New York Auto Show 2018: the latest news and the fastest cars

Whether a jagged maw of grinning shark teeth, or a perpetually surprised oval, the automobile grille serves a very important function: it allows air to flow in, cooling the radiator and generally keeping the engine from overheating and going kaput. It serves a more psychological function as well, playing an important role in attracting buyers. After all, who wouldn’t want to get behind the wheel of a car that looks like it could chew them up and spit them out?

The grille also could be an endangered species. Cars without dirty internal combustion engines, like battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles, don’t necessarily need a grille. But auto designs have a difficult time transitioning away from a criteria built around the function and needs of an ICE and toward one without those same requirements. Tesla got rid of its grille on the Model 3, and there’s really no around it — it looks mad weird. Some have taken to calling it a “duck face,” and with good reason. The smooth, unblemished front fascia has already spawned a cottage industry of people selling faux-grille stickers for their Model 3. I personally like the one with vampire fangs.

The New York International Auto Show opens to the public this weekend, and upon entering the Javits Center attendees will be bombarded with new cars, SUVs, trucks and even a handful of supercars that will most likely be out their price range. Here’s our primer for anyone who wants to cut through the noise and see the stuff that really matters.

Anyone who grew up on dog-eared copies of Popular Science probably assumed we’d be riding around in self-driving cars while viewing the passing scenery through glass or plastic bubble roofs. The self-driving car part is playing out right now, but the glass or plastic bubble part seems to have been left in the recycling bin. Now, here’s the Genesis Essentia, an all-electric performance concept with a transparent hood and a fully retro-futuristic bubble roof. The Hyundai-owned luxury brand is certainly making a statement with its first EV.

The new Jaguar I-Pace is quick from a stop. It’s quiet as a mouse. The ride is comfortable throughout, from the cushy seat, to the air suspension, to the smooth, low resistance in the wheel. The I-Pace is also shorter than you probably think it is; up close, it looks like an SUV that’s been (carefully) stepped on.

Other than that, there’s not much more I can tell you about what the I-Pace is really like, since I only had about one minute to drive it.

Finally, Cadillac has an SUV to rival popular small luxury rivals such as the BMW X1 and Land Rover Range Rover Evoque. Based on the fact that SUVs are about the only Cadillacs anyone is buying these days, the 2019 XT4 should help get more foot traffic in showrooms. There’s just one thing: you can’t get the XT4 with Cadillac’s excellent Super Cruise driver assistance system.

Super Cruise debuted last year on the flagship CT6 and we found it set Cadillac apart from every other brand marketing a semi-autonomous driving system. It uses cameras, sensors, and mapping data to allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel for a time, but has an infrared camera to make sure eyes stay on the road. A more comprehensive driver assistance system than those offered by the likes of Tesla and Volvo, Super Cruise should be Cadillac’s way of breaking out of old stereotypes and introduce the brand to a new customer. Instead, they’re just making another compact SUV.

Mazda’s process of teasing its interesting and striking future continued at the 2018 New York Auto Show where they showed the Kai Concept. Already revealed last fall in Tokyo, the Kai has even more significance. First, it’s likely a preview of the next Mazda 3 hatchback due next year, and second, that car holds Mazda’s gamble that the internal combustion engine can be cleaned up to satisfy ever-stringent global emissions standards.

We got a turn in a prototype equipped with the SkyActiv-X engine in January, the company’s bet that it can make gasoline engines that are as efficient as diesels without the emissions problems that have given them a bad name. Through engineering witchcraft, Mazda’s engineers say they’ve worked out many of the efficiency losses for the internal combustion engine, while insisting automakers should perfect that technology before throwing everything in the electric basket.

In 2017, nearly 200,000 electric cars were sold in the US. That may seem like a lot, but that’s less than 2 percent of the 17 million total vehicles sold over the course of the year. But while EV sales are definitely growing, the electrified market is still decidedly niche. This has spurred a new marketing campaign to persuade the American public to give batteries a chance.

Sixteen major automakers are teaming up with seven Northeastern states to support a new advertising venture with the aim of getting Americans to buy more electric cars. The goal isn’t to make everyone a Tesla owner. Organizers will place a heavy focus on hybrid vehicles, both standard and plug-in hybrids, in the interest of casting as wide a net as possible.

Anyone who grew up on dog-eared copies of Popular Science probably assumed we’d be riding around in self-driving cars while viewing the passing scenery through glass or plastic bubble roofs. The self-driving car part is playing out right now, but the glass or plastic bubble part seems to have been left in the recycling bin. Now, here’s the Genesis Essentia, an all-electric performance concept with a transparent hood and a fully retro-futuristic bubble roof.

The Essentia, which made its global debut at the New York International Auto Show Wednesday, is stunning and sexy. And it has all the fanciful hallmarks of a concept befitting the luxury branding: super-lightweight, low-slung, carbon-fiber monocoque body; butterfly doors that are opened with a fingerprint sensor or biometric facial recognition; and a battery-powered motor that Genesis says can sprint to 60 mph in three seconds.

The new Subaru Forester, one of the brand’s best-sellers in the US, made its debut at the New York International Auto Show today. With it comes EyeSight, Subaru’s driver-assist technology, and an interesting new safety feature that is totally new to the automaker’s lineup: facial recognition.

Dubbed DriverFocus, Subaru describes it as a “driver monitoring system that uses facial recognition software to identify signs of driver fatigue or driver distraction.” The feature, which the automaker claims is the first in the segment, can recognize up to five drivers and can remember their pre-set preferences for seat position, climate, and infotainment. DriverFocus comes standard in the most expensive Touring trim version of the Forester, the pricing of which was not immediately available.

The 2018 New York Auto Show may have been overshadowed by the Geneva Motor Show earlier this month, but a number of the cars from that show have now landed in NYC, in case you couldn’t make it all the way to Switzerland.

The Verge is at the Javits Center covering the show as well as premieres of cars that haven’t been shown at all yet. It’s as if automakers robbed this year’s Detroit Auto Show of some excitement to save it for New York. Here’s what’s happening at the New York Auto Show.

Coming off its dizzy vision of the future in Geneva, Volkswagen brought things back to reality at the New York International Auto Show with new SUV and pickup truck concepts. But just because these are the kind of cars that Americans have been known to buy doesn’t make them any less flamboyant. Both the Atlas Tanoak truck and its SUV cousin the Cross Sport have LED badges, headlights, and running lights that flow across the grille crossbars. The effect is like something out of Blade Runner.

Don’t let the glowing faces distract you from important specs like the powertrain. The Cross Sport is powered by the same 276-horsepower, 3.6-liter V6 as the production Atlas, but the concept adds a pair of electric motors, one in front and the other in back. Volkswagen says the plug-in hybrid drivetrain delivers 355 horsepower and an anticipated 26 miles of all-electric range. A conventional mild hybrid version of the same powertrain would make 310 horsepower. A production version of the Cross Sport is scheduled to be launched in the US starting in 2019.

The Nissan Altima has always sold well, despite being a mostly utilitarian sedan. But the latest redesign includes an unexpected and welcome treat: ProPilot Assist, the Japanese automaker’s semi-autonomous driver assist system.

Previously, Nissan had included ProPilot Assist in the 2018 Leaf electric car and top-selling Rogue SUV. With the addition of the Altima, Nissan has established itself as a leader, offering highly automated driving in its mass-market vehicles.

Lincoln debuted its new midsized Aviator SUV at the New York International Auto Show this week, and it features more high-tech bells-and-whistles than Ford’s luxury brand is typically known for. It can be turned on and driven using a virtual key on a smartphone. It will feature Ford’s new driver-assist system with automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection. And, most notably, the Aviator will be Lincoln’s first plug-in hybrid vehicle.

The decision to electrify the Lincoln Aviator is part of Ford’s $11 billion investment in zero-emission vehicles. Earlier this year, the Blue Oval announced plans to roll out 40 hybrid and fully electric cars within five years, the first of which would arrive in 2020. Separately, Lincoln plans to introduce hybrid versions of all its US models by 2022, according to Automotive News. The automaker is following a path blazed by European premium brands like Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, BMW, and Jaguar Land Rover, all of which have announced plans for more hybrid and electric vehicles.

Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover have inked a deal that will add tens of thousands of all-electric I-Pace SUVs to the Alphabet unit’s growing lineup of self-driving taxis. The I-Pace, which made its global debut earlier this month, is not as much of a people-mover as Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica minivans, but it will serve as a more high-end ride for those willing to pay a premium for their driverless transportation.

The first prototype I-Pace with Waymo’s self-driving technology will hit the road for public testing at the end of 2018, and officially become part of Waymo’s commercial ride-hailing service starting in 2020. Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover’s engineers will work in tandem to build these cars to be self-driving from the start, rather than retrofitting them after they come off the assembly line. Long-term, the companies say they plan to build up to 20,000 vehicles in the first two years of production, with the goal of serving a potential 1 million trips a day. It’s unclear how much money would be trading hands under the deal.