Car and Driver December 2018

“SHEESH! WHAT’S NEXT? AN ANNUAL FEE IF I WANT TO USE MY AIR CONDITIONER?” WHAT’S NEW BMW customers are rejoicing in the streets because they get to pay an $80 annual fee to use Apple CarPlay [“New Cars, Trucks, and SUVs for 2019,” September 2018]? Sheesh! What’s next? An annual fee if I want to use my air conditioner? —Bret B. Provo, UT Gute Idee!—Ed. So you are buying a luxury vehicle that includes a feature [Apple CarPlay] that no other automaker charges for directly (I have it in my Honda). BMW could have added $300 to the sticker price and buyers would not have known. Making it a subscription now lets BMW owners know they have an additional annual cost that no other car owner has to pay. Does BMW charge for Android Auto? —Scott…

It’s not just because the cars are good-looking and good-driving and fully priced. It’s not mere status that the buyer of the lumpy 928 is seeking to accrue. But it is a palpable thing. After attending the sixth Rennsport Reunion, a Porsche-heritage sporadical held every few years at an American racetrack, I think I’ve figured out a few elements of it. Porsche has made one car, the 911, for a long time, and it has made many other cars for a short time. But all of them, even the 914 of Dan Pund, stand as legitimate and significant moments in Porsche’s history. Becoming part of that history costs no more than a Craigslist 924. Those who care about these cars—from the newbie in the G-body to the billionaire in the 917K—form a…

Your article “20 Questions for 2019” was great, except that you shouldn’t just regurgitate Bosch’s diesel propaganda. U.S. emissions regulations are not “significantly more lax.” Just the reverse. U.S. regulations are far more stringent than Europe’s. Which should be obvious from just a cursory look at the diesel markets: Until recently, diesels were 50 percent of sales in Europe while both VW and Mercedes stopped selling diesels in the U.S. because they can’t meet the standards. Even worse, Bosch’s “new technology” is nothing but a clever repackaging of years-old technology. For example, Bosch’s “new” design to reach optimal catalyst temperature more quickly has been used in off-road diesels since 2010. Proof? The International Council of Clean Transportation contracted with West Virginia University to test a 2012 BMW X5 diesel over…

AUDI SHOWED A CONCEPT of what would become its first all-electric vehicle way back in 2009 at the Frankfurt auto show. At the time, Tesla was still selling tiny numbers of Lotus-based Roadsters. Here’s some more context: In the decade it’s taken Audi to bring its EV to market, Tesla launched three original vehicles; BMW introduced the i3; Chevrolet, the Bolt; Jaguar, the I-Pace; and Nissan, the Leaf. During that time, Audi worked through many other electrified concepts, took a detour through plug-in hybrids, and made a body-style change from sports coupe to SUV. But it’s here now. In the e-tron, Audi promises an EV with the range and dynamic capabilities—if not the Ludicrous acceleration—to challenge Tesla. DESIGN Although undoubtedly handsome (as Audi SUVs tend to be), the e-tron is lacking the…

NEW CARS HAVE MORE safety technology than ever, and yet accident rates and road fatalities are on the rise. The reasons behind the trend and the best way to combat it are hotly debated, but some city planners think they have the key to reversing it. So-called nudge theory helped economist Richard Thaler win a Nobel Prize in 2017; it posits that policies and environments should be designed to encourage people to make choices that will benefit them in the long run. When applied to public roadways, the logic goes that when drivers are comfortable with their surroundings, they’re less likely to pay attention. So traffic engineers design cues into the roadways that spur people into changing their behavior without realizing it. Chicago was one of the first U.S. cities to…

FOR DECADES, automakers have sought to gain competitive intel by painstakingly disassembling rival carmakers’ products to divine their strengths and weaknesses. It is a process that one former car-company engineer estimates costs about a quarter-million dollars per car. Compounded across the industry, where nearly everyone targets the same segment leaders, this benchmarking represents redundancy on a staggering scale. A2Mac1, a France-based company with facilities in China, India, South Korea, Thailand, and Belleville, Michigan, offers a different solution: subscriptions to its static benchmarking services. Annually, A2Mac1 tears apart about 90 new vehicles, a quarter of which are disassembled at its U.S. location. Its employees weigh parts, measure dimensions and clearances with other components, and photograph it all. The company will conduct exclusive teardowns for a fee, withholding the resultant data from other…