Technology

This ain’t your father’s Lincoln. The aerodynamic silhouette of the all-electric Lincoln Star Concept reveals the brand’s vision for connected, electrified vehicles by showcasing futuristic style, flexible electrical architecture, evolved Quiet Flight DNA, unique passenger luxury, and amenities including sights, sounds, and even scents to create a cabin sanctuary.

A Ford Global Technologies patent was discovered by Muscle Cars & Trucks, showcasing a new kind of manual transmission system that could make its way into Ford vehicles like the Mustang. The patent, granted in November 2021, describes a transmission with a stick that the driver would move through shift gates manually, just as you would in a traditional manual transmission.

Nuro is a California-based vehicle tech company that makes autonomous delivery vehicles. Their new third-generation vehicle is fully-autonomous, runs on electricity, and Nuro says this design can be produced at scale. It was designed from the ground up to need no human behind the wheel and lacks any seating or controls for humans.

The NHTSA has kicked off an investigation into Tesla regarding distracted driving concerns stemming from the ability to play video games while the car is moving. The investigation began after an owner discovered the Tesla Passenger Play feature allowed the driver to play video games while the car was moving.

Ford has revealed a new feature for the F-150 Lightning electric pickup and the F-150 Hybrid called vehicle-to-vehicle charging. A special charge cable for pickups equipped with the Pro Power Onboard system allows the truck owner to share power with other electric vehicles.

The shortage of microprocessors has resulted in severe constraints for the automotive industry. Some car companies have been forced to cease production of specific models, while others continue to build those models but can’t ship them to dealerships because they lack critical components that require computer processors.

One of the biggest bottlenecks to the adoption of electric vehicles today is the slow charging rates. While some models out there can recharge significantly over about 20 minutes at a Fast DC charging station, some take many hours to charge.

BMW has revealed a new painting process it developed in collaboration with a company called Durr. EcoPaintJet Pro is designed for waterborne base coats and 2K clearcoat. The primary feature of the process is that it allows for highly customized two-tone paint jobs to be created without needing to mask the car or use stencils.

With the advent of adaptive radar cruise control, driving over long distances has become much less tiresome than it once was. These systems can dynamically adjust the speed of your vehicle based on the distance between you and the cars in front of you so they’re equally useful at high speeds and in rush hour highway traffic.

Lexus makes some pretty great vehicles, but if there’s been one complaint about their cars in the last decade or so, it’s their dated and counterintuitive infotainment system. Well, good news. Lexus Entune and its wonky trackpads and control pucks are going away.

Anyone who’s shopped for an electric vehicle knows that the range estimates provided by automakers and the EPA aren’t necessarily what you’ll see in the real world. A variety of factors impact the electric driving range, including temperature, weather, and how heavy the driver’s right foot is, among other things.

Every car manufacturer these days has its own high-tech infotainment system. One of my favorites has been Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ UConnect system. In recent years, it’s been considered one of the most reliable and intuitive systems on the market, making its way into vehicles from Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, and Chrysler.

Volvo EV spin-off Polestar already has some production vehicles in the pipeline, including the Polestar One and Polestar Two. Now, we have a concept vehicle that looks towards the future of the brand. Like the Polestar Two, the Polestar Precept is a 5-door fastback.

For many years, Cadillac was the brand that embodied the latest in technology at General Motors. But in recent years, the feature gap between luxury cars and mass-market vehicles has narrowed due to consumer demand and expectations for tech.

Consumer electronics maker Sony turned up at CES 2020 with something absolutely nobody was expecting – their very own concept car, known as the Sony Vision-S. Sony built the handsome looking prototype vehicle as a testbed and demonstration platform for some of its many different technologies, from camera sensors to entertainment systems.