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All of the electric, connected, self-driving cars at CES 2017

With an entire convention hall filled with carmakers, CES seems like the “Car Electronics Show” more than ever this year. Autonomous tech and connected cars are the name of the game, with a healthy dose of electricity thrown in. Chrysler has its first electric car prototype, while Nissan, Toyota, and Hyundai are eager to leapfrog the competition when it comes to in-car smarts.

  • Jacob Kastrenakes

    Jan 13, 2017

    Jacob Kastrenakes

    Why carmakers want to keep Apple and Google at arm's length

    Apple CarPlay in a Buick Enclave

    The splashiest auto news coming out of CES and the North American International Auto Show has been about new models, self-driving tech, and wild concepts. But in a quieter series of moves, automakers also continued to strengthen their control over what it is we're able to do inside our cars, particularly when it comes to the apps that run on infotainment systems.

    Though carmakers have generally embraced Apple's CarPlay and Google's Android Auto, many are hoping to establish an alternative app system that will be almost entirely under their purview. Automakers bill it as a move to create a seamless experience for their customers, but others in the industry see it as a way to cut Apple and Google out of the equation, so that vehicle manufacturers can continue to sell new services to customers.

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  • I rode in Faraday Future’s FF91, the electric car powered by hubris

    Sitting in the passenger seat of Faraday Future’s mythical FF91, I found myself clinging to the red strap that doubled as the door handle to keep from flying out the window. The car kicked up dust as it rail-gunned down the length of the giant tent where FF set up shop during CES in Las Vegas. As the electrically powered propulsion pushed me back into the bucket seat, I couldn’t help but let out an involuntary squeal as my brain tried and failed to process the speed. Holy shit, was that fast.

    Earlier in the week, FF finally pulled the rabbit out of the hat. The FF91 took the stage Tuesday night to rapturous applause from hundreds of people gathered to witness the ambitious-but-troubled startup’s big CES reveal. The FF91 has plenty of sleek design cues like a retractable LIDAR sensor in the hood and whiz-bang technology like self-parking via smartphone. But FF still needs to prove that it is a real company that could produce a real car for people to own. The CES presentation bought Faraday Future a bit more time to do that.

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  • Tom Warren

    Jan 6, 2017

    Tom Warren

    Nissan and BMW bring Microsoft's Cortana assistant to cars

    Just days after teasing a Nissan and Cortana partnership, the car maker is unveiling its plans to integrate Microsoft's digital assistant into some vehicles. Nissan is working directly with Microsoft on its Connected Vehicle Platform, which utilizes Azure, Cortana, and Office 365. Cortana will be available in cars and will adapt its preferences and features based on drivers and others in the vehicle.

    Nissan demonstrated Cortana integration in a concept video of what will be possible with the digital assistant. Asking "what is my schedule" surfaces the usual functionality of Cortana's calendar integration, but Nissan also demonstrated the ability for Cortana to understand and suggest shortcuts to destinations, and even options to download new maps overnight. At one point in the demo, Cortana even asks "shall I engage auto park?"

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  • Jordan Golson

    Jan 6, 2017

    Jordan Golson

    Nissan is using Mars Rover tech from NASA to control autonomous car fleets

    Nissan

    Nissan has taken NASA technology built for the Mars Rover to help control fleets of autonomous vehicles. It’s called Seamless Autonomous Mobility (SAM), and Nissan believes it’s a solution for when vehicles don’t know how to handle the unexpected.

    Though even basic self-driving car systems can handle the vast majority of situations — heading down a well-lit highway in nice weather — the biggest obstacle to fully autonomous driving is how to handle unusual or unpredictable or just plain weird situations.

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  • Dan Seifert

    Jan 6, 2017

    Dan Seifert

    Nissan’s next Leaf will drive autonomously on highways

    Nissan

    Nissan announced today that it is planning to release a new Leaf electric car in the “near future.” The new model will be the successor to the most popular electric car in the world and will include support for Nissan’s ProPilot autonomous driving technology. ProPilot, which was first revealed last summer in the Serena minivan for Japan, allows for single lane autonomous driving on the highway.

    Nissan did not say exactly when the new Leaf will be available, nor how much it will cost. It is likely that it will launch first in Nissan’s home market of Japan.

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  • Tamara Warren

    Jan 5, 2017

    Tamara Warren

    Honda unveils first electric ride-sharing concept car

    Honda

    Car companies love to say they got there first. It appears Honda may be the first major automaker to show a concept vehicle designed for the ride-sharing market. The NeuV, which was announced Thursday at CES, is an acronym for the New Electric Urban Vehicle. NeuV [noo-vee] is based on the premise that self-driving, electric cars can be put to work rather than sitting idle nearly all the time.

    Honda says the two-seat vehicle could be programmed to pick up and drop off passengers when its owner isn’t using it, or to sell back remaining energy to the grid. “We designed NeuV to become more valuable to the owner by optimizing and monetizing the vehicle’s down time,” Mike Tsay, principal designer, Honda R&D Americas, said in a company statement.

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  • Rich McCormick

    Jan 5, 2017

    Rich McCormick

    Nvidia is working with Audi to get you a self-driving car by 2020

    Nvidia might be most famous as a manufacturer of computer graphics cards, but the company has been increasingly turning its attention to the automotive market over the past few years. This CES, it detailed new moves that will move it even further into the market: partnerships with suppliers ZF and Bosch that will see it making parts for automatic cars, and an expanded deal with Audi that will see the companies bring a proper self-driving vehicle to market by 2020.

    Audi and Nvidia have worked together before, but the new partnership, announced by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang on stage at CES 2017, will see the companies working to produce a “Level 4” automatic vehicle — that means a car capable of driving entirely on its own. As an early proof of concept, the two companies have already collaborated on a experimental self-driving Q7 SUV. Nvidia says the car — which is on display at CES — learned to drive itself in just four days, using its AI technology.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Jan 5, 2017

    Jordan Golson

    Nvidia’s self-driving cars will help you drive better, too

    Nvidia thinks it can use autonomous driving sensors to make manual driving safer, and that’s very clever. It’s called AI Co-Pilot and Nvidia unveiled it at CES as part of an extensive set of upgrades it made to its autonomous vehicle products.

    Self-driving cars will, eventually, save many lives. But, it could be decades before autonomous cars can drive in every situation. Until then, there will be times when we must drive ourselves, because there are lots of situations where autonomous cars still aren’t good enough. Anything from bad weather and construction zones can flummox them.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Jan 5, 2017

    Jordan Golson

    Watch BB8, Nvidia’s self-driving car, navigate the world

    This is BB8. It’s Nvidia’s autonomous car and it’s been driving around in California and New Jersey testing things out. It’s always nice when companies give their cars cutesy names (this one is, of course, borrowed from The Force Awakens) but between the upbeat music and the eager way the car explores the world with brightly colored boxes identifying other cars, traffic lights, and road signs, you can’t help but smile. Sure, we’ve seen similar videos before, but the fact that cars are freaking driving themselves is still mind blowing.

    Nvidia is all-in on autonomous cars. Its supercomputer for self-driving cars is being used by everyone from Volvo to Roborace, and the company just inked deals with huge suppliers ZF and Bosch, and German automotive giant Audi, to help build more autonomous vehicles. For many situations, it’s clear that the autonomous technology is (nearly) ready — the tech is progressing so fast that it seems like we’re just waiting for government regulators to figure out how to make it all legal.

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  • Ford becomes the first automaker to bring Amazon Echo into their cars

    A year ago, Ford teased a possible integration with the Amazon Echo smart home device, so car owners could turn on their home lights or browse their music libraries from the comfort of their Fusions or F-150s. Or they can switch it up and ask Alexa to start their car from inside their homes. Now the integration between Ford and Amazon is official and will be rolling out in the weeks to come, the companies announced at CES today.

    Ford claims it will be the first automaker to offer real-world integration with Amazon’s popular smart home device. Other car companies have also working to get Alexa in their vehicles, but it looks like Ford may have won the sprint to get there first.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Jan 5, 2017

    Jordan Golson

    BMW thinks your car interior will look like this in five years

    BMW today unveiled what it called a “glimpse into the mid-future” for the interior of its cars. It’s called the BMW i Inside Future sculpture, and it’s what BMW thinks you might be sitting in after 2020. It’s got comfy seats, a futuristic control system called HoloActive Touch, and the ability for each passenger to watch their own videos or listen to music without bothering everyone else in the car.

    These concept designs are important because the way we ride in cars will be changing over the next decade. Instead of driving everywhere, new cars will be able to drive us around while we read a book, take a nap, or (for many of us, sadly) get some work done. BMW calls it a “living space for comfort-focused, permanently connected users.”

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  • Hyundai envisions a future where your smart home is your driverless car, and vice versa

    Hyundai unveiled a whole bunch of futuristic things at CES this year: a low-cost driverless car, a bunch of robot exoskeletons, and an electric scooter. But the most out-there thing the South Korean automaker had to show wasn’t even physically present because it doesn’t exist yet. Nor will it ever, but wow, this is a wild one.

    Hyundai’s “Mobility Vision” concept is a mash-up of a smart home with an autonomous vehicle, with futuristic furniture moving seamlessly between both. The idea is your autonomous vehicle is docked to your home via some sort of portal, becoming a cool extension that just detaches when you’re ready to be whisked across town for an errand or road trip. The motivation, Hyundai says, is to “blur the line between mobility and living and working space, integrating the car into the daily lives of users.”

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  • Meet Hyundai’s Ioniq, the self-driving car for you and me

    Hyundai

    This year, CES is lousy with self-driving cars. So why should we care about Hyundai’s Ioniq, a sporty-looking hatchback with an electric motor and an array of autonomous sensors? For one, the Korean automaker claims that because it’s using cheaper sensors and less computing power, the Ioniq will be the one true affordable driverless car. Think of it as the autonomous vehicle for you and me.

    To retain the car’s sleek design, Hyundai’s engineers hid the laser-powered LIDAR sensors behind the bumper. This is a similar look to Delphi’s autonomous Audi SUVs, and certainly sets the Ioniq apart from other self-driving cars with their rooftop cameras and multitude of protruding sensors.

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  • Toyota’s Concept-i has built-in artificial intelligence named ‘Yui’

    Toyota unveiled its Concept-i vehicle today at CES, and in case you weren’t sure, this is about as concept-y as concept vehicles get. The futuristic design and aerodynamic shape just screams science fiction. And to top it off, Toyota says the car has built-in artificial intelligence, nicknamed “Yui,” designed to “learn from and grow with the driver.”

    That’s right, Toyota wants your car to become part of your family.

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  • BMW, Intel, and Mobileye will have self-driving cars on the road later this year

    BMW engineer, André Mueller, tests autonomous driving technology in a BMW 7 series sedan.
    BMW engineer, André Mueller, tests autonomous driving technology in a BMW 7 series sedan.
    BMW

    2017 is about to become overwhelmed with self-driving cars. Today, BMW, Intel, and Mobileye announced their intention to deploy 40 autonomous vehicles for testing on public roads in the second half of 2017. The cars — BMW 7 series equipped with Intel and Mobileye technology — will be on the roads in both the US and Europe for public trials, the companies say.

    Six months ago, BMW first announced its intention to partner with Intel, which will supply processing power, and Mobileye, the Israeli supplier of driver-assistance systems and sensors that supplies a large percentage of the auto industry. At that time, the German automaker said it hoped to have autonomous vehicles available for purchase by 2021. Today’s announcement is that those vehicles will begin testing later this year.

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  • Faraday Future finally revealed a real car, but you may never get to own one

    Faraday Future finally revealed its first production car, officially dubbed the FF91, tonight in Las Vegas. It’s a breathtaking if bewildering crossover, unveiled at a lavish, stunt-filled event befitting the hype-driven company’s last tumultuous year. A car parked itself. The rogue’s gallery of rival luxury and electric vehicles were brought on stage for a simulated drag race, only to be dismissed as inadequately fast enough compared to the FF91. Another car failed to park itself. And there were tiny tacos.

    Unsurprisingly, the company’s executives steered clear of answering any questions about financial viability or whether the funds exist to bring this shiny, self-driving futuristic vehicle to production. In other words, Faraday Future has a car, but it’s unclear whether anyone will ever get to own one.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Jan 4, 2017

    Jordan Golson

    Faraday Future’s first car — the FF91 — is here

    Faraday Future’s first car is the FF91, and the troubled company unveiled it tonight at CES in Las Vegas. The launch was full of buzzwords, but the main push from Faraday was how fast the car is. With 1,050 horsepower, the car can go (according to Faraday Future, at least) from 0–60 in 2.39 seconds. That’s faster than any other car built today.

    We’ll see if Faraday can actually deliver on the litany of promises it laid out today, but if it can bring the beautiful FF91 to market, Tesla might have something to worry about.

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  • Tom Warren

    Jan 3, 2017

    Tom Warren

    Nissan teases Microsoft's Cortana assistant in its cars

    Cortana GIF
    Cortana GIF

    Nissan appears to be preparing to announce Microsoft’s Cortana integration for its cars. The motor company tweeted a short video with Cortana checking a schedule and teasing some “exciting announcements” for Nissan’s CES keynote on Thursday. It’s not clear exactly what Nissan will announce, but the company is holding its keynote at 4PM on January 5th, streaming live on Twitter or YouTube.

    Microsoft has been experimenting with Cortana in cars for at least a year. The software maker first unveiled a Windows in the car concept back in 2014, and the same prototype software progressed to include Cortana last year. Microsoft has been working to integrate Cortana into the windshield of a car, allowing drivers to make restaurant reservations or see their favorite locations on a virtual map. Nissan has previously used a special version of Windows in its cars to create its own interface and system. If the pair are working on Windows in vehicles, then we could be set to see exactly how Microsoft envisions Cortana inside cars later this week.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Jan 3, 2017

    Jordan Golson

    Ford will build hybrid models of the F-150 pickup and Mustang

    Ford Raptor F-150 China

    Ford will release hybrid versions of its F-150 pickup — America’s best-selling vehicle, moving more than 750,000 units last year — and the legendary Mustang sports car, by 2020. It’s part of a large investment in electrified vehicles that Ford CEO Mark Fields unveiled at its Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Michigan today.

    Details on the new hybrids are pretty thin, but Ford did say that the F-150 Hybrid would be able to work as a mobile generator — generating electrical power at a job site is a big deal for farmers and contractor-types — and would offer “powerful towing and payload capacity.”

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  • Russell Brandom

    Jan 3, 2017

    Russell Brandom

    Ford will build an all-electric SUV for 2020

    Ford (STOCK)

    Today, Ford announced an unexpected addition to its lineup, an all-new, fully electric SUV scheduled for in 2020. Built in Ford’s Flat Rock, Michigan plant, the as-yet-unnamed vehicle would be engineered to have a range of at least 300 miles, and be sold in the US, Europe, and Asia. The company also announced hybrid versions of the Mustang and F-150 pickup.

    “As more and more consumers around the world become interested in electrified vehicles, Ford is committed to being a leader [in the category],” Ford CEO Mark Fields said in a statement. The strategy reflects renewed competition with General Motors, which released the Chevy Bolt earlier this year.

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  • Chaim Gartenberg

    Jan 3, 2017

    Chaim Gartenberg

    You can now control your Hyundai through Google Home

    Hyundai’s Blue Link service, in addition to offering automatic emergency support, lets owners control various aspects of their cars remotely through a connected smartphone, Apple Watch, or Android Wear device. At CES 2017, the car company announced a new partnership with Google to add voice control for your car through the Google Home.

    That means that various Blue Link remote access functions like starting your car or unlocking the doors can be controlled simply by talking to your Google Home. Additionally, Blue Link supports Google Maps, so Home can look up addresses using Google’s mapping data, deliver the results, and send directions straight to your car all through voice control.

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  • The Chrysler Portal is the all-electric self-driving minivan for your futuristic family

    Fiat Chrysler is unveiling its first all-electric, self-driving concept car at CES this year, but it’s not some sporty, sleek number that’s all design and no functionality. Quite the opposite: the Portal is a family-focused minivan, and an unabashedly futuristic one to boot.

    Chrysler is not explicitly calling the Portal a minivan, but look at it. It’s a minivan. The Portal appears to have gotten its name from its wacky door design that opens and closes like an elevator. Chrysler bills the Portal as "next generation family transportation designed by millennials for millennials," which is brand lingo for appealing to people with smartphones and money to burn.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Jan 2, 2017

    Jordan Golson

    Google and Chrysler use Android to revamp the in-car touchscreen

    Chrysler

    Google and Fiat Chrysler (FCA) have worked together to build a new infotainment system on top of Android, the companies announced ahead of the beginning of CES today. The project combines FCA’s UConnect infotainment system with Android 7.0 Nougat. It keeps the carmaker’s user interface while integrating a number of apps like Google Assistant and Maps, as well as other Android apps like Pandora, Spotify, and others.

    It’s an expansion of a partnership between the two companies that saw Chrysler working with Google to build 100 Pacifica minivans integrated with Google’s autonomous driving hardware and software.

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