Hasta La Gadget!

LAS VEGAS – For the first time in a car equipped with Ford Sync, there’s an embedded cellular data modem. All other Sync vehicles use the owner’s cellphone for car data communication with the outside world. So with the announcement of the Ford Focus Electric today at CES, does that mean a change of direction for Ford that makes Ford’s Sync technology more like GM OnStar with its always-embedded modem? Ford says no; This is something special for electric cars.

LAS VEGAS – Hyundai Blue Link, a telematics service announced today, matches and raises the competition with three telematics packages with an embedded cellular data modems, like GM OnStar. The cheapest level with crash notification and roadside assistance, is expected to be about $100 a year.. If so, that halves the cost of the competition. Higher levels include remote start and stolen vehicle location, and turn by turn navigation even on cars without embedded navigation.

The Chevrolet Volt is both a technological tour-de-force and a savvy hedging bet on a future that may have to confront global warming and CO2 levels as fact, not just as a debating point. For all these reasons, this compact, plug-in hybrid from General Motors is our Digital Drive Car of the Year for 2010. It’s all the more impressive that the Volt comes from a company that brought the Volt to market while dealing with a side trip into, through and out of bankruptcy.

The redesigned 2011 BMW 5 Series gives you most of the goodness of the 2010 BMW 7 Series that was our Digial Drive Car of the Year at the end of 2009, along much of the interior room of the 7 Series, and virtually all of the technology goodies that dazzled us a year ago, so we’re picking them both. With the 2010 redesign of the 5 Series, they look a lot alike, too. (As the Germans say, same sausage,different lengths.) Go for the 5 Series and you can use the $20,000 base price difference to make a sizeable dent in BMW’s technology-options list that supplements your driving skills, entertains you and the passengers, improves BMW’s already impressive handling, and keeps you in touch with the outside world.

When it comes to bang for the buck applications of technology, Ford leads the industry, and the Ford Edge midsize crossover is a leading example of Ford’s tech savvy. It’s one of the first Ford-Lincoln products to reach the market with MyFord Touch, a touchscreen LCD display interface for controlling phone, navigation, entertainment, and climate control. Buy the SD card navigation option (another cost-conscious innovation) and you get a big 8-inch color display; otherwise, you get a smaller but still usable LCD display rather than a completely different center stack button-and-knob set.