The best new automotive tech for 2018
Automobile Journalists of Canada to announce awards over a variety of sectors
What are the best new technologies available on today’s new vehicles? That’s a question the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) asks each year — and answers by holding its own competition to find out.
For 2018, those answers will be revealed at the Canadian International AutoShow on Feb. 21, when AJAC announces the winners of three awards specifically for automotive technologies: Best Safety Innovation, Best Green Innovation and Best Overall Innovation.
To get to the winners, the organization starts with a long list of new technologies submitted by both its own journalists and by the automakers. A jury of journalist members, each with technical credentials of their own, whittles down that list.
Then, each automaker makes a presentation on the merits of their entries to the jury panel and the jurors cast their own secret ballots, ranking the finalists in order of preference — resulting in the winners to be revealed next week.
Just what technologies made it to that final round? There are 10, divided into the three categories. Green innovation While it seems like almost every aspect of technology has at least some green tinge to it these days, the three finalists in this category are overtly green-oriented, each contributing directly to energy conservation.
General Motors’ Regen on Demand system, used on the Chevrolet Bolt, provides a paddle on the left side of the steering wheel that the driver can use to decelerate the vehicle at varying rates without applying the brakes.
The energy normally converted to heat in the brakes is instead used to generate electricity for storage in the battery. And, of course, the conventional brakes are still there for quick stops as needed.
Lexus’s multi-stage hybrid system, featured on the sexy LC500h hybrid luxury coupe, combines a multistage shift device with the transmission from the previous hybrid system to make the electrically controlled continuously variable transmission feel and perform like a normal 10-speed transmission.
Toyota’s gas injection heat pump system, found in the Toyota Prius Prime, essentially reverses the operation of the car’s air-conditioning system, turning it into a heat pump to heat the interior in the winter. It’s only effective to -10C, but heat from the gasoline engine compensates at lower temperatures. Safety innovation General Motors’ Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2) communications system, introduced in the Cadillac CTS, shares information electronically with other vehicles. For example, when a car approaches an intersection, the technology scans the area for other vehicles and tracks their positions, directions and speeds, alerting the driver of potential hazards that might otherwise be invisible.
Honda’s Cabin Talk and Watch system, available in the Odyssey minivan, uses a ceiling-mounted camera to let drivers keep tabs on rear-seat passengers via a screen up front, and enables drivers to talk to those passengers through a microphone over the vehicle’s built-in PA system — even when they’re wearing the vehicle’s rear-entertainment headphones. Lexus’s Safety System + package, available on multiple 2018 Lexus models, is a suite of safety features that include automatic high beams, lane departure alert, dynamic radar cruise control and a precollision system.
Nissan’s ProPILOT Assist, available on the 2018 Nissan Rogue, is a toe in the water toward self-driving capability, allowing the vehicle to control speed, maintain a comfortable space behind vehicles ahead and stay in the intended lane with minimal input from the driver. It’s Stage1autonomy in a real production vehicle. Just four more levels to go. Overall innovation General Motors’ Super Cruise technology, optional on the 2018 Cadillac CT6, is the first truly hands-free driving assist system available in Canada. That function can only be activated on “limited access highways” that GM has meticulously mapped, but they already cover 80,000 kilometres. It’s arguably the closest thing yet to full autonomy.
FCA’s eFlite transmission, which is a key component of the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan, is an electrically variable transmission that differs from others of its type in that it permits both the hybrid’s electric motors to drive the wheels, rather than one serving solely as a generator. The result is increased efficiency and refinement and improved component packaging.
Volvo’s hybrid combined powertrain, featured in its S90 sedan, combines a supercharged and turbocharged gasoline engine that drives the front wheels with an electric motor system that drives the rear wheels and lets the driver choose among pure electric, normal hybrid and power hybrid with four-wheel drive driving modes.
Which technologies would you choose as the winners?