Toyota announces zero-emission, hydrogen vehicle at CES

Toyota said Monday it plans to launch a fuel-cell car in the United States next year, declaring the hydrogen vehicle with zero emissions the car of the future.

Toyota Motor Sales Vice President Bob Carter said the initial market will be California, together with an initiative to establish hydrogen refueling stations in key regions of the state.

In 2015, we will bring this car to market, Carter said in the announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The vehicle, yet to be named, would be a zero-emission, electric-drive, mid-size, four-door sedan.

Functionally, this is a regular car, he added.

The streamlined design is to maximize oxygen intake for the fuel-cell process. It will be able to travel 300 miles (480 kilometers) on a single fueling, which would take three to five minutes.

While carmakers have long touted the advantages of fuel cells, high production costs and a lack of fuel stations have held back the technology.

Carter said however that Toyota had been getting results from its major investments and added that we believe we can bring it in at a very reasonable price for a lot of people.

Government initiatives in California were making progress in getting hydrogen fueling stations in needed areas, he added.

The issue of infrastructure is not so much about how many, but rather location, location, location, he said.

Fuel cells will be in our future sooner than many people believe… and in much greater numbers than anyone expected.

Toyota unveiled a prototype last year at the Tokyo auto show, but on Monday offered more details for its plans for the U.S. market.

Honda is also expected to roll out a fuel-cell car in the U.S. market in 2015, and other automakers are working on the technology, which emits only water vapor as exhaust.

Honda already has a fuel-cell car, the FCX Clarity, available on a small scale in a limited number of markets.

Carter said that Toyota and California officials plan to add 20 new fuel stations by 2015 to the 10 existing ones. The goal is to have about 100 in the state, and to have a station within a six-minute drive of an owner’s home or business.

This infrastructure thing is going to happen, he said.

I believe this vehicle will be the car of the future.

It is expected to launch in Japan at about the same time.

BMW unveils smartwatch app at CES

The German carmaker is showcasing connectivity with Samsung’s Galaxy Gear watch and also using the world’s largest consumer electronics show to demonstrate a host of new autonomous driving features.

Proving that the line between computers and cars is blurring more and more with each year that passes, BMW, a stalwart of motor shows the world over, chose the International CES in Las Vegas rather than the upcoming Detroit auto show to reveal its latest connected and automated car innovations.

Monitoring a car’s systems on your wrist

The most eye-catching of which is an app that links the recently launched Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch with BMW’s equally new i3 all-electric vehicle. In what BMW claims is an industry first, wearers of the smartwatch will be able to simply glance at their wrist to know how much charge is left on the car’s battery, and receive alerts regarding appointments and departure times based on their schedule. Moreover, the app allows the driver to push route details to the car’s navigation system, to check if the doors and windows are closed and to adjust the climate control before getting into the car.

BMW is by no means the only car company present at this year’s CES; direct rivals Audi and Mercedes-Benz are also in attendance, as are Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota to name but a few.

And like BMW, Mercedes has also chosen to extend its connected car features beyond the smartphone and onto the driver’s wrist. However, rather than Samsung, Mercedes has chosen to develop an app for the Pebble smartwatch. The app will let drivers check fuel level status, whether or not doors are locked and windows closed and where the car is parked. Once on the move, potential hazard alerts are pushed to the watch, which vibrates to warn the driver with minimum distraction.

Parking with a push of a button

As well as smart device connectivity, BMW also revealed the latest fruits of its automated vehicle labors. The company has been at the forefront of developing self-driving car technology and has clocked up countless miles of testing over recent years. At CES it showed that its systems are capable of autonomously guiding and controlling a vehicle when pushed to its dynamic limit on the track something that is only possible when steering, acceleration and braking are working in perfect harmony, rather than independently responding to changing conditions.

Off the track and on normal roads, BMW has also been developing better self-parking technology. The latest iteration of the feature cannot only identify wide enough spaces parallel to the road for safe parking, it can now also simultaneously control the steering, braking, forward and backward movement required to maneuvered the car into the space.

All the driver has to do is press and hold down the button until the car is parked. Releasing the button gives the driver full control of the car again.

Why Tesla added electric car chargers to this tiny Wyoming town

In the least populated county in the least populated state, old Ford and Chevy pickup trucks roam and rule the roads.

Finding a Tesla, the sleek and pricey all-electric car, around these ranching towns is unlikely. And yet, one day last month, a Model S sedan pulled quietly in at the America’s Best Value Inn Covered Wagon Motel in Lusk, population 1,557.

Its mission was to plug in four gleaming white Supercharger units the company had just installed in the motel’s courtyard. The visit was part of a test of a planned coast-to-coast route of quick-charge stations for Tesla vehicles.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company plans dozens more across the middle of the continent in the months ahead to make it more feasible for the electric car to go from seashore to seashore.

Some folks in Lusk are cautiously hoping that the stations will bring a steady stream of wealthy motor tourists. In the meantime, if and when the next Tesla shows up, locals who commonly plug in their cars and trucks to keep their engines from freezing may be left wondering about the visitors who plug in their cars to charge them.

After all, there’s no shortage of skepticism about electric cars out here it’s not the kind of place for electric cars.

First, people are partial to the pickup truck because of its ability to tow heavy loads and endure the rattling rides of going off-road. Second, Wyoming is famous for its open ranges, terrain that has worried electric car owners because they could end up being stranded.

The Model S, which begins at $70,000 but with options can top $100,000, can drive a long way for an electric car: Up to 265 miles on a single charge. Draining the battery pack and recharging it all the way takes more than 4 hours with the best available home charger.

The company’s Superchargers offer a trade-off that makes long-distance trips more feasible. The stations can charge a run-down Tesla battery pack to 90 percent in just 45-50 minutes.

In Lusk, that’s enough time to grab a burger at the nearby Outpost Cafe or Triangle 4 Cafe & Steakhouse, or visit the antiques stores downtown.

The Supercharger station will be a critical stepping-stone between stations in Cheyenne and Rapid City, S.D. Highlights on the first coast-to-coast route to be followed, Tesla says, by a couple more cross-country options by the end of this year include the scenic Four Corners region and Mount Rushmore.

That’s kind of the thought behind this first, initial route, is enabling the great American road trip, Tesla spokesman Patrick Jones said.

New Supercharger stations also are going in across Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to connect existing facilities on the coasts. Tesla owners use the stations free of, well, charge. Tesla picks up the electric bill.

Niobrara County, population 2,456, is home to plenty of wealthy ranchers who can afford a Tesla, said Michael Mercer between oil changes at a downtown auto repair shop. The problem is that most live in country far too rugged for low-clearance vehicles.

They’re not going to take some hundred-something-thousand-dollar car off road, he scoffed.

The Lexus IS 350 F Sport is a steady, calm mid-size SUV

It’s the season for all-wheel-drive. Snow and rain are less of a concern when your auto has four driven wheels. And what was once an option most often seen on Subarus and Audis has spread to brands as diverse as Jaguar, Lamborghini and Hyundai.

Lexus, a division of Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota Motor Corp., has sold cars equipped with AWD since the 2006 IS sedan, making it especially attractive to customers in the U.S. Northeast and Pacific Northwest.

The IS has been redesigned for 2014, and it’s the least expensive model that Lexus offers with AWD. Competing with the likes of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s BMW 3 Series and General Motors Co.’s Cadillac ATS, the latest IS is a sporty mid-size sedan with an attractive exterior and a youthful vibe.

The IS 250 AWD starts at $38,485, not including a delivery fee of $910. The AWD components add weight, however, and the 2.5-liter V-6 manages to produce only a miserly 204 horsepower. That’s underwhelming when pulling around more than 3,600 pounds (1,630 kilograms), so acceleration is best described as somnolent.

A much wiser choice is the IS 350 AWD with its 3.5-liter engine and 306 horsepower. The base price is $41,700. (For comparison’s sake, a BMW 335i xDrive sedan starts at $45,400, and has six fewer horsepower.)

Unfortunately, neither Lexus engine has been significantly updated for this generation. This affects efficiency, which is middling, with the IS 250 AWD getting 20 miles (32 kilometers) per gallon in city driving and 27 on the highway, and the IS 350 AWD 19 and 26.

The first thing you’ll notice on the new car is the nose, which has gained the company’s new signature grille. It’s literally in your face, jutting out in a manner suggesting Lexus is no longer willing to play the segment’s wallflower. While awkward on some Lexus models, the funky front is at home with the IS’s lively styling.

This isn’t a big sedan, and the modest footprint is underscored when you get inside. Though the wheelbase and back seat have grown this generation, taller or stouter passengers might feel cramped. NFL centers need not apply.

The interior is playful, with a leather-coated dashboard built like a collection of shelves, and details available such as red stitching on the steering wheel. Many of us no longer equate luxury with glossy wood inserts I don’t need a movable treehouse, thank you and the IS’s interior is far more interesting than the Lexus luxe-austerity of old.

The driver’s side has an odd hump rising from the floor, a result of an intrusion by the AWD equipment. It doesn’t affect comfort, but I often found the underside of my right leg resting on it. Sorry, but that’s just sloppy engineering.

My test car, which I drove for more than a week around New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, also had the F Sport package, which adds a tauter suspension and bolder exterior and interior touches. Horsepower remains the same. With options, the price came to just less than $50,000.

If I bought the IS 350 to chase after BMWs and Cadillacs on back roads, I’d be disappointed. It takes 5.7 seconds to reach 60 miles per hour, and its overriding characteristic around sharp corners is caution. Electronic stability and traction controls intercede early and often when you’re driving hard.

By comparison, the Cadillac ATS AWD is a bounding bird dog to the IS’s timid terrier. The $44,020 Cadillac is full of wet- nosed exuberance, whereas the Lexus’s V-6 has almost no bark, no howl in its heart.

Frankly, I’m OK with that. Sometimes steady and calm wins the day. Whatever the weather, the IS feels stable and almost unerringly competent, even on slippery surfaces. One morning found me ferrying several passengers on a twisting two-lane road slicked with snow and patches of ice. The temperature was in the teens.

It made its way placidly over pebbles of crunchy ice, the AWD working its push-and-pull tango. The car’s electronic mind never allows too much torque to channel through any tire when the surface is slippery, so even immoderate stabs of the gas won’t upset stability.

The AWD model gets all-season tires, which is important. Many sports sedans these days come standard with performance tires, which are only suited to warmer temperatures. I’ve noticed that the compounds in the rubber tend to get brittle even at temperatures as high as 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius). The level of grip suffers.

Even AWD can only help so much: I once had an Audi Q7 sport-utility vehicle with summer tires that couldn’t pull out of a parking lot with an inch of snow. Embarrassing.

The Lexus’s tires proved up to the task (though snow tires would be even better), and I negotiated down snowy gravel roads and up steep icy hills. The nose is rather low, and you wouldn’t want to break a snow trail, mind you.

Still, I took to calling the Lexus my little luxury snowplow.

Jaguar F-Type V6S feels like a proper old-fashioned sports car

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. The trunk is very small. And… and that’s it, really the only thing you could possibly find wrong with this one. All right, it is quite expensive, too, and probably has no place in the modern world. Pretty, though. Go on: treat yourself.

The boot really is tiny. Open it up and it’s like: WTF-Type! Never mind golf clubs, you’d be hard pressed to squeeze a club sandwich in there. My girlfriend’s small mini-break wheelie suitcase won’t go in, so we end up repacking, in a couple of plastic bags, glamorously.

Oh, and my girlfriend doesn’t fit in either. Nothing to do with her size, simply because of the people-to-seats ratio: there are three of us and three into two don’t go. So she’s on the train because our child can’t yet be trusted to get out at the right station, not being two yet.

But then this isn’t a car for couples with children. Or luggage. Just toss in a spare pair of knickers and a bottle of champagne, and roar off romantically (the roar is lovely). A child may be the result, in which case you’ll have to rethink the wheels; for now, though, live a bit.

Nor is it a car for people with golf clubs, not just because they don’t fit in, but because it’s simply too cool for golf. The other Jaguars even XJs are for golfers, their bellies, their dodgy trousers and probably their dodgy politics. This one’s for me.

The F-Type is the first two-seater Jag, the first proper sports car, since the E-Type. It’s too early to tell if it will inherit that lovely creature’s iconic status, but I suspect not. The E-Type must have been absolutely extraordinary when it first appeared in 1961: a new threat, big and long and thrusty. The F-Type doesn’t have that shock factor. That’s not to say it isn’t beautiful. It is, from every angle: prowly and purposeful from the front, classic and clean from the side, elegant and sculptured at the back. Rear of the Year 2013, no question.

And to drive it’s a blast. It feels like a proper old-fashioned sports car: you’re low and encased, in touch with the road. The ride is quite firm, but it’s perfectly balanced and feels lighter than the 3527 lbs. it weighs. This is the middle one, with a three-liter V6 supercharged engine that gives 380 horsepower. There’s a V8 that gives you a hundred extra horses on top, but I can’t imagine who’d need them, apart from maybe Catherine the Great.

For us me and my son this will do. It’s bright and cold, and we’re blasting through Oxfordshire with the roof down, freezing our ears off but happy as Mr Toad. Driving shouldn’t be so much fun; it probably won’t be for much longer. Quick, before they make it illegal. Poop-poop.

Jaguar F-Type V6S

Price: $110,810

Top speed: 171mph

Acceleration: 0-60mph in 4.8 seconds

Combined fuel consumption: 31mpg

Eco rating: 2/10

Cool rating: 9/10

This article was amended on 6 January 2014. V65 has been corrected to V6S.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

Corvette will let owners record, share drives

The 2015 Chevrolet Corvette will have a new system that lets owners record their drives and share the video with friends.

The system uses a windshield-mounted camera, a microphone and a recorder to track data. Drivers can edit the videos to include their speed, location, lap times and other stats.

The video can be viewed on the Corvette’s eight-inch color touchscreen when the car is parked or downloaded to a computer. Drivers can record up to 13 hours of driving time.

General Motors developed the system with Cosworth, a British company that supplies the Corvette racing team’s electronics system.

GM introduced the system Sunday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It didn’t say how much the option will cost.

The 2015 Corvette goes on sale next fall.

Android heads to car dashboards

Google has joined forces with Audi, GM, Honda, Hyundai plus chipmaker Nvidia to form Open Automotive Alliance (OAA), which aims to bring the Android smartphone operating system and its apps to car dashboards.

By adopting Android, car companies will find it easier to bring new connected car innovations to their customers and, because it is already the world’s most popular smartphone and tablet operating system, they will be able to do so in a way that is easy to use and to understand.

The worlds of consumer and automotive technologies have never been more closely aligned, and this alliance will only pave the way for faster innovation, said Ricky Hudi, Head of Electrics/Electronics Development at AUDI AG. Working toward a common ecosystems benefits driver safety above all.

Driver safety is a huge and growing issue, especially where electronic devices are concerned. A Virginia Tech study published on January 1 highlights that the average U.S. driver is distracted by other activities 10 percent of the time that they are behind the wheel. And, that of those distractions, the cell phone is the one that causes the greatest risk to safety.

The study, which used video footage from cameras installed inside 150 cars, found that even experienced drivers were more than twice as likely to crash or have a close call when dialing a cell phone

Experienced adults were more than twice as likely to crash or nearly crash when dialing a cell phone as when they did not dial and drive, but did not have an increased risk while engaging in other tasks secondary to driving, while novice drivers were four times more likely to crash or nearly crash while texting.

If a phone’s functions are integrated into a vehicle and can be accessed via voice commands or a touch screen, many of these risks will be mitigated, especially if the way of accessing the features is intuitive and doesn’t require car owners to dig out the user manual every time they want to accept or decline a call or pull up a map.

Millions of people are already familiar with Android and use it every day, said Sundar Pichai, SVP of Android, Chrome & Apps at Google. The expansion of the Android platform into automotive will allow our industry partners to more easily integrate mobile technology into cars and offer drivers a familiar, seamless experience so they can focus on the road.

As well as core smartphone functions, by creating an automotive version of Android, app developers will also be able to build versions of their apps that are suitable for in-car use, whether for navigation, scheduling or even social networking.

Through the OAA, our customers using Android devices will soon be able to enjoy the continuous user experience in their Hyundai and Kia vehicles, said Dr. Woong-Chul Yang, Vice Chairman of R&D, Hyundai Motor Group. By introducing the latest IT technologies safely and securely throughout our full range of vehicles, we continually strive to provide the highest levels of convenience and enhance the in-vehicle experience.

The first cars with integrated Android will be hitting the streets later this year. The OAA hopes that Android’s open-source nature and its scalability, plus the wealth of developers already building apps for it will attract more car companies to sign up to the alliance.