with dual 12.3-inch displays, LED headlamps, front/rear parking sonar, Active Driving Assistant (blind spot detection/rear cross-traffic alert, lane departure warning, forward collision warning/city collision mitigation, and daytime pedestrian protection). You pay extra for adaptive cruise control (BMW’s standard “dynamic cruise control” sounds like ACC but really it’s cruise control), for the satellite radio tuner chip (it’s in packages starting at $1,050), and for nine of the 11 paint colors that add $550-$1,950. You may want things like laser headlamps, the rear air suspension, or ultra-premium audio, because why not? You must get the Driving Assistance Professional package ($1,750) with adaptive cruise control, lane centering, auto lane change (just flick the turn signal and it happens if it’s safe), and steering/traffic jam assistant.

A well-equipped X5 will run you $70,000-$75,000. Compared with the equally luxe, equally new Mercedes-Benz GLE, the Bimmer is more fun to drive. Compared with the Audi Q7, Audi still has a great interior but trails otherwise because it’s a five-year-old platform with a 2019 facelift.

Price, mid-engine design makes the Corvette a sports car for the young again.

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray: Mid-Engine Magic

Corvette songs peaked in the sixties, give or take Prince and “Little Red Corvette,” and even that was 1982. Now Corvette culture is back, this time without gold chains, as the 2020 C8 (eighth-generation) Vette arrives. The engine is finally mounted behind the driver, something Corvette chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov dreamed of in the 1950s. There’s a seven-speed double-clutch transmission. The 491-hp V8 engine has variable valve timing, gasoline direct injection, and Active Fuel Management (cylinder deactivation) to make the car a responsible citizen that also hits 60 mph in 2.9 seconds with the Z51 package. A turbocharged, overhead-cam, hybrid – yes, hybrid – engine is reportedly in the offing for more fuel efficiency and more power, more power because the electric motors act as additional turbochargers that have zero lag.

The new Corvette offers magnetic ride control shocks – MR, or magnetorheological dampers – that can be sporty or soft. Testers who’ve had the C8 Corvette on the track find it quicker than the C7 Corvette of 2014-2019, and easier to drive. Amazingly, the list price (excluding freight) starts just over $61,000 with freight, $7,500 more for the hardtop convertible. Bring on the Porsches and Ferraris. Most people will pay more and the $100,000 Corvette is an easy possibility. The online configurator is addictive: You want orange seat belts, or Tension Blue, or Torch Red? That’s $395, please, if you don’t want black. You’ll discover front lift with memory, $1,495, that remembers via GPS up to 1,000 speed bumps and steep driveways and lifts the front end 2 inches before you get there. Hey, that’s cheap compared with replacing the front spoilers.

Hyundai Palisade: Upscale ride, cockpit, design. Less than $50,000.

Hyundai Palisade: So Good, So Affordable

If not for the Hyundai Sonata, the Hyundai Palisade might well be Car of the Year. The Palisade is the BMW X5/Mercedes-Benz GLE for $20,000 less, all of them with outstanding interiors and a raft of safety features and driver assists, and very different price points. With the Palisade, a slew of safety features come standard on all trim lines. The three rows fit seven (middle row captain’s chairs) or eight (bench), with semi-passable room in row three for adults. The 291-hp V6 and eight-speed automatic are plenty quick, if not in BMW’s league. (The $20K extra has to go for something, such as less body lean.) Hyundai Drive Assist gives you Level 2 autonomy, meaning the car drives itself on highways as long as you keep your hands lightly on the wheel most of the time.

We loved the Blind View Monitor on the premium trim line, Limited, with its 12.3-inch digital instrument panel. Rear-side-facing cameras bring up a view to the left or right rear. depending on which directional signal is activated. That’s on top of a blind spot warning light in the side mirror, a pleasant chirp from the speakers, and what was a Hyundai/Genesis first, blind spot warnings in the head-up display. You can’t have too much of a good thing, especially for older drivers who can’t, or younger drivers who won’t, turn their heads to check traffic. (Editor’s note: Ignore the Consumer Reports early review that calls Palisade Blind View Monitor “clever … but some of our drivers considered this feature a mere novelty while others thought it could be distracting.” No way. It’s a feature that makes blind-spot detection even more useful.)

A loaded Palisade comes in at less than $48,000. The Palisade resets expectations on what you must pay for a great family-size SUV. Shop this (and sibling Kia Telluride, below) if you’re looking at best-seller Ford Explorer or Lincoln Aviator for that matter, as well as Chevrolet Traverse. It’s competitive with Audi/BMW/Mercedes SUVs as well.

The Jaguar I-Pace is the electric sports car SUV that doesn’t require paved roads.

Jaguar I-Pace: Charm of the Un-Tesla

If you want a sports car that’s quick, comfortable, great-looking, and comes with a $7,500 tax credit, that’s the Jaguar I-Pace. Most of all, it’s exclusive: Jaguar was bringing only about 3,000 to US shores for 2019, which is also about what demand is for a vehicle that’s snug in back relative to the Tesla Model S, Model X, or Model 3 and with a more modest range, 234 miles on the EPA test cycle or 292 miles for Europe’s WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure). To push range over 300 miles, you need several hundred more pounds of battery, and that hurts performance. And range. The US needs more cars like the I-Pace, our ExtremeTech Car of the Year a year ago, to make EVs sexier and more desirable.

At the $70,000 base price, it’s a great deal, as high-performance SUVs go. Or high-performance hatchbacks, which the I-Pace also closely resembles. Some people find it annoying when they spend a lot of money on a Black Sapphire Metallic BMW X4 and find the same X4 next to yours in the company parking lot, even if the other one is Carbon Black Metallic or Jet Black. (BMW sells a lot of black cars.) Won’t happen with the Jag.

Midsize Kia Telluride has all the right stuff, at a sub-$50K price (loaded).

Kia Telluride

The Kia Telluride is a fraternal twin to the Hyundai Palisade. Engineers say every body and interior panel is different. But the drivetrain is the same, the EPA numbers are the same at 21 mpg combined city/highway, pricing is similar, and interior finish is first-class on both. The Telluride has four trim lines (LX, S, EX and SX), while the Palisade three (SE, SEL, and Limited). Entry models are about $33,000, both with full-range adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, lane-centering steering, rear parking sensors, and a trailer stability system.

The Telluride (only) comes standard with blind-spot detection/rear cross-traffic alert and safe exit assist (alert sounds if you open a road-side door with traffic approaching). So if you shop the entry model, the Telluride is a better choice than the Palisade. Both offer a blind spot monitor (display) in the instrument panel, with Kia’s taking up the middle of the screen and Hyundai’s taking up the left-side circular speedometer or right-side tachometer, depending on whether the alert is on the left or right side. Kia has a traditional console shifter; Hyundai uses buttons that set aside more space for cupholders, phones, and keys. Fully optioned, the top trim line is about $47,500. (A Ford Explorer can hit $65,000.)

Subjectively, reviewers say the Kia looks ruggeder, in part with the rectangular grille shape and the Telluride name. The ride is about the same. The Telluride in the fall was outselling the Palisade by 20 percent, and Telluride was Motor Trend’s SUV of the Year; both are candidates for the NACTOY (North American Car and Truck of the Year) utility vehicle award to be announced Jan. 13. Either way, the two are shaking up the market, with the Telluride marketed as a sporty/rugged vehicle and the Palisade emphasizing a luxe interior. To us, the biggest difference is Telluride has blind-spot detection even on the entry trim line.

The midsize Lincoln Aviator is the best of the new Lincolns, hitting all the right notes.

Lincoln Aviator: Ford’s Luxury Brand Takes Off

The Lincoln Aviator represents the resurrection of the Lincoln Motor Company, which for more than a decade breathed Cadillac’s exhaust fumes. The midsize Aviator builds on the Ford Explorer (the best-selling midsize SUV in recent years) with luxury touches that resonate with buyers who, unlike X5 shoppers, don’t yearn for the chance they might one day want to autocross a 2.5-ton vehicle. Still: The Aviator, with a 400-hp twin-turbo V6, hits 60 mph in close to 5 seconds; the Aviator Grand Touring PHEV adds a 100-hp electric motor and batteries good for 18 miles. Inside, the cockpit is rich, refined, and tasteful. High-end trims get 28-speaker Revel audio and 30-way massaging seats. Or maybe it’s the other way around. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra created short musical chords that take the place of harsh beeps on other cars.

Standard safety is good: Co-Pilot 360 comprises forward-collision warning, automated emergency braking, pedestrian detection, blind-spot detection, lane-keep assist, and automatic high-beams. But standard safety could be better: The Aviator line that runs $53,000 (Aviator) to $90,000 (Aviator Grand Touring Black Label) does not include, on lower trims, Co-Pilot 360 Plus with full-range adaptive cruise control, traffic-sign recognition, and self-parking (parallel and perpendicular). The Aviator (formerly MK-something, MKT we believe), flanked by the bigger Navigator (always called Navigator), the smaller-midsize Nautilus (formerly MKX), and the compact Corsair (formerly MKC), is finally gaining momentum. For a Lincoln to advance from best-of-the-year for 2020 to models that are best of every year, it needs to work on quality control (the Aviator/Explorer rollout was messy) and give thought to some sporty variants.

Mazda CX-5: the definitive class-above compact SUV.

Mazda CX-5: So Good in So Many Ways

How often does one model surpass half an automaker’s sales? That’s the Mazda CX-5 compact SUV, with 151,000 of Mazda’s 300,000 US sales in 2018, a runaway success since the second generation arrived as a 2017 model. It’s nimble, seats four or five very comfortably, and now has a Grand Touring Reserve and Signature models with a 250 hp turbo engine and even nicer cockpit trim. Every mainstream automaker flaunts the term “class above,” but it’s Mazda that actually delivers. (Okay, the Hyundai Palisade/Kia Telluride in this story as well.) Fit and finish are first-rate and several Mazdas, including the CX-5, are cited among Consumer Reports’ most reliable vehicles.

Vehicle development engineer Dave Coleman says, “Mazda makes slow cars that are fun to drive fast.” Meaning there’s more fun pushing a normally powered car to its limits on a back road than carefully modulating the throttle on, say, an X3 to find you’re always holding back to avoid being 20 mph over the limit and having to lean hard on the brakes going into a curve. Mazda sweats the details on how the driver blends with the seat, even how his or her head bobs going over bumps or in turns, all to in the name of jinba ittai, or making horse and rider as one. The first time you hear jinba ittai, you wonder if this is more marketing BS. Over time, you realize this is what Mazda is about, and why a comparatively small company slays so many dragons.

The entry CX-5 Sport with cloth seats, blind-spot detection, 187 hp, and front-drive is a sporty runabout at $25,000, while the top-of-the-line Signature AWD adds adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist (but not lane centering, because Mazda wants to keep it a driver’s car), suede seat inserts, and gorgeous wood dash panels for $38,000. Now that it’s winter, you can mount winter tires and test Mazda’s belief that nobody does better predictive all-wheel drive.

Ram 1500: Big display, 48-volt power boost.

Ram 1500/Ram HD: 48-Volt eTorque Boosts Power

Redesigned for 2019, the Ram 1500 offers a very good ride, the ability to carry or tow big loads, and a wide range of engine choices. Most interesting is eTorque, a mild-hybrid option on V6 and V8 engines that uses a 48-volt battery pack and a belt-drive electric motor (which doubles as a generator) for brief bursts of extra power, or torque. In city driving, eTorque engines boost fuel economy by almost 20 percent. There’s also a V6 EcoDiesel that is matching V8s on power and towing capacity. Inside, the cab is roomy, has lots of storage, and useful tech features, including an available 12-inch portrait display and the easy-to-use UConnect interface and navigation system. The Ram’s coil-spring suspension improves the ride over leaf-spring pickups and the top-line Limited has a four-corner air suspension that emulates the ride of an upscale luxury sedan or SUV.

Naturally, there’s an array of cab types (regular with one row of seats; quad with two rows and snug rear legroom; and crew with two rows and the same 41-inch legroom as the front seat), bed lengths (5’7″, 6’4″, 8′), trim lines (seven), engines (V6 and V8 gas with and without eTorque, V6 diesel, Cummins inline-six diesel), an off-roader (Rebel), heavy-duty versions (2500 HD, 3500 HD), and rear- or four-wheel-drive. The most common driver assists – blind spot detection, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist – are offered as options, and some features such as adaptive cruise control are only available on higher trim lines. All this made the Ram 1500 America’s third best-selling vehicle in America, albeit behind the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado.

The Subaru Forester compact SUV: Different from the rest, and better.

Subaru Forester: Solid, Safe, On and Off Paved Roads

The fifth-generation Subaru Forester that debuted in 2019 remains true to its roots: rugged, reliable, standard all-wheel-drive, and easily cleaned inside and out with a fire hose (first remove the golden lab), or so the faithful claimed, except now the rubber floor mats are carpet. And there’s a lot of safety, standard, via Subaru EyeSight, a system using stereoscopic cameras. For 2020, lane centering assist comes standard, in addition to full-range adaptive cruise control and forward-collision warning/mitigation braking. DriverFocus tracks head movement and sounds an alert if you appear distracted; usually, it’s right.

Compared with our top ten Mazda CX-5, the Forester occupants sit more upright and have more legroom, and there’s more cargo room in back. The CX-5 is more fun to drive, while the Forester’s higher ground clearance make it better off-paved roads. The Mazda, even with the non-turbo four, is quicker, while the Forester easily gets fuel economy in the 30s. Both are great in the snow, especially on winter tires.

Hell freezes over: The Toyota Racing Development (TRD) Avalon. Hold on to your dentures.

Honorable Mention

With almost 300 different models on sale, there are plenty of just-about-as good cars, SUVs, and pickups. All are standouts overall, with very good technology. They include:

Audi A4. The best compact, upscale sport sedan, in a field crowded by BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C-Class, Infiniti Q60, Lexus IS, Volvo S60, etcetera. Plenty of tech, as you’d expect.

Ford F-150. No. 1 selling vehicle (nearly 1M this year). Ford’s turbo (EcoBoost) V6 makes buyers forget V8s. Sync works well.

Honda Accord. The longstanding benchmark in midsize sedans has fought off challengers before and rivals higher-end cars for cabin quality.

Honda Odyssey. Write this on your hand when you shop: No 200- to 205-inch inch SUV carries as many people in comfort, in all three rows, as a minivan. The 2020 Odyssey has its extensive HondaSensing safety suite and blind-spot detection (which is not part of the suite) standard on all but the low selling-entry trim line. It’s the best choice for a family. If you need all-wheel-drive, the Toyota Sienna is the only choice currently (a very good choice), and if you do a lot of around-town carpooling, the upscale Chrysler Pacifica PHEV covers the first 18 miles on battery power.

Hyundai Kona. A solid upscale subcompact crossover. Want the same size from Hyundai, only less expensive? Check out the just-shipped Venue, a Nissan Kicks competitor.

Mazda CX-30. CX-30 finds room in the foot of length between the aging CX-3 and never-grows-old CX-5.

Porsche Macan. The compact SUV is a gem, priced to match, and with great technology. It is the best-selling Porsche.

Subaru Crosstrek, now in gas or gas-hybrid.

Subaru Ascent. A very, very good midsize SUV the second time around. A decade ago, Subaru couldn’t click with the similarly sized B9/Tribeca SUV. This time, magic happened.

Subaru Crosstrek. The go-anywhere AWD (of course) subcompact hatch with a sporty flair, solid off-paved-roads driving, and the excellent optical driver-assist system, EyeSight. Now has a hybrid option.

Tesla Model 3. Forget the Tesla hype machine for a moment: Tesla knows EV batteries best. The Model 3 is a smash sales success compared with every non-Tesla EV.

Toyota Avalon. The best big, midprice sedan for those who don’t want SUVs. Really a good car, and not just for retirees. There’s a hybrid (of course) and a performance model (OMG!) TRD Avalon sedan.

Toyota Camry Hybrid. Camrys are great, Toyota hybrids are great. Perfect when you need more room than a Prius and don’t want a RAV4 (a great small SUV which comes in hybrid).

Toyota Prius. Year in, year out, the standard-bearer among small hybrids. People have (almost) stopped asking how long the batteries might last.

Toyota Yaris. Yes, that’s a lot of Toyotas on this list. Except the best subcompact sedan is actually the Mazda2, rebadged.

Volvo XC60. In a crowded field of upscale compact SUVs, the Volvo stands out for safety and a classy cockpit.

Now read:

2020 Hyundai Sonata Review: Car of the Year? (It’s That Good)

Are Tesla Cybertruck, Mustang Mach-E Moving the Needle Toward EVs?

Buick Throws in the Towel on Cars in the US

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/303740-car-of-the-year-extremetechs-best-cars-for-2020 from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/01/car-of-year-extremetechs-best-cars-for.html

#Car of the Year: ExtremeTech’s Best Cars for 2020

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mindfultina · 2 years ago

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Car of the Year: ExtremeTech's Best Cars for 2020 - ExtremeTech"

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sheet-music-for-teachers-school · 5 years ago

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Eagles-Saints cheat sheet: Matchups, storylines and predictions - The Athletic - #Athletic #Athletic #predictions #aePiot

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hyundaiowners · 5 years ago

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Looking For A Good Inexpensive Car? The 2020 Hyundai Venue Subcompact SUV Is The Answer

The Hyundai Venue may be the simplest-to-describe new car of 2020. It is a two-row SUV with impeccable fit and finishes, an engine and acceleration that help you avoid traffic tickets, virtually all the driver assists you to want, and a price that lets you buy new rather than used. There are not many cars available fat its price with an 8-inch color LCD standard and Android Auto / Apple CarPlay built-in.

Hyundai describes the buyer as a young “urban adventurer.” You don’t pay extra for roof rails or for the two-tone paint on the Denim edition.

On the road, the Hyundai Venue felt fine cruising. The length, three inches less than a Honda Fit, made it effortless to navigate the crowded capital city, the noise insulation made the ride pleasant on highways, and the air conditioning made it bearable for visiting Northerners admiring the humidity outside — at least until we opened the doors to admire, but not sample, a microbrewery and distillery. The interior is nicely done for the money. Still, window sill armrests are hard plastic with no padding, and there’s one seatback pocket.

Enough Engine to Move You Down the Road

The engine is okay for everything other than passing on two-lane country roads; 0-60 times are around 10 seconds. The engine delivers 121 hp through the continuously variable transmission available on all three trim lines; there’s a six-speed manual on the entry SE line and 15-inch steel wheels.

The rear suspension is a torsion beam, which is simple, elegant, workable, and takes up less space than a multi-link independent rear suspension. A console dial lets you adjust throttle response via Normal, Eco and Snow settings; the Snow position keeps one wheel on ice from spinning and taking traction away from the wheel on snow or dryish pavement. The modes have no effect on steering effort.

Hyundai is proud of the wide ratio of its CVT (IVT, or “intelligent variable transmission”), about 7:1, and notes it’s less complex than Toyota’s CVT that uses a mechanical first gear before handing off to the CVT. Hyundai says it has a metal chain not a metal belt in the CVT and believes it has resolved any rubber-banding issue. It also helps that a 121-hp engine doesn’t make heavy demands on the transmission. It’s rated at 30 mpg city, 34 mpg highway, 32 mpg combined (27/35/30 for the manual).

Hyundai Venue Models

You could think of the Venue as a Hyundai Kona Lite since both are subcompact SUV/crossover vehicles. It’s a little more complicated: They’re built on different platforms. The Venue is more a replacement of sorts for the Hyundai Accent hatchback that went away in 2018 when the Gen 5 Accent arrived. The Kona is a premium-feel low-cost SUV and the entry model goes for more than the base Venue SE.

The Venue does give every buyer a very good standard safety package built around a forward-facing camera:

Forward collision-avoidance assist (FCA-Ped) with Pedestrian Detection – warning of cars ahead, pedestrians, and braking to avoid collisions or at least reduce the severity

Lane keep assist (LKA) – incorporating departure warning, also tugs at the wheel to pull the car back from lane edge

Driver attention warning (DAW) – drowsy driver warning

Should You Buy?

Hyundai is on a roll: The Sonata sedan is the ExtremeTech Car of the Year. The Sonata and Palisade SUV were finalists for the North American Car and Truck of the Year (NACTOY) Award. Hyundai hasn’t brought out a bad car in years.

If you want a sub-compact SUV that is affordable, and if you want new, the 2020 Hyundai Venue is your best choice.

The Venue and Kona are within a half-inch on most interior dimensions. The Venue’s rear-seat legroom of 87cm is reasonable for such a small car. Total interior volume is pretty good, really good for something just over under 4m long.

We’d recommend the Venue SEL with at least the Convenience package to get blind-spot detection.

Hyundais have a 5-year/60,000 mile warranty (10/100 on the powertrain) so it still has more warranty left than most 3/36 new cars.

Our bottom line on the 2020 Hyundai Venue: This is the best car at Group 1 Hyundai if you want an urban-small, SUV with reasonable space inside (great space for just under 4m in length), excellent core safety features, and a large standard center stack LCD that connects to Apple or Android phones. If you believe you need all-wheel-drive, you’ll probably do just as well with winter tires and wheels. If you need adaptive cruise control, you want the Kona. Nonetheless, Hyundai did an amazing job putting that much tech into an affordable car.

Article source: https://we-love-hyundai.weebly.com/blog/looking-for-a-good-inexpensive-car-the-2020-hyundai-venue-subcompact-suv-is-the-answer

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techietrends · 5 years ago

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Car of the Year: ExtremeTech’s Best Cars for 2020

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Dazzling 2021 Hyundai Elantra Rolls Out on an Empty Movie Set

Hyundai upped its game, again, with the global reveal of the seventh-generation Elantra sedan. The car is truly impressive, but the West Hollywood set for the rollout, called The Lot, was essentially deserted: no journalists, no analysts, no photographers, and no caterers – just Hyundai people, dancers, and videographers for the live-streamed announcement Tuesday night. Since early March, there have been no major auto shows, and as of this week, no more on-location media/analyst introductions of new cars. They’ve all been called off or shifted from in-person to virtual because of coronavirus concerns.

As with the new midsize Hyundai Sonata sedan last fall, Hyundai imbued the Elantra with class-above features, a slew of technologies standard or optional including semi-autonomous driving and a pair of 10.25-inch color displays in the dashboard. There will be regular and performance engines plus a hybrid that will get better than 50 mpg. We expect the trim lines will sell for $20,000-$28,000 when 2021 Elantra ships in the fall.

At the same time, as buyers are shifting from compact cars to compact SUVs, the quality and desirability of small sedans has never been better, led by the 2020 Mazda3 (which shipped last year). Even old standbys such as the Toyota Corolla have injected a higher level of quality and amenities. Now Hyundai has a chance to raise the bar, as it did with Sonata, our reigning ExtremeTech Car of the Year.

The overall exterior design, with sculpted lines, a sharp crease running along the side, and dominant grille, is what Hyundai describes as “Sensuous Sportiness defined in the Parametrics Dynamics Design.” All we can say is, it looks good, and that is one big-ass grille upfront, which apparently is the parametrics design thing.

Hyundai is taking safety seriously with many standard features …

Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist (FCA) with Pedestrian Detection.

Lane Keeping Assist (LKA).

Lane Following Assist (LFA, Hyundai’s term for lane centering assist) that can keep the vehicle centered on highway and city streets.

High Beam Assist (HBA), or automatic high beams.

Driver Attention Warning (DAW) system that monitors and warns of drowsiness.

Rearview camera with dynamic guidelines, which (the camera part) is required in the US

… and offers these as options

Blind-spot warning (Hyundai calls it Blind-Spot Collision Avoidance Assist) and rear-cross-traffic alert

Adaptive cruise control (Smart Cruise Control)

Level 2 self-driving (Highway Driving Assist)

Safe Exit Warning using blind-spot warning to keep the highway-side doors closed if it spots a car coming up

Reverse Parking Collision Avoidance Assist (PCA) to detect pedestrians and obstacles in back

The Elantra will come standard with an eight-inch color display in the center stack with HD Radio and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support, wireless meaning for the phone to car connection and control. Wireless Qi charging is optional.

An optional feature is a pair of 10.25-inch displays (photo above) bonded under a single sheet of glass, one for a digital instrument panel, one for the infotainment system. It was only a few years ago that the center display was considered big if a 7- or 8-inch LCD was offered. The 10.25-inch display option includes a faster infotainment processor. Also optional is a Bose eight-speaker audio upgrade.

Hyundai continues to offer Blue Link, its telematics system, and with it cloud-based navigation (that or use your phone). The Hyundai smartphone app does the usual remote lock/unlock, find my car, blow the horn/lights features. Additionally, you can get an RFID card called Digital Key that works as a cheap (about $20 for extras) remote entry and car-start key via Near Field Communication and Bluetooth Low Energy. If you loan it to a friend, you’re not out hundreds of dollars for a key replacement if it’s lost. It’s for Android only; Apple remains fussy about what it lets its NFC chip be used for.

Hyundai says it has enhanced the onboard voice recognition system (regardless of what your phone offers) for conversational control. It lets you say: Climate on/off; air conditioner on/off; heat on/off; fan high/low; defrost on; set fan to face, feet, or face and feet; defrost on and set fan to feet; warm up/cool down; air intake system on; turn on/off heated seats (driver/passenger); set heated seat levels 1, 2, or 3 (driver/passenger); rear window defroster on/off; and turn on/off the heated steering wheel.

The 2021 Elantra is about as big as a compact car can be and still be a compact: 184.1 inches long (+2.2 inches longer than the outgoing 2015-2020 sixth-generation Elantra), 71.9 inches wide (+1.0 inch), 55.7 inches tall (minus 0.8 inches), with a 107.1-inch wheelbase (+0.8 inches). Among the roughly competitive set, it’s bigger than the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic, barely bigger than the Mazda3, and 1.0 inches shorter than the Volkswagen Jetta. This should make the cabin even roomier; we’ll have to see what the lower height does for rear-seat headroom. Specs make the rear seat legroom, 38 inches, on par with some full-size cars.

The 2021 Elantra will be offered in the same SE, SEL and Limited trim lines. As for locomotion, the base car gets the current 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine with 147 hp and a CVT. Hyundai does hold out hope for performance with an N-Line version with a turbo four. And to keep up with the Toyota Corolla Hybrid and the Honda Insight (a Civic hybrid by a different name), there’s a hybrid version with a 1.6-liter gas engine, a 43-hp electric motor, a combined 139 hp, a six-speed dual clutch transmission, and a combined EPA rating of “more than … 50 mpg.” The Corolla and Insight hybrid editions are rated at 52 mpg.

The features of the Elantra should – could – shore up the sagging market for compact cars, which fell to 1.39 million last year from 1.56 million. The Elantra ranked fourth last year with 175,094 sales, down 13 percent, just behind the Nissan Sentra. The Civic and Corolla sold more than 300,000 units.

Not to diss the small sedan market in the least, but we can only hope the same styling, features set and technology of the Elantra come soon to Hyundai’s compact Tucson SUV, whose third-generation went on sale in 2015 and got a refresh in 2019. Expect it later this year as a 2021 model. Hyundai has been on a roll with excellent rollouts last year, including the midsize Palisade SUV and the Sonata. It’s likely to continue with the Elantra, and then, we hope, with the Tucson.

Now read:

Car of the Year: ExtremeTech’s Best Cars for 2020

2019 Mazda3 Review: The Luxurious Compact Sedan for Track Days

Review: Standout 2020 Toyota Corolla Adds Safety, Performance, Hybrid

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/307857-dazzling-2021-hyundai-elantra-rolls-out-on-an-empty-movie-set from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/dazzling-2021-hyundai-elantra-rolls-out.html

#Dazzling 2021 Hyundai Elantra Rolls Out on an Empty Movie Set

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componentplanet · 5 years ago

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Consumer Reports Picks Its Top Car Brands

Four brands stand at the top of the annual Consumer Reports car issue. Three of them, Porsche, Genesis, and Subaru all received brand rankings of 80 or more. The magazine gives a recommended rating to every model sold by Porsche, Genesis, and the fourth-highest-scoring brand, Mazda, while every Subaru is recommended except for the WRX.

Two vehicles earned the highest overall scores: the Toyota Avalon family sedan (main photo) and the Kia Telluride SUV that won several car/truck of the year awards. Each received 93 of 100 possible points. The details are in the magazine’s April 2020 issue.

33 car brands ranked by overall score, which comprises road tests, reliability, owner satisfaction, and safety. CR says the road-test score is based on 50 different tests; reliability is based on 17 problem areas. It covers cars surveyed for the last three years.

Porsche, Genesis, Subaru, Mazda, Lexus, Audi, Hyundai, and BMW all received overall brand scores of at least 75 on a 100-point scale. The midpoint score (half above, half below) was 70. The biggest gainer was Tesla, which jumped eight spots from 19 to 11; its weak point remains reliability, which is below (but not significantly below) average. It’s not clear if there’s a statistical difference between brands rated a couple of points apart.

The 2020 Kia Telluride, tied with Toyota Avalon for the highest overall score, is one of Consumer Reports’ Top Picks and one of ExtremeTech’s 10 Best cars of the year.

Ten Top Picks (And They’re Super-Safe)

Consumer Reports has an annual Top Picks comprising the one top vehicle in each of 10 categories. To be considered, the vehicles must have received a recommended rating from the review and come standard with:

Forward collision warning (FCW)

Automatic emergency braking (AEB)

Pedestrian detection, an adjunct to AEB

CR does not, however, require blind spot detection or adaptive cruise control. The CR-required safety features can be implemented by a single, sub-$100 camera mounted at the top of the windshield. Blind-spot detection (BSD) requires multiple rear sonar/radar sensors. Some safety experts say BSD is crucial especially for older drivers who have trouble looking over their shoulders. Adaptive cruise control (ACC) makes rush-hour commutes and long highway drives less stressful and safer as well. But it, too, requires a separate front-facing radar. With forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking, you don’t know the device is working until it’s almost too late, while ACC slows you as soon as the vehicle in front slows or brakes.

CR Top Picks Per Segment Score Midsize 3-Row SUV: Kia Telluride 93 Big Sedan: Toyota Avalon 93 Midsize Sedan: Subaru Legacy 87 Small SUV: Subaru Forester 84 Midsize SUV: Lexus RX 80 Sports Car: Toyota Supra 80 EV: Tesla Model 3 80 Hybrid: Toyota Prius 79 Compact Pickup: Honda Ridgeline 76 Small Car: Toyota Corolla 75

These are the 19 vehicles to which Consumer Reports awards a score of 85 or higher. That’s out of 260 vehicles rated.

CR 2020 Highest Rated Cars Score Toyota Avalon Hybrid 2.5L 93 Kia Telluride 3.8L 93 Lincoln MKZ 2.0T 89 Genesis G80 3.8L 89 Audi A4 2.0T 88 Porsche 718 Boxster 2.0T 88 Porsche Cayenne 3.0T 88 Subaru Legacy 2.5 87 BMW M240i 3.0T 87 Subaru Outback 2.4T 87 Hyundai Palisade 3.8L 87 Lexus ES350 3.5L 87 Lexus GS350 3.5L 87 Mazda Miata MX-5 86 Mazda CX-9 2.5T 86 BMW 740i 4.4T 86 Subaru Crosstrek 2.5L 85 Toyota Camry 2.5L 85 Kia Cadenza 3.3L 85 Score of 85 or higher (of 100 points).

Interesting Factoids (to Us, at Least)

Consumer Reports, April 2020.

The top individual-model rankings (above, those rated 85 and higher) are skewed toward Japanese, German and Korean automakers:

Japan: Toyota/Lexus 4, Subaru 3, Mazda 2

Germany: BMW 2, Porsche 2, Audi 1

Korea: Kia 2, Hyundai 1, Genesis 1 (all part of Hyundai)

US: Lincoln 1

Among the overall brand ranking, the biggest loser was Acura, which fell eight places from 16 to 24 among the 33 brands. Lincoln and Volkswagen each fell five places, from 8 to 13, and from 11 to 16. The eight automakers at the bottom, scoring below 60 points, remained the same, and CR noted:

The bottom brands are an unchanged club, with Fiat [lowest scoring, 43], Mitsubishi, Jeep, Land Rover, Cadillac, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, and GMC again falling short. We tested a total of 36 models from these brands, and we recommend only the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Among small cars, Consumer Reports picked 33 best used vehicles under $20,000. They have to have performed well on tests when new and have above-average reliability. That includes:

Toyota, 13 models

Lexus, 6

Mazda, 4

Honda 3

While Honda and Toyota both sell a lot of vehicles, the recommended-used-cars differential is more than 4-1 (13 Toyota, 3 Honda). Mostly because of the $20K price cap, there are only two premium-brand European cars cited, the Volvo Xc70 and BMW i3. And in what may be an ominous sign for the US-flagged automakers, among recommended used cars, not a one is from GM, Ford/Lincoln, or Dodge/Chrysler/Ram.

Much of Consumer Reports car coverage is behind a paywall. But it does make freely available safety news (recalls) and some top lines on cars on the site if you don’t want to lay out $39 a year for digital access.

Now read:

EVs Finally Get Some Love from the Most Important JD Power Study

2020 Subaru Forester Review: The Safety-First, Can’t-Go-Wrong-Buying-One Compact SUV

Tesla Teardown Scares Competitors: ‘We Cannot Do This’

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/306930-consumer-reports-picks-its-top-car-brands from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/consumer-reports-picks-its-top-car.html

#Consumer Reports Picks Its Top Car Brands

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componentplanet · 5 years ago

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The Future of Sensors for Self-Driving Cars: All Roads, All Conditions

Robotic hands on steering wheel while driving autonomous car. 3D illustration.

Whatever your thoughts about how quickly autonomous vehicle technology will move forward, there is little doubt that it will need to rely on better and less expensive sensor technology than we have available today. Current test vehicles often have sensor suites costing over $100,000, and still can’t deal with all types of road and weather conditions.

To help provide some background context and assess the future potential of various sensor technologies, we assembled a panel of industry experts at Electronic Imaging 2020. They represented the major sensor modalities in automotive use today: lidar, radar, cameras, and thermal imaging. Everyone learned a lot, and there were some great takeaways that we’ll share with you in this writeup of the session.

Credit: Joyce Farrell, Stanford SCIEN

Setting the Context: David Cardinal, ExtremeTech

To kick off the panel we set the stage with some background and goals for the session. For context, it is clear that there is a continuum of applications. It ranges from today’s “Level 2/2+” ADAS deployments all the way to the Holy Grail of Level 5 pursued by Waymo, with dozens of companies aimed at Level 4 shared-vehicle fleet deployments that are somewhere in between.

As goals for the session, we set out 1) understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each technology, 2) how those will change going forward, and 3) how they will compete with and also complement each other as parts of an overall solution.

Dr. Nikhil Naikal, Velodyne Lidar

It was fitting that the granddaddy of automotive sensor companies, Velodyne, kicked off the panel. Its involvement dates back to the original DARPA Challenge, and the now-infamous “KFC Bucket” style of roof-mounted scanning lidar. While Velodyne is still the acknowledged market leader, it now faces literally dozens of competitors.

Velodyne’s analysis of lidar strengths and weakness in multiple lighting conditions.

To face down competition, Velodyne has broadened its array of lidar to include units down to the diminutive Velobit that it expects to price at around $100 when it is available. The company is also anxious to live down its original rooftop design, as Naikall showed us photos of the Tesla that Velodyne retrofitted with a suite of nearly invisible Velarray lidar. While many of its new competitors tout adding more intelligence to the lidar itself, Velodyne is moving carefully to only add those elements of processing that they think are best distributed.

Evaluating Cameras for Automotive, Nicolas Touchard, DXOMARK

Between mandatory backup cameras and over 50 million front-facing cameras in vehicle ADAS systems, visible-light imaging is — along perhaps with parking sensors — the predominant form of sensor technology currently found in vehicles. For now, those systems are only provided to help human drivers, so if a lane-keeping camera loses the lines when the vehicle heads into the sun, the driver is in charge. But as ADAS and eventually self-driving systems become more advanced, it will be essential for vehicle cameras to perform well in all situations.

Camera benchmarking firm DXOMARK has done a lot of work in accurately characterizing camera image quality challenges that are unique to automotive, which its VP of marketing Nicolas Touchard shared with us. Quickly adapting exposure to sudden changes in light levels, like entering or leaving a tunnel, is an important requirement that requires careful measurement — of both the adaptation time and any resulting overshoot before the exposure settles to its new value. The ability to accurately sense LEDs that flicker at various frequencies is another important feature. DXOMARK has built custom hardware to allow automakers and suppliers to measure that for proposed camera designs.

Thermal Imaging in Automotive, Mike Walters, FLIR

Along with the difficulty of sensing distance, the other big knock on traditional cameras is that they don’t work well in bad light — deep shade, back light, or night time, for example. Thermal cameras avoid those issues by directly sensing the longer-wave radiation that emanates from anything that gives off heat. That makes them particularly effective in detecting cars, people, and animals. Mike Walters, from thermal industry leader FLIR, took us through a tour of some of the current use case for thermal cameras in vehicles with a series of compelling videos about their use in low-light, direct sunlight, and poor weather.

Thermal cameras are particularly effective at night, although they need help telling the color of stoplights.

While deploying thermal cameras comes with its own unique challenges — traditional automotive glass is opaque to infrared so they can’t go inside windshields for example — they offer a lot of promise as a complement to other modes of sensing.

Automotive Radar, Greg Stanley, NXP Semiconductor

While lidar gets most of the press because of its impressive functionality, its lower-cost sibling radar is far more ubiquitous in automotive applications. Essentially all adaptive cruise control systems — even Tesla’s — use at least one radar. Most typical blind-spot monitoring systems also rely on radar. Some test vehicles, like the Cruise model shown below, have more than 20 of them, including three that swivel. Waymo’s minivans have six. Greg Stanley, from chip giant NXP, took us through some basics of how radar works, what it is capable of, and where it is heading.

Cruise’s test vehicles have as many as 20 radar, five lidar, and 16 cameras.

In particular, Stanley said that makers of radar units are looking to improve functionality, including by adding more object classification and vehicle localization capabilities. Like the other panelists, he stressed that vehicles need a complementary suite of sensors. For example, radar isn’t going to be helpful in reading speed limit signs or stoplights.

Sanjai Kohli, Visible Sensors

One casualty of the cold water thrown on visions of driverless vehicles being just around the corner has been startups with innovative technologies hoping to sell into that market. Sanjai Kohli was the founder of one of those — Visible Sensors. After raising $10 million in venture capital for a highly-effective version of a radar sensor technology, they were unable to find car companies or major suppliers willing to commit to purchasing them in production volumes any time soon. So, in a move that is quite unusual for Silicon Valley, they returned the money to their investors and went on to other endeavors.

While we can speculate on which of the hundreds of startups in the autonomous vehicle industry will be wildly successful, there is no doubt that many, and probably most, will ultimately meet a less-than-happy ending, so it was helpful for the audience members — many of whom are looking at getting into the field — to understand some of the practical realities of creating a business out of a great invention.

Radical New Sensor Architecture for Driverless Cars, Alberto Stochino, Perceptive

Looking at current automotive sensor architectures, sensing industry veteran Stochino came to the conclusion that truly advanced driverless technology — the kind required for L4 and L5 — would require a radically new approach. He founded Perceptive based on a vision of an all-digital platform with relatively-low-cost but high-performance sensors — antennas and cameras — around the periphery of a car, connected with optical fiber to a central processing core.

Perceptive is developing a flexible vehicle sensor architecture with low-cost but high-performance sensors coupled to a central processing core.

The biggest takeaway from the panel is that none of them believe that a single sensor modality will be sufficient for a true driverless vehicle. When asked about the argument that “people can drive with two eyes, why can’t cars?” their responses ranged from needing to be better than human drivers to a desire for true redundancy for safety. All of the panelists also agreed that it would be years before the advanced technology needed for L4 and above would be close to affordable for retail car buyers. So they are all determined to buckle up for the long, slow, adoption curve they expect as costs gradually come down with increased volume and innovation.

Top image credit: Getty Images

Now Read:

For Self-Driving Cars, Lidar Amps Up at CES 2020

Hands Off With Ambarella’s Camera-Only Self-Driving Car Tech

Lidar: A Gold Rush Is On to Help Your Car See Better

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/computing/305691-the-future-of-sensors-for-self-driving-cars-all-roads-all-conditions from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-future-of-sensors-for-self-driving.html

#The Future of Sensors for Self-Driving Cars: All Roads #All Conditions

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componentplanet · 5 years ago

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Frostbite Tech: Good Winter Tires Work Best With Smaller Wheels

Mazda MX-5 - Mazda Ice Academy February 2016 Crested Butte Colorado

Winter may seem one-third done by the calendar. Yet thanks to the variabilities in weather in many parts of the country, we’ve only just begun. Here’s a quick primer on how tire technology has changed and what you can do to get through cold, snowy weather — and also how to survive the winter without losing yet another bleeping $400 alloy wheel to potholes.

The trick is to get a second tire-and-wheel set with winter tires where the road wheel is one, two, or even three inches smaller in diameter. You compensate by getting a tire with a taller sidewall so the overall height is the same. The bonus is that rubber sidewalls are a lot more flexible and pothole-resistant than aluminum alloy, or steel, wheels.

Both the 16-inch winter tire from Michelin (X-Ice 2) and the factory-installed 19-inch all-season tire from Toyo (A36) have the same size as far as the car is concerned: a diameter of about 28.5 inches and 735 revolutions per mile. This “minus-3” winter design (left) has more rubber sidewall to absorb pothole shocks, and less metal wheel to be damaged by potholes.

Do You Need Winter Tires?

If you have a performance car with summer tires, they’re unsafe below 40 degrees because the soft tread compound gets hard–too hard for road grip, once it’s close to freezing. You won’t immediately slide off the road below 32 degrees, but braking and cornering abilities are compromised. At the least, you need to replace them for the colder half of the year with all-season tires. You can search the tire brand and model online; that tells you if they’re summer.

Most new cars come with all-season tires and they’re okay in a couple of inches of snow if you don’t have a steep driveway or street. In really lousy weather, you also have the right to say, “I’m staying in.” And should.

Winter tires – what used to be called snow tires – have a compound that remains soft and pliable well below freezing. But they’re somewhat louder on dry highway pavement and wear faster than all-season tires. They improve traction on snow, ice, and slush. The rubber looks the same – black – as on a winter tire of the early 2000s, but the chemistry and compounding are more advanced.

Studded winter tires are less popular than a generation ago because of the rapid advances made by unstudded winter tires, because of state bans or limits on when studded tires can be used, and because they’re noisy on dry pavement. Studded tires also damage pavement over time. But for stopping and starting on ice, they’re good. In the snow, not much difference.

How Many to Get? 4 Is Always the Right Answer

The first two winter tires have to go on the back of the car. Even if you have front-wheel-drive. Why? Snow tires grip better than all-season, far better than summer tires. Brake hard in a front-wheel-drive car and the rear end with less grip will – might – slide around. If you want the car to steer well in snow, you need winter tires in front, and if you want to not spin the car while braking or suddenly coming off the throttle, you need winter tires in back.

Just remember: No matter what vehicle, what drivetrain, the first two winter tires always go on the back. It’s nice to go. It’s vital to stop.

Does an All-Wheel-Drive Car Need Winter Tires?

All-wheel-drive vehicles have better traction in snow, but AWD and four-wheel-drive (what pickups and big SUVs have) confer no braking advantages over rear-wheel-drive.

In terms of traction, nothing beats all-wheel-drive with four winter tires, followed by front-wheel-drive with four winter tires, followed by rear-wheel-drive with four winter tires. Is rear-drive with winter tires better than AWD with all-season tires? It depends on the situation and road conditions. Anyway, that’s a hypothetical question: Either you have a rear-drive car or an AWD car, and you’re deciding whether to add winter tires, not whether to dump a rear-driver that needs snows and get an AWD car that might or might not need them.

Minus-1 2 3: Smaller Rim, Bigger Sidewall

Over my driving years, about a half-million miles driven, I’ve lost about six wheels or tires and wheels to road damage. Three were in the past three years, all because of potholes. When we moved to a hilly, twisty road 25 miles outside Manhattan (such roads exist) and got an all-wheel-drive SUV, we got by for a year with all-season tires, then decided we wanted even more traction and braking up and down the hills and around the curves the half-dozen times a year we get snow. That after a pothole bent but didn’t break one of the wheels (a $200 repair).

I researched the plus-size, minus-size concept. It’s possible to get a tire-and-wheel package where the road wheel is an inch bigger, say 20 instead of 19 inches, but the aspect ratio (how tall a tire sidewall is compared with the tire’s width, shown as a number such as 50, 60 or 70) adjusts so the sidewall is smaller, and the tire’s overall diameter, top to bottom, is about the same. You can go plus-one, plus-two, sometimes plus-three, meaning 18-inch wheels beget 21-inch wheels. You can also go minus-one, minus-two, or minus-three with winter tires, so a 19-inch summer or all-season tire/wheel package becomes 18, 17 or 16 inches with winter tires. It’s harder to go down in size, 19 to 18 to 17 to 16, because the wheel basket has to be able to fit over the brake components and the basket of a 16-inch wheel is sometimes too small.

Because of the bad experience with the damaged alloy, I didn’t want big, shiny rims in winter months. I decided to see if I could swap out our compact SUV’s 19-inch wheels and 55-series and tires down to 17-, maybe 16-inch rims and tires. 18-inch winter tires were easily found, 17s too, but only a handful of 16s. One that worked for my car, a Mazda CX-5, was the Michelin X-Ice 2 winter tire, sized 225/70R16. It is a close match to the tire diameter of the original-equipment 225/55R19 tires. I chose steel wheels, stronger than aluminum alloy, a little heavier. I first checked via spec sheets to ensure the tires and wheels would for sure fit, and they did. Tire dealers, local or direct, have fitment charts showing which larger or smaller wheels fit without scraping a component or requiring fender flares.

So now we have those minus-threes on our main car. For three years we’ve had Bridgestone Blizzak WS80 winter tires on an old rear-drive sport sedan. The old sedan came with 225/55R16 tires and wheels; I got 225/60R16 winter tires and affordable alloy wheels, again about a $1,000 buy-in by the time they were mounted and bolted to the car.

If the plus/minus concept is confusing, just ask the dealer: Can I get different size wheels with matching-fit tires that wind up having the same outside dimension (diameter) from top to bottom?

How Much?

As a rule of thumb, and as I did above, figure about $1,000 to put four decent winter tires and wheels on your small or midsize car. It’s going to be more if you want high-speed-rated winter tires, or go with fancy alloy wheels. These things add or subtract from what you pay:

Plus-size wheels and tires cost more.

If you get steel wheels, add $25-$50 for a four-pack of plastic wheel covers to improve the cosmetics.

Add $40-$50 per wheel for a tire-pressure monitor.

Add $25-$50 to mount and balance each wheel and tire.

Add $10-25 a wheel to put each wheel on the car and torque (bolt pressure) the wheels (and remove the old set).

Subtract up to $75 per wheel/tire if you buy everything from the same source and you get a tire package ready to bolt on.

Add $40-$60 for a set of four tire bags for off-season storage, mostly so you don’t get dirty rubbing against them in the garage.

Add $50-$75 for a tire storage rack that goes high up on your garage wall.

Figure on a new set of tires after six to 10 years. The rubber deteriorates, especially in sunlight.

Don’t try to uninstall the summer tires, put winter tires on the same wheels, then reinstall winter tires next fall. Each trip to the garage runs $100-$200, so the second set of wheels becomes cheaper after two years.

Bottom line: That second set of winter tires and wheels may seem costly. At the same time, it’s about the same as the cost of your insurance deductible if you’re in a winter accident plus the higher insurance payments for a couple of years.

Beyond the cost, you’re reducing the chances of an accident, you feel safer driving in snow, and you’re more likely to take that weekend trip you’ve been looking forward to even if the weather’s threatening.

Now read:

The 3 Car Types That Demand Winter Tires

2020 Hyundai Venue Subcompact SUV Review: Good Car, Inexpensive

Car of the Year: ExtremeTech’s Best Cars for 2020

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/304999-frostbite-tech-good-winter-tires-work-best-with-smaller-wheels from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/01/frostbite-tech-good-winter-tires-work.html

#Frostbite Tech: Good Winter Tires Work Best With Smaller Wheels

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componentplanet · 5 years ago

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The Best Cars, Car Tech, and Trends of CES 2020

LAS VEGAS – CES 2020 cemented its role as the most important show for automotive technology, with a handful of new car introductions (and re-introductions) plus lots of standalone technologies this week. Most US auto shows other than perhaps LA don’t generate a critical mass of tech-oriented auto company people, analysts, and journalists. CES certainly did.

Some might snicker when Byton CEO Daniel Kircher called the M-Byte EV “the first smart device on wheels,” but not the people attending this show. Of the vehicle introductions and concept cars, all were electrified – EVs or plug-in hybrids – with no gas-engine-only vehicles introduced.

Here are some highlights from the car and car tech part of CES 2020.

Nissan Ariya EV: Bigger than the Leaf, more range, and an SUV, not a sedan.

Best Debut: Nissan Turns Over a New Leaf

The biggest car debut – of a real car, or one that will be a real car – of CES was the Nissan Ariya. It’s a crossover / SUV intended to replace or (more likely) supplant the 10-year-old Nissan Leaf. The Ariya is bigger than the Leaf, offers two motors where the Leaf has one, and gets up to 300 miles on a charge versus 225 for the Leaf. With even more of the market headed toward SUVs, that’s how the Ariya is styled. The Leaf is a four-door sedan.

All this came down at the same time showgoers got news of how former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn made good his, ah, departure from Japan, in a shipping box punched full of air holes, on a private jet, and heard Ghosn rail against the accused-is-presumed-guilty system of justice, as he described it. (He also dissed Nissan, his former employer.) The two events had nothing to do with each other, beyond the company being Nissan in both cases.

The Jeep Wrangler gets a PHEV variant. Not many chargers in the Moab Desert, but the e-motor still provides torque for rock-crawling.

Jeep Gets 3 Electrified Vehicles

Fiat Centoventi concept.

FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobile) plans to electrify its entire iconic Jeep line by 2022. That doesn’t mean EV-only vehicles but plug-in hybrid (PHEV) models with up to 30 miles of battery-power driving before the gas engine kicks in. They’ll have vehicle badges marked “4xe” and include the traditional (Jeep-looking) Wrangler, the tiny Renegade, and Compass SUV. In Europe, Jeep said the vehicles will have an electric motor and 1.3-liter turbo-four engine producing 240 hp. “Electrification … will modernize the Jeep brand as it strives to become the leader in green eco-friendly premium technology,” the company says.

FCA also showed the Fiat Centoventi, a 145-inch, four-seater with suicide doors, and room for one to four batteries (they slide in), allowing 100-500 km of range, or 62-311 miles. An upscale model would get a 20-inch display in addition to the standard 10-incher. The late Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said Fiat was losing $10,000 a car making the Fiat 500e; hopefully, this has better margins.

Sony Vision-S concept with a wall of LCDs across the dashboard.

Front Seat Displays Get Bigger

The Byton M-Byte is the winner with a 48-inch LCD (one single panel) that includes SPF-30 in the glove box. The display in the Sony Vision-S concept car was only slightly smaller. The tiny Fiat Centoventi concept EV can be had with an optional 20-inch panel. Byton even has an LCD panel in the steering wheel. Pimp-my-ride tuners did that years ago. The difference is Byton’s is legal because the airbag is still there in the lower third of the wheel hub. For Byton, it was a re-introduction of the M-Byte as a production-ready vehicle (first cars, late 2020, US 2021) after a CES 2018 unveiling.

Sony shocked CES – that is, advance word didn’t leak out – with its Vision-S concept car that also had a width of the cockpit array of LCDs, including side mirror / blind spot LCDs on the left and right edges. Not that Sony will build an EV and compete with Tesla; this was a car to remind the automakers that Sony, too, makes a lot of car electronics beyond in-dash radios.

Displays are getting bigger in general. A 7-inch display doesn’t cut it anymore except on the very cheapest cars where navigation is your phone, not a $500-$1,000 navigation package. More instrument panels are now 12 inches and some higher-end vendors pair it with a second 12-inch in the center stack. Mercedes made the small seam between the two fall in with your line of vision and the steering wheel, so it appears as a single panel to the driver. Midsize and bigger cars will need 10-inch center stack displays to remain competitive. The Mustang Mach-E EV gets a 15-inch portrait display.

At the same time, the perceived image size of head-up displays is increasing. This allows for augmented reality HUDs, in this case meaning the car tracks the position of your eyes relative to the HUD, and overlays where-to-turn arrows in your line of sight so it appears to be floating over the actual turn. For this who say “too distracting, too dangerous,” it helps to drive a head-up-display car to see how HUDs reduce distraction.

BMW i Interaction Ease seats: recycled materials, embedded touch surfaces, embedded LED lighting.

BMW Car Seats Become Lounge Chairs

As cars become self-driven cars and the driving controls go away, automakers are imagining big, spacious, amorphous-shape seats for the passengers. BMW fleshed out the concept with not just one but three variants. All three are currently unobtainable; two because they’re concepts, and the third because it will be on the BMW X7 SUV and others in a couple of years and only to those comfortable with a $1,500 lease payment.

The most far-out is the BMW i Interaction Ease concept interior that BMW’s head of development Klaus Froelich described as a “supreme luxury experience … The merger of advanced technology and design creates an almost human bond with the car.” The two seats are joined together (no room for cupholders! Oh, the humanity!), with integrated leg rests. They embed touch surfaces for selecting, say, infotainment, and in this concept, areas light up in order to confirm a selection or provide ambiance. The concepts also provide immense legroom. BMW says the abstract interior of the i Interation Ease interior “underscores the potential of intuitive, almost human-like interaction between passenger and vehicle.”

Got that? In the real world, we wonder if the extra length that adds to the car is compatible with the desire for shorter vehicles in urban areas. But if they’re self-driving, they can just go somewhere else after you dismiss the car for the evening, and parking is not your problem.

ZeroG Lounger in BMW X7.

The ZeroG Lounger is close to production. Fitted in three BMW X7s for CES, the seat tips back 60 degrees, including the seat pan. An entertainment screen drops down from the sunshade location. An integrated seat belt and cocoon airbag protect a reclined passenger. Most cars with recliners today warn you not to use the feature while driving. (Right.) BMW says the “ZeroG Lounger … will be ready for series production vehicles in just a few years in a similar form.” We can hardly wait. (Seriously, for once.) This is the kind of feature that makes a long trip comfortable for the passenger. It would be nice if BMW could fit one in an X5, a more attainable BMW.

Lastly, the BMW i3 Urban Suite: BMW ripped out the interior of the outgoing i3 carbon-fiber EV and turned the right rear passenger space into a sloped back lounging seat (if you want to sit upright, the driver’s seat is off the stock vehicle). The right front seat is a sliding footrest. The left rear seat is a wood table with a securely fastened lamp. It’s cool, it’s impractical, and it keeps our attention while waiting for the 2021 BMW i4 EV with, we hear, a 530-hp motor, 300 miles of range, and the ability to go head to head with the Tesla Model 3.

The Visteon domain controller (lower left) encapsulates dozens of microprocessors; variants scale for more displays or processing power.

Fewer Control Modules Do More Work

This is geeky, so feel free to skip down to the snow-in-Detroit photo. [But isn’t this ExtremeTech? -Ed] As cars do more things electronically, the number of microprocessors is up around 100. Tier 1 suppliers, the big boys such as Visteon, Continental, Bosch, Magna, and Aptiv, are integrating lots of small modules into a couple of uber-modules, or domain controllers: one for safety, one for infotainment, one for the engine room. That reduces the amount of wiring in the car. There are still connections, but only sharing as much data as necessary, between say infotainment and the safety modules. The telematics modem has to provide in-car Wi-Fi and also has to call for help in an accident, which are separate domains.

Visteon advanced tech director Upton Bowden says a supplier can scale up the microprocessor within a domain controller for more or less performance. or to drive additional displays, all as needed. That means the unit doesn’t have to be certified and tested multiple times for slightly different applications. And the Tier 1 supplier takes responsibility for vetting all the parts inside, giving the automaker, in quaint parlance, just one throat to choke if there’s a development issue.

Detroit’s North American Auto Show. It snows there in January. NAIAS never had a chance against CES on the tech front. Or the weather front. The LA show moved to November and also stole Detroit’s thunder. Detroit reboots as a spring/summer show this June.

CES Did Not Kill the Detroit Auto Show

The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) gave up its January slot for one in June. Some believe CES blew Detroit out of the water. Actually, the shows are different. Every major auto show (LA, New York, Detroit, Chicago, DC) is more about 10 days of showing cars to customers; the press/analysts days tacked on for 2-3 days beforehand are just a way to get the automakers to build fancy booths and then turn them over to the local dealer associations. Meanwhile, the high-end European automakers realized their market share in Michigan rounded off to zero percent and bailed.

And the LA Auto Show, which had been in January a week away from NAIAS, moved to late November, where it has cemented its role as the show for green vehicles (it is in California) with its press days branded AutoMobility LA. Plus, LA has a goodly number of new car intros, and the Audi-BMW-Jaguar-Infiniti-Lexus-Mercedes-Porsche companies know SoCal is fertile hunting ground. NAIAS took a half-hearted stab at being a tech show with something called Automobili-D, but it was too little, too late, and stuck it down in the basement of Cobo Hall (now called TCF Center).

Anyway, CES is way bigger than Detroit or any other US auto show for media and industry participation. The SEMA show in Las Vegas in early November is more of a tuner/parts show. Comdex, the computer show, could have been an auto tech show but it didn’t survive much past Y2K. And Detroit gets to reinvent itself as an auto show / outdoor festival in June. All that’s left of the January show is the freestanding North American Car and Truck of the Year (NACTOY) at TCF Center Monday. Beyond Detroit, auto shows face an uncertain future as automakers question how much money to invest. Mercedes-Benz also pulled out of the New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) for 2020 even though it’s the company’s most lucrative sales turf. That is a bad sign for auto shows.

Consumer Technology Association president Gary Shapiro, left, interviews Counselor to the President Ivanka Trump Tuesday. (Photo: CES)

Ivanka Trump Speaks, World Did Not End

Much was made of the Consumer Technology Association (the CES organizer) inviting first daughter and counselor to the President Ivanka Trump to do a one-on-one keynote interview with CTA President / CEO Gary Shapiro. There was concern Shapiro and CTA were trying to tip the scales Trumpward in an election year. (Maybe. But it’s a long way from election day, and enough Democratic officeholders show up at CES to speak most years.) Some resistance formed around the hashtag #BoycottCES, but it meant giving up paid-for $500-a-night rooms, so if there was a boycott, it was of the one-on-one chat.

For the most part, Ivanka Trump didn’t say anything outlandish in her 40 minutes; she mostly restated the company line. For the most part, there are other more women in tech who would have been better role models. The best criticism was “Ivanka Trump Keynoting At CES Is All That Is Wrong For Women In Tech” by Carolina Milanesi in Forbes.

Nobody booed. Many agreed with Trump that “our immigration system is totally flawed,” although some of her related comments about making visa slots available for skilled workers may go beyond what the administration is doing. Tech and car companies are desperate for highly skilled engineers and computer scientists.

The bottom line is: Many CTA member companies do manufacturing in China. They’d rather not see their products tariffed. If a high-profile, softball interview for Ivanka makes the White House like consumer tech companies and go easy on tariffs, it’s the price you pay to make commerce run smoothly.

The odor of burning leaves in Vegas concentrated on overpasses on the Strip.

Mini-Trends and Gossip From CES Week in Vegas

On the Strip, Las Vegas Boulevard, the smell of weed was almost everywhere. Especially on the overpasses necessary to get you safely over the six-to-eight lanes of roadway. A friend from a software-development firm said, “With all our bio-engineering skills, you’d think someone could weed [yes, a pun] out the smell.”

There were multiple EVs, people-haulers, and transporters of the future — some nicely rounded (Toyota’s concept, top image), others small-and-tall minibusses for a half-dozen commuters. Toyota even envisioned a future Woven City community it will begin building at the base of Mount Fuji in 2021. Mercedes-Benz showed a far-out, doorless AVTR (Avatar) linked to the James Cameron movie. It senses the heartbeat and pulse of the occupant and responds with a welcoming thump on the seatback.

Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) continues to make strides winning converts, especially from the QNX OS. QNX initially took down Microsoft Windows Embedded Automotive when it won over the Ford business to underpin Ford Sync back in 2014. Now it’s pretty much a fight among AGL, QNX, and Android. The AGL consortium announced a reference design to make it easier for automakers to port their cars over.

BMW said it would be the first automaker with 5G in-car telematics, working with telematics partner Samsung, in the 2021 BMW iNext EV. BMW has a long history with Samsung; its now-subsidiary Harman has produced BMW’s last four infotainment head units and BMW’s iDrive system is considered to be the most competent infotainment controller, nearly two decades after the first edition in 2001.

TriEye SWIR camera.

New kinds of sensors may improve driving and self-driving. TriEye showed SWIR, or short-wave infrared lidar, in a camera that improves visibility in dusty, snowy and rainy conditions, the company says. WaveSense talked up ground-penetrating radar for self-driving. Say what – you want to go forward, not down? CTO Byron Stanley says the soil composition, buried pipes, and cables create a unique fingerprint that, once mapped, lets the car know its location within a few inches. And it’s not affected by above-ground weather conditions.

If anything got people upset about CES, it wasn’t the monorail lines (better than in previous years), long waits in cab lines (Lyft and Uber solved that problem), or all the security checks (cursory; you could sneak in a cruise missile). It was paying $25-$50 a day for a “resort” fee. I came in early to see a college hockey tournament at the new T-Mobile Center on the strip when Vegas was still quiet in the days just after New Year’s Eve revelers departed. The first three nights, my $43 (with taxes) daily resort fee was more than the room. (By midweek, some rooms were offered by hoteliers at $2,000 a night.) The resort fee amounted to two bottles of water a day, use of the grandly named health center, and swimming pool access, which in the winter means you can walk out on the patio to admire the drained pool.

CES Las Vegas has always been an international show (and there are consumer electronics shows outside the US). There seemed to be more Asian participants this year, especially from high-level players, but ranging from parts-maker companies with two-person booths to larger companies from Korea (actually, South Korea; not much take coming out of the North), Japan, Taiwan, India, and especially China. Byton (China) had a huge press conference Sunday. Harman, a unit of Samsung (South Korea), took over most of the exhibit hall space at the Hard Rock Hotel (which was bought by Richard Branson and will be rebuilt for CES 2021 as the Virgin Hotel). Car tech, consumer tech, it’s a global business.

Now read:

For Self-Driving Cars, Lidar Amps Up at CES 2020

Behind the Scenes With Aptiv’s Self-Driving Car Nerve Center at CES 2020

In This ‘Avatar’-Themed Mercedes-Benz, Two Hearts Beat as One

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/304585-the-best-cars-car-tech-and-trends-of-ces-2020 from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-best-cars-car-tech-and-trends-of.html

#The Best Cars #Car Tech #and Trends of CES 2020

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In This ‘Avatar’-Themed Mercedes-Benz, Two Hearts Beat as One

Mercedes-Benz VISION AVTR

LAS VEGAS – The Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR, as in Avatar the movie (and director James Cameron showed up on stage), made an earth-friendly debut Monday night at CES 2020. It is the automaker’s view of a battery electric vehicle / autonomous vehicle ready for a sustainable future. AVTR stands for Advanced Vehicle Transformation.

There is a lot of way-out stuff in the car, such as 33 moving scales on the back. (What’s not in the car are side doors.) The AVTR recognizes the driver from his or her heartbeat and breathing, and gives an affirmational pulse on the seatback, as passenger and vehicle become a single “symbiotic organism.”

There is also an important technical advance: The Vision AVTR batteries would use graphene-based materials free from rare earth metals and would be compostable at end of life, according to Mercedes.

The front seats are almost hammock-like. The driver interacts with the center console (no steering wheel), which resembles something of a human figure from the waist down. (That’s what we see.)

Mercedes says the AVTR is “inspired by the world of Pandora [from the movie] … a completely new interaction between human, machine, and nature.” While it’s easy to make fun of some of the show-car excesses, such as the road wheels with spokes that light up, as if they were sourced from the SEMA aftermarket parts show held last fall, Mercedes is looking into how the car and passengers might complement each other. The person in the left-front seat, the former driver, no longer has the stress of dealing with traffic and deciding which motorists to flip off. So the car could soothe, massage, entertain, even educate the kids in back.

The commander, if not driver, of the Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR interacts via the center console.

Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR

The complete AVTR manifesto – sorry, informational release – runs 10,200 words or 21 pages as a PDF. (Boomers, that’s a 34-page double-spaced term paper.) We especially appreciated the description, toward the end, about kids in the car:

The Vision AVTR automatically detects when a family is on board and adapts accordingly in its functions. For example, the front seats are connected to the rear seat via the Child Connect function. Monitors can be used to monitor the well-being of the children in the rear by the parents at the front. As a further connection between the front seats and the rear, the pulse of the front passengers on the back of their seats is visualized by light. This gives younger inmates [that’s what it said, “inmates” – Ed.] in particular a sense of connectedness and security in the rear seats.

Moving flaps, or scales, on the back of the Vision AVTR.

There are serious technologies. The AVTR can crab-walk / drive sideways or at an angle. Imagine fitting into the tiniest possible parking space. It uses vegan microfiber fabrics for the seats. Any woods in the car, it goes without saying, are sustainably grown. Then there’s the battery:

Organic battery technology made of recyclable materials: For the first time, the Vision concept vehicle is using a revolutionary battery technology based on graphene-based organic cell chemistry that is completely free of rare earths and metals. The materials of the battery are compostable and therefore completely recyclable. In this way, electric mobility becomes independent of fossil resources. As a result, Mercedes-Benz underlines the high relevance of a future circular economy in the raw materials sector.

The wheel spokes light up in the concept vehicle

To each, his or her own. What may be futuristic to some may be an unusual styling, even odd, styling exercise. The aroma of weed permeates the Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard) these days, especially the pedestrian overpasses, and there is a good place to ponder the design and meaning of the vehicle:

Which central motif stands for the design? The world in harmony and symbiosis with nature are our guiding principles. We designed the showcar as a holistic system. Everything can be changed, and at the same time has an impact on the whole organism – or the car. Even the outer shape reflects this. It is still clearly recognizable as an automobile, but with many references to natural beings. We wanted to design a car that could connect seamlessly with its passengers. The user experience as a central element is comparable to a symbiotic organism. Our design philosophy of sensual purity is always the guiding principle – our aesthetic soul, so to speak.

Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR are sort of hammock-like, just as in the village of Pandora.

The Vision AVTR vehicle won’t be sold to consumers. (Would you buy a Mercedes with no side doors?) But as a styling exercise, it’s fun. And we’ll certainly see some elements come to market. It’s high time premium automakers offered more interior fabrics that weren’t formerly the outside of a farm animal. And we certainly can use vehicles that insulate occupants from the outside world.

Now read:

Byton Pushes M-Byte EV as First Smart Device on Wheels

On the Road to CES 2020, Testing a Night-Vision Display and 4K UHD Dash Camera

Car of the Year: ExtremeTech’s Best Cars for 2020

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/304285-in-this-avatar-themed-mercedes-benz-two-hearts-beat-as-one from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/01/in-this-avatar-themed-mercedes-benz-two.html

#In This ‘Avatar’-Themed Mercedes-Benz #Two Hearts Beat as One

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BMW M2 X35i SUV Review: The 2002 tii Reimagined for Modern Times

The BMW X2 M35i is a wicked-fast small SUV that retains a measure of practicality — meaning room for four not-overweight people, and their clothing tightly packed in soft-sided luggage. The X2 M exists for the swooping, twisty roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and similar back roads across America and Canada. Even if it’s an SUV coupe, this vehicle is what BMW’s famous 2002 tii would be half a century later, allowing for changes in norms and for how well a good SUV can handle.

The X2 M is also a simple vehicle to understand: 0-60 in less than five seconds, 35 mpg at 65 mph, a punishing ride with the stock suspension, eight grand more than the X2 without the M parts. Other than blind spot detection being unavailable, the tech and driver assists are reasonably good. Nothing else significant is wrong.

Nobody needs this car, but if you can swing $50K-$55K, you’re in for a treat.

On the Road: Fast, Fun, Bouncy

This review applies to both the 2019 and 2020 models; the X2 M was introduced in the first half of 2019. The X2 M35i is a positive delight to drive. The engine is throaty and there’s a satisfying blip when it upshifts under heavy throttle. Almost no one argues with the comfort of BMW seats. The Magma Red leather upholstery makes up for decades of unimaginative beige-or-black BMW seating choices. Mine had power-adjustable side bolsters for the track and twisty side roads.

On recently paved interstates, the car was fabulously comfortable; in states that don’t pay attention to highway infrastructure (this means you, Pennsylvania), it was mile after mile of punishing jolts. My test car was well-optioned but lacked the adaptive suspension option ($500) that could only have softened the ride. The X2 M falls into the list of cars where you must bring your partner or spouse along on the test drive. The stiff ride is the price you pay for a rigid body and suspension that is responsive to the road. The brakes on my test car were grabby at low speed; other testers on other cars have mentioned the same issue. There are no complaints about high-speed braking.

The X2 M with the 2.0-liter turbo-four engine has what reviewers often call “barely noticeable turbo lag.” Translation: There’s noticeable turbo lag at low rpm if you want to get a quick start from a standing stop. It feels like the better part of a second. It’s not there if you’re tooling along in a lower gear at higher rpm because the turbo is already engaged. Zero-to-60 acceleration takes 6-7 seconds if you tromp the throttle. If you want the 4.7 seconds BMW cites in the specs, see Launch Control on page 129 of the manual: Get the engine warmed up (20 minutes), press the DSC button, move the driving style button to Sport, foot on the brake, other foot pushing all the way down on throttle, lift off the brake, and watch the car rocket off with no wheelspin. Microprocessors control the standing-still rpm and launch to ensure against over-revving the engine.

The snug, bolstered front seats prefer people of normal size. The second row has an adequate fit and the roof slopes less than in the bigger X4 and X6. Interestingly, passenger roominess is about the same among the X1, X2, and X3 except the X3 has 1-2 more inches headroom than the X2. The luggage area will hold enough soft-side luggage for four if no more than one is a clothes-horse. Especially if you remove the modesty cover and pile luggage to the ceiling.

There is very little road noise. The premium Harman Kardon audio is quite good. There’s one USB jack in the center stack, one in the console, and two in back. All but the front jack are the newer USB-C. The X2 M continues the BMW tradition of charging a yearly subscription for the right to use an Apple iPhone and not supporting Android phones. Switching between CarPlay and BMW infotainment can be clumsy; non-BMWs have similar issues. Telematics is integrated and Mayday calling services are free for 10 years.

It’s a BMW, so the X2 has the iDrive controller. The same setup that was annoying in the X7 works better in the X2 because your line of sight isn’t blocked by the X2 shifter and you can see the buttons surrounding the control wheel. It’s still hard to see some of the backlit dashboard buttons; the universal dimmer makes some parts too dark and others too bright. The optional head-up display can be adjusted independently.

At 172 inches long, the X2 is firmly in subcompact territory. It fits well in snug urban parking spaces and you’ll probably want the $200 parking assistant option. Adaptive cruise control is stop-and-go. Lane departure is standard but warning-0nly, not lane keep assist and not the lane-centering assist that is part of BMW’s semi-autonomous Active Driving Assistant Pro system. BMW does not offer blind-spot detection on this X2; it should. It does have the basic optical driver safety assists: forward collision warning, pedestrian detection, and auto-braking separate from adaptive cruise control.

The X2 M is not a hybrid drive car but there is brake-energy regeneration to the battery, which powers the car’s electrically powered accessories. I averaged 32 mph in mostly highway driving, and for the span of 100 miles driven at 60-65 mph, I got 36 mpg.

The X2 M35i measures 172 inches long, 72 inches wide, 60 inches high. The X1 is 3 inches longer and higher but passenger space is no greater. The compact X3 is 13 inches longer with similar legroom and more headroom.

What Exactly Is an X2 M35i?

BMW’s naming scheme is precise and sometimes wordy. Vehicles run from 1 Series to 8 Series for sedans (even numbers) and coupes (odd numbers), small to large. SUVs run from X1 to (so far) X7, with SUV couples getting the even numbers. M means a performance version (Motorsport). The two digits years ago signified how many liters displacement (in tenths); now it includes a rough multiplier for turbocharging, so 35 means the 2.0-liter turbo’s 302 hp is about what you’d expect from a 3.5-liter six with no turbo. i is for fuel injection, which all BMWs are, except diesels (no longer sold here) that end in d.

BMW X2 M35i and early-1970s BMW 2002 tii performance model with fuel injection and sportier suspension. 1974-76 2002s got massive USA safety bumpers that made the car 9 inches longer, 100 pounds heavier.

Meet the New 2002 tii: X2 M35i (Not the M2 Coupe)

I drove the X2 from New Jersey to Greenville-Spartanburg, SC, where BMW builds most of the world’s SUVs and where 1,300 BMW Car Club of America enthusiasts gathered last week for the club’s 50th annual Oktoberfest convention to celebrate their cars, drive in road rallies and at BMW’s Performance Center by day, and then drink Oktoberfest beer by night. Many of them have gravitated toward the brand’s roadsters, convertibles, and performance offerings. The same events happen with Corvette, Porsche, Mazda, and Mustang owners in different locales each year as well, and the members are enthusiastic brand-recommenders to friends and relatives. Automakers get good ROI supporting their events and showing off their latest to their fans (photo below).

New BMW M8 Competition ($150K) laying down a long stretch of tire smoke at the BMW Performance Center, Spartanburg, SC. All in the name of building the brand with BMW club members.

In 1968, BMW landed on the map when Ziff-Davis’ Car and Driver magazine — the same company as publishes ExtremeTech today — reviewed the BMW 2002, which begat the 2002 tii. Headlined “Turn Your Hymnals to 2002,” the appreciation by Editor David E. Davis was a booster rocket for BMW visibility and sales on American shores. While companies are beginning to doubt the 2019 value of pay-to-play social media influencers, there is seldom doubt that an enthusiastic and impartial editor can be priceless in pointing out what to buy and what to avoid when the product but not the writer is for sale. Davis warned drivers of other sporty cars they were about to be blown in the weeds, and this was about the pre-tii 2002:

Car and Driver’s 1968 BMW 2002 review.

In the suburbs, Biff Everykid and Kevin Acne and Marvin Sweatsock will press their fathers to buy HO Firebirds with tachometers mounted out near the horizon somewhere and enough power to light the city of Seattle, totally indifferent to the fact that they could fit more friends into a BMW [2002] in greater comfort and stop better and go around corners better and get about 29 times better gas mileage.

Mr. and Mrs. America will paste a “Support Your Local Police” sticker on the back bumper of their new T-Bird and run Old Glory up the radio antenna and never know that for about 2500 bucks less they could have gotten a car with more leg room, more head room, more luggage space, good brakes, decent tires, independent rear suspension, a glove box finished like the inside of an expensive overcoat and an ashtray that slides out like it was on the end of a butler’s arm—not to mention a lot of other good stuff they didn’t even know they could get on an automobile, like doors that fit and seats that don’t make you tired when you sit in them. So far as I’m concerned, to hell with all of ’em. If they’re content to remain in the automotive dark, let them.

The 2002 tii followed in 1971 and boosted the 2002’s horsepower from 114 hp to 130 using fuel injection over carburetors. Quaint numbers: The X2 M35i is good for 302 hp and 322 pound-feet of torque. Back then, sedans were pretty much all BMW sold, although there were touring versions, European terminology for hatchbacks and station wagons. The 2002/2002 tii was BMW’s clear best-seller then.

Now, the two best-selling models in the BMW lineup are the X3 and X5. X designates SUVs, which BMW calls sports activity vehicles (SAVs) and sports activity coupes (SACs). SUV/SAV/SAC sales climbed to 52 percent of the 311,014 BMW brand sales last year. All except the X1 have M (Motorsport) versions, although the X2 M is not considered quite as Motorsport-ish as the X3 to X6 M vehicles.

Some fanatical owners will argue long, hard, and loud that the M2 Coupe is the logical successor to the 2002 tii. For them, maybe so. At the same time, the X2 M35i will lap a racetrack competitively. It is only 4.5 inches taller than the 2002. The M2 Competition coupe does 0-60 in 4.2 seconds, the X2 M35i does it in 4.7 seconds. Unless you’re on a race track, that is more power than anybody needs for daily driving. There is no on-ramp in America where the M35i can’t reach 60 mph before you have to merge (0-60 takes the length of a football field), even get 10 mph beyond past the speed limit so you can merge ahead of the 18-wheeler that has a convoy of a dozen cars tailgating it in the right-hand lane and paralleling your car. [Sounds like you’re familiar with the New Jersey Turnpike. -Ed]

Here’s one last reason the X2 M beats the M2 Coupe for enthusiasts who drive long distances solo: The X2 M is a mini-motor home. Very mini. Limited amenities. But on long trips, a driver can pull into a safe rest area, drop down one of the two rear seatbacks, roll out a padded mat, and snooze for a couple of hours or overnight with feet in the cargo bed, head on the seatback. (Drivers under six feet will fit with their knees bent slightly.) The cargo cover and tinted side windows provide a measure of privacy. I’ve slept out a torrential rainstorm in the California desert (on high ground) in an Audi TT’s boot (also with folding rear seatbacks) and the Bimmer is spacious by contrast. The X2 M is quick enough, spacious enough, and versatile enough to be the new tii. That’s our take.

The must-have Magma Red leather upholstery, the same price as plain old black leather.

X2 Trim Lines

The BMW X1 and X2 are based on a front-drive platform shared with Mini. Factoid: BMW went forward with front-drive only after extensive consumer research and found potential customers already believed BMW was selling front-drive cars.

The X2 M35i, all-wheel-drive only, starts at $46,450 with freight; $8,100 more than the X2 xDrive28i (AWD), in turn $2,000 more than the X2 sDrive28i (front-drive). We’ll say no more about them.

On the X2 M35i, options include Premium Package (head-up display, navigation, heated front seats, $1,400); metallic paint, $595; 20-inch wheels with 245/40R20 performance run-flat tires, $600; leather upholstery, $1,450 plus a mandtory $500 for M sport seats; adaptive cruise control, $950; moonroof, $1,350; Qi wireless charging and Wi-Fi hotspot ($500; telematics and a cellular modem are standard); very good Harman Kardon audio, $875; dynamic damper control, $500; and roof rails, $250. With every options box checked, the price is $55,965.

There are configuration quirks. BMW’s build-your-own site indicates you can get heated seats and heated steering wheel but then you can’t have adaptive cruise control. You can, however, have ACC and heated seats, albeit with no heated steering wheel. If you want the auto-adjusting shocks, you must take the 19-inch wheels with 245/45/R19 all-season tires, probably the better choice for most drivers. You could do this and come out ahead: Get the X2 M with DDC and 19-inch wheels. Order a set of 20-inch alloys (BMW’s or a reputable third-party maker) and the same Pirelli P-Zero summer tires for $3,500-$4,000. Yes, they’re expensive. Sell your essentially new 19-inch wheels and tires to someone who destroyed theirs on a pothole or curb, for $1,000 to $1,250 apiece.

If you have 20-inch wheels and summer performance tires, you’ll need to add a set of winter tires and wheels, $1,600-$2,500, if you live where it gets below 40 degrees. Even if it doesn’t snow, the car loses grip.

Should You Buy?

Nobody needs this vehicle except maybe to cope with a change-of-life crisis (hitting 30, 40, or 50; getting divorced; or laid off with a fabulous buyout package). Or to have fun. It is an absolute hoot to drive. It has enough room for most drivers and passengers. The shape is the best-looking of BMW’s coupe-styled SUVs and doesn’t have the odd-to-some fastback roofline of the X4 and X6.

The X1 carries more cargo, the X3 a lot more. If you’re looking at a non-M X2, maybe you want the X1. Both X1 and X2 come in front- and all-wheel-drive versions but there is no X1 M version. The compact BMW X3 is 13 inches longer (186 inches) and $5,500 more. It’s a toss-up whether the X3 or X5 is BMW’s best SUV. Families of four, or couples who carry lots of gear but don’t want a big vehicle, will find the X3 better suited to their needs. There are M versions of the X3: $71,000 for the X3 M, $78,000 for the X3 M Competition, rated at 4.0 seconds 0-60 mph. Sooner or later, you’re talking serious money.

There is some competition: the Mercedes-Benz GLA, the Volvo XC40, the larger and costlier Porsche Macaan, and the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. Add the Lexus UX and borderline subcompact/compact Cadillac XT4, if ultimate handling matters less than cabin comfort.

Now read:

2019 Volvo XC40 Review: Standout Subcompact Crossover, Heavy on Safety

2019 Cadillac XT4 Review: Nice Ride. How Come More Safety Isn’t Standard?

2019 BMW X7 Review: The Best Big SUV Yet

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/300597-bmw-m2-x35i-suv-review-2002-tii-reimagined-for-modern-times from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2019/10/bmw-m2-x35i-suv-review-2002-tii.html

#BMW M2 X35i SUV Review: The 2002 tii Reimagined for Modern Times

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