The electric (only) Mini E shows the promise and peril of new technology. It’s peppy, it’s quiet, and it’s quick. It also gives up its back seat to the big, heavy battery pack, yet range is a bit under 100 miles. And the engineers at BMW (which owns Mini) worked to maximize power regeneration, so the moment you lift off the throttle, you’re braking (regenerating).
BMW lengthened the new midsize 5 Series, ported over virtually all the high-end options offered on the luxury 7 Series, and created what may be the world’s finest car, at least in the $50,000 (starting price) category. The new design erases some of the quirks of the 2004-2009 5 Series and now non-Bimmerphiles will have a hard time telling it from the longer 7 Series. Which is nice because an entry BMW 535i runs $20,000 less. The car is nearly flawless to drive and to ride in.
The Mazda5 crossover, tall wagon or multi activity vehicle (Mazda’s term) provides driving fun and loads more personality than other $20,000 vehicles, and lots of room for its size. Mazda packs three rows of seats and five doors into 182 inches. It’s ideal for someone who wants okay-not-dazzling cargo capacity for long weekends and passable comfort for four adults, plus two more third-row passengers sucking on pacifiers. If you want Bluetooth, you need to buy the high-end $24K Grand Touring (shame, Mazda).
In the 10 years since President Clinton ordered the military to unscramble the GPS signal, the big benefit has been to increase accuracy from about 100 yards to just a few feet. It makes navigation devices more accurate. Before, when civilians got what was called selective availability, GPS knew more or less if you were on the highway; now it knows if you’re centered in your lane. It’s still not good enough for autonomous driving. But there are other benefits we’ll see before we see self-driving cars:
If you were to pick a handful of businesses the average consumer would describe as capable of sticking it to buyers, the top of the list would have auto dealers along with, say, mattress stores, payday loan firms, and bankruptcy-assistance firms. Car dealers are running a full-court lobbying press for exemption from pending consumer protection legislation. Proponents of better protection laws include some groups you’d never imagine, such as the military, which says the hassles of dealing with car dealers and car-loan provisions hurt our military preparedness. Much of the consumer protection laws affecting dealers is at the state level. Dealers say that’s enough.
Nokia and in-car entertaiment company Harman said Monday that the two
companies intend to develop a smartphone-to-car interface that could
pass information back and forth between the two computing systems.
Neither
company revealed a timetable to complete development. Nokia and Harman
indicated that the physical connnection would be made via a USB cord,
with Bluetooth as a backup for short-range trips. However, the Bluetooth
connection could also quickly drain the phone’s battery, the two
companies noted.
However, both companies said that they could add
the functionality of the other device to augment its own.
Specifically, it appears that the two companies envision the smartphone
as a communications and possibly authentication device, capable of
feeding data to the automotive system and vice versa. In one example
given in a joint statement the companies released on Monday, a car low
on gas/petrol would alert the phone, which would then search out a list
of nearby gas stations. The partnership also assumes that locations like
parking garages would be able to signal their availability, and ADAS
(Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) would be able to tap into the
connection as well.
You’re stuck in rush-hour traffic and your state’s draconian hands-free laws mean you’re legally unable to get vital information riding in your old junker. That was then. Now: The newest iteration of Ford Sync accesses and reads aloud your Twitter feed and – OMG, you learn Kim Kardashian painted her toenails today. You’re the first to know. That’s just one facet of the new Ford Sync, which also offers turn-by-turn navigation and hands-free control of smartphone features beyond phone calls. It’s appear on Fords such as the 2011 Ford Fiesta (see Gearlog review) when it arrives this summer.
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