Car Zone: technology

Monday, October 20, 2014

Acura Looking Into Offering Standard AWD on All Models

Acura remains a brand trying to find its way, as many luxury buyers simply don't see it as a premium enough brand to warrant a high entry fee. With Acura's sales falling well behind Lexus, BMW and Mercedes as of September 2014, Honda's luxury arm needs to do something to boost sales. Acura is working on solutions to this issue, and one answer is to do what many other brands are doing these days, steal a page from a successful brand's book.

Specifically, Acura is considering offering all of its models with standard all-wheel drive, according to Automotive News. The hope in moving to standard all-wheel drive is to develop a brand image that keeps buyers coming back for more. Acura head, Koichi Fukuo, says he looks to the recent success of Subaru and Audi, in building their brands around selling almost exclusively AWD vehicles. Fukuo feels Acura may be able to tap into the same market and build more customer loyalty.

Currently, Acura offers at least one form of all-wheel drive on all of its models, sans the Civic-based ILX, and roughly 50 percent of its sales include all-wheel-drive. Additionally, with Acura's two next-generation all-wheel drive systems - a revised SH-AWD and the new Sport Hybrid SH-AWD - this take rate will likely increase. Despite this trending toward all four wheels getting power, all Acura models, including its crossovers, come standard with front-wheel drive.

According to Fukuo, this idea is currently under consideration and a final decision isn't ready to be made. While I love the idea of standard AWD in every Acura model, the brand also needs to continue separating itself from Honda like other luxury brands have in recent years. Sure, the all-new TLX is a nice step in the right direction, but it is still easily identifiable as a redone, albeit a very well-redone, Accord.

Click past the jump to read more about Acura's future move to AWD.

Acura Looking Into Offering Standard AWD on All Models originally appeared on topspeed.com on Tuesday, 14 October 2014 15:00 EST.

Monday, September 15, 2014

BMW Prepares Inductive Charging System

It has become inevitable that electric-powered cars are the way of the future. We aren't quite sure how electricity is going to be created to power these cars, but it has been almost universally accepted that batteries and motors are the way forward. Of course, people are lazy and they get concerned about things like charging times, plug variations and charging locations. BMW and Daimler have teamed up to hopefully make charging as easy and painless as possible with new wireless charging technology.

I won't go too deep into the technology behind it, but think of it as a really large version of the wireless charging technology that some cellphones use. Basically, there is a large conductive coil installed into the bottom of the car that is attached to the batteries. If you park over the top of a second large conductive coil that is attached to a power source, the car batteries will begin charging. BMW has also managed to develop this system to be extremely fast and efficient. They say that this system can fully charge the new BMW i8 in less than two hours with the current prototype system.

Another benefit of this system is the ability to build it into any flat pavement. Entire mall parking lots or even highways could theoretically be wired with conduction coils, so your car would actually be charging as you went shopping or drove to work. If electric cars are the future, this is like warping into the age of the Jetsons.

Click past the jump to read more about BMW's new Inductive Charging System.

BMW Prepares Inductive Charging System originally appeared on topspeed.com on Thursday, 11 September 2014 10:00 EST.