31 cars we can’t wait to see at the LA Auto Show.
LOS ANGELES —Though he’s in the driver’s seat when it comes to running the city, L.A.’s mayor took his hands off the wheel for a trip in a semi-autonomous car Tuesday. Automakers from around the world will bring their latest and greatest design concepts and production cars to show off for the Southern California crowd.
The L.A. show — open to the public from Nov. 20 to 29 — kicks off the U.S. season for major auto shows, with Detroit to follow in January and New York in April. Although the concepts exhibited at the show represent a glimpse into the future of the automotive industry, other, more production-ready vehicles will give the public a chance to see what’s soon headed to their dealer’s showrooms.
Garcetti predicts Los Angeles’ traffic, consistently rated among the nation’s worst, will be dramatically better in five years, thanks to self-driving cars and vehicles with autonomous features, along with ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft that will make commutes less painful. With the recent scandal involving Volkswagen and its diesel engines, many who watch green technologies are looking back to electric vehicles, hybrids, and other alt-fuel cars to see where they can fill the void. Its executives will meet in the city that defined America’s car culture through films like “American Graffiti,” “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “The Fast and the Furious” to confront an uncertain future. Drivers need to get into new technology in the car on a step-by-step basis, before moving to fully self-driving cars, said Volvo Cars North America CEO Lex Kerssemakers in an interview at the Connected Car Expo. As though to punctuate the racing pace of change, Lyft co-founder and President John Zimmer used the backdrop of the high-profile show to announce that his ride-hailing service is on track to generate $1 billion in gross annual revenue.
In the short term, some 60% to 70% of all accidents are caused by human mistakes, he said. “If we can take out that element of mistake, this feature can have a huge impact.” The XC90 starts at $49,800, while the “Pilot Assist” feature that Garcetti used is an add-on that costs around $1,200. The F-Pace, which was shown earlier this year at the Frankfurt Motor Show, will offer rolling Wi-Fi as an option, with the signal able to connect to up to eight devices. Executives from General Motors, Honda, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz will join newcomers Lyft, Google and Uber to discuss the technological changes that will redefine transportation in the 21st century.
Technologies like this will make driving more enjoyable, but it’s autonomous cars that will dramatically reduce the number of cars on the road at peak times, Garcetti says. Many automakers are pushing hard to bring new technologies like Volvo’s to buyers, while companies like Google, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and others are working to get self-driving cars into our garages. Buick is still fighting against its reputation as a senior citizens’ brand, and its LaCrosse sales have not kept up with competitors like the Chrysler 300.
What can we learn about how they operate that we can apply?” The organizers of the LA Auto Show launched the technology-focused sessions three years ago, after discovering attendees like Qualcomm and Intel were crashing its party. This rather odd looking vehicle is said to be BMW’s newest fuel cell car, and the information was obtained from leaked Chinese patent office documents. Still, Los Angeles is a venue not to be ignored — and not just because of its proximity to affluent car buyers who crave a glimpse of the latest luxury and performance rides. Garcetti says it’s all about getting fewer people to drive themselves to LAX. “Think of how many cars come to the airport to drop people off and how many cars come to pick people up,” he says. It’s an opportunity for carmakers to tout their technological street cred through partnerships to bring the latest in communications and entertainment systems into car dashboards with Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto. “The auto industry absolutely has a schoolboy crush on Silicon Valley,” said Eric Noble, president of CarLab, an advanced automotive consulting firm. “Carmakers never talk about their suppliers.
The 2016 Sentra will have a four-cylinder, 110-horsepower engine rated by the EPA for 29 MPG in city driving and 39 on the highway with automatic transmission. Hyundai Elantra — The third-best-selling compact behind Civic and Corolla, the Elantra will be shown in Los Angeles as a totally redesigned 2017 model. Speaking of cars becoming a reality, Elio Motors is a company has been showing off concepts for a while, we’ve been waiting for the real thing to arrive. Following the Volkswagen diesel scandal, diesel engines are nowhere to be found among the Green Car finalists, and (save for trucks and commercial vehicles), we’d be very surprised to find any passenger cars with diesel engines on display at the LA Convention center next week!