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After a night's rest and seeing close ups of the concept, I like it. If the final product keeps the screen at a decent resolution and the trackpad is easy to use, it might work out. I suspect that whatever iteration of the RLX is next, will get this first.
I just think they need to add something behind the digital cluster. The center display is fine, but the 'cluster' display literally looks like a surface tablet on the dash. Looks more 'unfinished' than the many 'iPad-like' infotainment screens.
After Acura's Precision Cockpit was unveiled here in LA, I sat in the, uh, driver's seat of the wheel-less interior mockup to get a feel for how this new touchscreen-free touch interface works. There are a lot of good ideas inside. Here are 11 things you should know.
It's less like a trackpad and more like a remote-control tablet.
So instead of letting you move a cursor relative to its last location like the trackpad on a laptop, each point on Acura's trackpad is mapped to a corresponding point on the center display. If you want what's in the upper right corner of the display, you touch and click in the upper right corner of the trackpad. Simple.
I figured it out in 2 minutes.
Maybe less. The whole thing is surprisingly intuitive. The ease of use is helped by the fact that the targets on the screen are pretty big – no tiny "buttons" to fiddle with.
The clicks are real.
The trackpad actually moves when you press down, so no need for simulated haptic feedback. In their research, Acura engineers found that accidental touches and presses are a real issue. We could have told them that – hit a bump while using a finicky remote interface like Lexus's all-but-abandoned joystick thing, and you select an item half-way across the screen from the one you intended. The placement of the trackpad in this concept interior also helps avoid unintentional inputs – it's not in the middle of the center console where it might get brushed or bumped, but instead in its own little cave at the base of the center-stack waterfall. (Acura's low-profile button-based transmission selector suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.)
Image Credit: Acura
Lots of cues cut down on distraction.
You hover over the option you want before positively confirming the selection with a hard press. There's no cursor to find and reposition like in the Lexus trackpad system The red highlight gives the necessary visual cue that you put your finger in the right place. The pad is slightly dished to give you a tactile cue of where the center and edges are. It allows you to build up muscle memory, sort of like how you know generally where the "keys" are on your smartphone or tablet's virtual keyboard by now. Or at least I do on mine.
You look at the screen, not what you're touching.
The problem with touch screens is that they have to be low down in the car so you can reach them. That means you have to look down from the road to stab at what you want. With Precision Cockpit, it's quicker (and therefore safer) to get what you want because you're not looking at the trackpad. The trackpad can also be used for character entry like on other systems, which you can pretty much do blind if it works well.
Controls only show up when they're needed.
Acura's designers call them ambient and interactive display modes. When you're just driving along and have an audio source selected, for example, the center screen is taken up by things like album art and song info that is nicely styled, big, and easy to read. When you reach for the touchpad, those items shrink and rearrange themselves to make room for the on-screen controls you can interact with. No sense in showing you buttons when you're not using them. Other automakers do this to some extent, like the VW nav systems that raise a hidden row of buttons from the bottom of the screen when you move your hand toward it, but Acura is resizing and reconfiguring info more aggressively, giving a much cleaner look to the at-rest views.
It's easy to reconfigure and swap the split screens.
About a quarter of the center screen on the right side can give you a display of the current audio or navigation or just the time. It gets its own scroll control alongside the trackpad, allowing you to quickly flick through the various views, and that touch area can also be used to do things like accept or ignore a phone call when one comes in and appears in that section. A button above that scroll control swaps the current main and side views, so you can flip to the audio source to change the song and then swap back to a big nav display without ever having to go through the home screen and navigate back through a level or 2 of menus. It also eliminated the need for dedicated hard buttons for things like navigation, media, radio, and climate.
The whole thing is pretty darn quick – and pretty.
Some of the 1st things I noticed during the demo were the very quick responses and the crispness of the 2 12.3-inch color screens. We know the system is Android-based, but Acura isn't talking about hardware supplier partners just yet. It's easily as quick as Audi's NVIDIA-based Virtual Cockpit, and we wouldn't be surprised if NVIDIA was involved here too. But that's nerdy nitty-gritty – back to how it works.
Honda and Acura are learning from past mistakes.
Remember when Honda got rid of volume knobs? The re-emergence of that physical control on the new CR-V is a sign Honda learned that lesson, and I'm told that even though the interior concept doesn't have one, production versions of Precision Cockpit will get a volume knob. You'll also note that Acura has abandoned the confusing 2-display center stack here. I never could figure out which screen I was controlling with that one.
The driver info display has a lot of tricks.
While Acura obviously couldn't demonstrate any autonomous features in this motionless interior mockup, I did get to see some simulated screens in the gauge display that look promising. In one view, you get a representation of your car in its lane with skeletons of other cars in traffic showing up to give you an idea where everyone else is. The view also changes in response to the driving situation, going from the lane representation to a camera view with augmented reality overlays, such as the AI's best guess at the path of the bicycle in your blind spot or highlighted pedestrians or vehicles ahead that pose a hazard.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay will probably be included.
I didn't get a clear answer because Acura wants to focus attention on what it built, but these seem like no-brainers given how widespread their adoption has become. That said, as functions like navigation get more entwined with self-driving capabilities and more displays show us more info, it may make less sense to use a phone-based system on top of a really well-integrated infotainment setup.
We expect to see a production version of this infotainment concept in 2 to 3 years. I like what I saw today, but I will say that Acura better get this to market soon before it feels dated.
What in the Batman hell this? Audi virtual cockpit knock off, designed by the Dark Knight, available in a couple years? Seriously?
You've out done yourself this time Acura.
At the 2016 Detroit auto show, Acura rolled out its fantastical Precision concept car, previewing its future exterior design themes in an extreme form. The concept had an interior, but it was just as crazy as the exterior. At the 2016 Los Angeles auto show, Acura is showing something more production-ready (and, frankly, more relevant): the Acura Precision Concept, a vastly toned-down version of the concept car’s design with Acura’s new touchpad-based interface.The seat buck includes some hardware lifted from the NSX sports car, including the steering wheel, the drive-mode selector knob, and the same insanely comfortable seats. The dual-layer dashboard design was previewed by the concept car but is rendered this time in more producible proportions and covered in black stitched leather. In front of the driver is a 12.3-inch screen that contains primary gauges and other driver-oriented content; on top of the dashboard is another 12.3-inch dual-zone wide infotainment screen.The big news here is Acura’s new interface for the latter display, which is controlled by a slightly concave tray of switchgear nestled into a soft open-pore wood tray with a padded leather wrist rest beneath the center stack. The largest portion of the tray, measuring about three inches by two inches, is a slightly sunken touchpad that uses “absolute positioning” to align actions on the touchpad with those in the larger (left side) section of the screen. Touching it lightly with one finger navigates the screen, while pressing it makes a selection or an adjustment. To the right of the touchpad is smaller sunken section that controls the right side of the screen, on which a different app—say, for weather, notifications, or audio—can be viewed. Three hard buttons across the top include a “back” function, a home menu, and a button to switch between apps on the larger versus smaller sections of the screen. Sadly, no audio volume knob is in sight. Yet.We spent a fair amount of time poking around the system with the folks who designed it and found that it works fairly intuitively, certainly more effectively than Lexus’s clumsy Remote Touch interface. Other trick features of the Precision Cockpit include graphics and colors that change according to the chosen drive mode—white for Snow, blue for Comfort, Red for Sport, and Orange for Sport Plus. The display ahead of the driver uses what Acura calls a 3D engine to support a dynamic layout that shows other cars, objects, pedestrians, cyclists, and more. When autonomous driving becomes a thing in Acuras, it will be able to recognize other vehicles being driven in autonomous modes via vehicle-to-vehicle communications.
LOS ANGELES — The Acura Precision Cockpit (APC) concept unveiled this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show helps you merge from the on-ramp in heavy traffic, provides a schematic of the cars around you, and shows when it’s safe to change lanes. Some of the precision cockpit is futuristic and awaits several more years of development, plus cars equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle communications.The core offering is an eminently practical pair of 12.3-inch LCDs, possibly a head-up display, and a concave-shaped center console touchpad with absolute positioning. This part feels ready to go to market in a year or 2. All that’s missing is console space for a pair of cupholders, and Acura has plans for them. A car with APC would do away with Acura’s longstanding cockpit controller mounted on the center stack.
Acura’s vision: Track the bicyclists’s path
Here’s the vision thing part of APC: Your 12.3-inch instrument panel (or “meter display”) shows speed, engine rpm, adaptive cruise control settings — the usual stuff. Engage the automated system and it also pops up warnings such as “Occluded pedestrian,” meaning the look-ahead sensors see a pedestrian possibly before you. “Occluded” will not be in any shipping Acura, says Michael Tsay, one of Acura’s principal designers.Finding and not hitting pedestrians is possible now. According to Acura, APC’s advanced vision mode “leverages sensors and artificial intelligence to display cars, pedestrians, bicyclists, and other objects – even those obscured from vision – using artificial intelligence to predict future pathways. This mode builds human confidence in the car’s automated driving systems.” For instance, see the instrument panel above, which shows the car’s path down a suburban street. The car has been tracking a bicyclist riding to the right of the Acura and AI believes it will cross to the other side of the intersection; a white line shows the most likely path. Then the rider starts to cross in front of the Acura. APC recalculates the cyclist’s path and paints a line indicating a left turn. If the cyclist is slow to cross, the car brakes if you don’t.This sounds like one of those “why doesn’t the driver just pay attention?” moments. But sometimes a bicyclist or pedestrian is obscured by the A-pillar (the one at the windshield). It has been decades since the A-pillar was narrower than the distance between a human’s eyes. And sometimes the driver’s attention does drift. Either way, when APC and AI do their thing, “This [automated] mode builds human confidence in the car’s automated driving systems.”
V2V shows the cars around you
In a demo at the LA show, Acura showed other possibilities when cars support V2V, or vehicle to vehicle, communications, reporting their location, direction, speed, and which cars are operating autonomously. APC can build a birds eye view map of cars around it. It can show if there is room to change lanes (which some cars can already do today), or how fast to drive on the on-ramp to merge safely.Acura’s engineers wouldn’t speculate on what’s possible in the near future vs. what requires higher levels of automation and V2V communications. Even getting half the cars on the road to have V2V would run well into the 2020s and self-driving cars won’t wait for that. There may well be an in-between period using the radar, sonar, and camera technology available today to change lanes or create a map of immediately adjacent vehicles: Think forward collision monitors and blind spot detection results shown on an overhead view map.
Displays that don’t call attention themselves
Acura created its own center stack icons that are minimalist, and often white on a dark background. Once exception is turning the dial to change driving modes, such as Quiet, Sport, Sport+, and Track were this the Acura NSX, where the image has color highlights unique to each mode. This is where the infotainment controller is on current Acuras.The center stack display is split, for instance a map on the left and audio information on the right. The main segment has either eight or six icons arranged in two rows. Acura’s Tsay says with more, it’s hard for the driver to parse the information and still pay attention.To manipulate the display, the driver places a finger on the touchpad, which has a slight bowl-shaped indentation and ridges on the edge. The pad has absolute positioning (most car touchpads are relative and place your finger in the center of the screen). Place your finger in the absolute upper left and it always selects the upper left icon. Press the capacitive touchpad, the icon is selected, and the pad pops up slightly to verify you made the selection. Above the touchpad are Back and Home buttons. On the right are up-down arrows to choose among the available screens for the right side window.In use, I found it only took a minute or so to feel comfortable finding the location that coincided with the correct button on the center stack display, which is specifically non-touchscreen. This may well be a simplified infotainment interface that doesn’t take much of a learning curve. Touchscreens have annoyed customers at Cadillac (Cadillac CUE) as well as Display Audio on some Hondas.All of this is built on an Android platform. Acura says Android is the company’s operating system of the future.
Shipping car needs cupholders, maybe dedicated HVAC controls
The Acura Precision Cockpit still requires some choices: where to put the cupholders and whether to integrate HVAC controls into the display screen, or keep them as a separate area of the center stack with their own buttons and display. Car companies that took away physical climate controls generally put them back at the midlife refresh.Steven Feit, chief engineer of infotainment systems for Honda and Acura, said Acura started with a clean sheet design and surveyed lots of drivers to get an idea what they wanted. Acura Precision Cockpit is the result. It will be interesting to see how Acura transitions from the elegant styling buck show in LA to a production dashboard, perhaps in a year or 2. It could be the next generation Acura RLX, the sales-king Acura MDX SUV, or it might be the car evolving from the Acura Precision Concept vehicle (above). Acura Precision Cockpit is a far cry from early 2000s Acuras that annoyed owners with as many as 50 dials and buttons. The auto show design may be simpler than the production car, though.Acura has sometimes been a lonely voice in the woods, for instance arguing that no passenger car needs more than six cylinders. They were eventually proven right, especially when the car has turbocharging and / or electric boost as the NSX does.
I heard the volume knob will be available at the very least. HVAC controls, a possibility? I guess Acura will try to get some feedback in the next few months before finalizing the design.
A concept car might be an eye-catching flight of fancy, but considering most of our time is spent inside our cars, concept interiors like Acura’s Precision Cockpit are arguably more important. Revealed at the LA Auto Show today, the carless-concept is the fruit of single team responsible for materials, design, and software as Acura readies itself for an increasingly-connected, often-autonomous future. It’s also the Japanese premium car company’s opportunity to school rivals on just how dashboard interaction should behave.
The concept cockpit is the follow-up to Acura’s Precision Concept, revealed at the start of the year at the North American International Auto Show. While the imposing red sedan did have a suitably dramatic interior at the time, Acura execs were clear that it was the exterior that would inspire future models, not the concept’s cabin. That came to fruition in short order, in fact, with the refreshed MDX wearing the distinctive grille when it launched just a few months later.
We may have to wait a little longer for the Precision Cockpit to show up in production cars. Acura wouldn’t tell me exactly when it could be a feature of vehicles you could actually buy, though did say that it was expected to filter through in the coming years. The intent, though, is clear: this is the fruits of Acura’s best guess – supported by tens of thousands of hours of research and development – about how best to pilot the modern semi-autonomous car.
It’s an answer that goes against the grain of what many others in the auto industry are doing. While the modern dashboard is usually a finger-enticing plethora of touchscreens, Acura has eschewed such things with the argument that, though perfect for tablets and smartphones, they’re not especially suited – or safe – for cars. After all, since you need to look where you tap, you have to take your eyes off the road.
The automaker’s new alternative is, ironically, something you might have experimented with on you laptop years ago. The Precision Cockpit concept has a touchpad mounted down low in the center console, positioned just right for your fingertips to dangle atop it when you rest your wrist on the leather pad. It’s topped with a couple of shortcut buttons for Home and Back, with a touch-sensitive scroll strip to its right.
Touchpads aren’t new in cars either – Lexus tried, albeit half-heartedly, to replace its little-loved joystick controller with one – but what makes the difference in Acura’s case is how taps are registered. Dubbed “Absolute Positioning” it’s basically a 1:1 mapping of points on the touchpad to points on the wide 12.3-inch display on top of the dashboard. A tap in the top right corner always refers to what’s in the same spot on the display, for instance.
The idea is that, just as you get familiar with the location of physical buttons on a dashboard over time, so you get used to positions on the touchpad and how they relate to what’s on the screen. According to Acura, it was a matter of minutes before its testers got to grips with the system, in fact.
Similar absolute-mapping on laptops has always been less than ergonomically successful, primarily because the resolution of the display and the content on-screen usually demands smaller movements than are practical on a laptop-scale trackpad. In Acura’s case, the chunky icons are far easier to hit. The display itself is split roughly 60/40 into two panels: a primary display for apps, navigation, and such on the left, and a narrower screen dedicated to music, weather, and notifications on the right.
Both touchpad and center display are positioned for anyone in the front to use. For the driver alone, there’s a second 12.3-inch screen for virtual instrumentation. With a human at the wheel, that shows things like a speedometer and the usual dials you’d expect; when the car is driving itself, under conditions like adaptive cruise control or – in the future – entirely autonomously, it changes considerably.
Instead, you get a full 3D digital view of the road ahead, on which are flagged any obstacles, other road users, and pedestrians that the car’s cameras and other sensors have spotted. It also uses vehicle-to-vehicle communication, so that other autonomous cars can make their presence – and their self-driving status – known. By showing it all on-screen, Acura aims to build trust in the car’s abilities, on the basis that if you see what’s been spotted you’ll be more confident than merely having faith in the technology.
Meanwhile the car uses artificial intelligence to predict how other cars, pedestrians, and cyclists will move, showing those pathways as arcs across the virtual roadscape. The whole thing is based on Android, though Acura wouldn’t tell me what processors and other systems it’s currently using. That may well change by the time of production, anyway.
What we do know is that it’ll all be connected, and dressed in materials a welcome step away from the plastics of Acura’s current cabins. Instead, there’ll be greater use of brushed metal and untreated wood, along with leather and Alcantara. A nice departure from the de rigueur aluminum is copper and matching amber LED lighting.
How much of that will make it into production models will obviously depend on price point. Nonetheless, given one of our criticisms of the new NSX was how its dashboard didn’t quite live up to rivals for touch-point feel, any move to address that in general is a good one. Notably, the hybrid supercar inspired the seats, steering wheel, and rotary drive mode controller in the Precision Cockpit concept.
Of course, however much Acura does to improve its own human-machine interface, it – like the rest of the auto industry – faces growing competition from other UIs we carry in our pockets. Smartphone connectivity is not just a pleasant addition but an expected feature of the modern vehicle, even if Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are still comparatively limited. Acura’s hard work with the Precision Cockpit could be for naught if drivers settle into the seat and cover up the whole thing with a projection from their iPhone.
The designers behind the concept told me it was too early to discuss exactly how it envisages that connectivity equation panning out, but say that they have some ideas about how smartphone information could be successfully – not to mention safely – communicated with the person behind the wheel. Their window of opportunity is undoubtedly narrowing, though. Neither Apple nor Google is slowing in attempting to colonize the modern dashboard, especially with rumors that the first evidence of car tech from both firms won’t be production autonomous cars but instead an effort to license their software efforts to mainstream automakers.
For now, we’ll have to imagine what a vehicle with the exterior of the Precision Concept and the interior of the Precision Cockpit might be like on the road. As Acura attempts to shift itself out of the shadow of Honda, the promise is that both of the 2016 concepts give the best vision yet of what the next generation of cars will look like and how they’ll behave. If the NSX has shown us anything, it’s that the engineers there know how to make a well-performing car; now, they need to distill that enthusiasm to the rest of its sedan and SUV line-up.
I think from the pictures it looks great, that navigation looks BEAUTIFUL. The only thing I worry about is how hard it'll be to change simple things like turning on the rear defroster, etc.
Originally Posted by iforyou
Thank you for posting the review TSX69.
I heard the volume knob will be available at the very least. HVAC controls, a possibility? I guess Acura will try to get some feedback in the next few months before finalizing the design.
They seem to be bringing back the volume knob which is a good thing.
No gear lever. It's going to be a real PITA to have to use the trackpad to select a gear.
And what about the HVAC contols. Are we going to have to use the trackpad to turn on/off recirculation, turn up/down temperature, or even turn on/off the AC?
Will things we once were able to do with the simple press of a button now require going through a series of menu options to accomplish? If so, that would be taking a step back.
Acura is expected to have a quiet Detroit show with only a revised version of the Precision cockpit concept it debuted at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November. But several sedans are likely to highlight Acura's 2017 calendar, making good on the promise General Manager Jon Ikeda made when he took over in 2015.
A refreshed TLX is likely to debut in the 1st half of the year. It will be only the 2nd Acura model to ditch the oft-maligned beak grille (after the MDX) in favor of a more conventional look.
More changes could lurk under the hood. With mainstream Honda switching to a turbo-heavy lineup, the TLX could see either its base 4-cylinder or its optional V-6 (or both) swapped out for a turbo 4.
Then there's Acura's RLX large sedan; the problem child in the brand's lineup that dealers would soon forget. It too is due for an update and needs all the help it can get to re-establish relevancy in the hard-fought luxury sedan market. Turbos -- likely the larger 2.0-liter unit in the Civic Type R -- could also find their way into the RLX.
In the 1st half of 2017, Acura dealers will get the MDX hybrid it debuted in 2016.
Yes, and of those brands, how many put a 2.0T in their flagship sedan?
Honda's 2.0T makes high horsepower, but how is it in the low to mid rpm range? I'm willing to bet it sucks because the Type R is meant to be a high revving car that makes all its power at the very top. That's not even remotely suitable for a sedan that weighs over 4000 pounds.
Well, the beauty of turbocharged engines is that the company can tune for different applications. For the Type R, they can tune it to feel weaker at the bottom end, and be a bit more explosive after 4000rpm.
For a luxury sedan, they can tune the engine to be weaker in the top end, but more focus on reducing turbo lag, and improving low and mid range torque.
Like for MB, the 2.0T in the CLA450 MG to be make 381hp. But also have a version of the 2.0T making 241hp in the 4060lb E300 4matic.
IMO, that's not a bad option to have. But the bigger issue is that there's nothing to compete with the likes of E550, let alone E63.
Yes, and of those brands, how many put a 2.0T in their flagship sedan?
Honda's 2.0T makes high horsepower, but how is it in the low to mid rpm range? I'm willing to bet it sucks because the Type R is meant to be a high revving car that makes all its power at the very top. That's not even remotely suitable for a sedan that weighs over 4000 pounds.
None of them, but the RLX isn't anywhere near as heavy as their flagships. Yes, they are a luxury, or near-luxury brand, or whatever you want to call them, but comparing the RLX to the 7-series, S-Class, etc. is apples to oranges.
It's reasonable to think that Acura isn't willing to cut bait on the RLX, given that it's yet to be discontinued, its poor sales in comparison to the competition, and the previous gen's similar circumstances. So they would have to generate sales in whichever way they can. A 4-cyl powertrain choice would drop the price and ideally move more units.
The RLX guys said it themselves. They wouldn't buy the car if it came with a 2.0T.
You're right about the tune, iforyou, but I'm willing to bet people won't like it. I cant see anyone jumping on a flagship sedan with a 4 cyl engine, even if it is turbo equipped.
I also can't imagine a V6 being more expensive than an I4 turbo with intercooling, etc.
The RLX guys said it themselves. They wouldn't buy the car if it came with a 2.0T.
You're right about the tune, iforyou, but I'm willing to bet people won't like it. I cant see anyone jumping on a flagship sedan with a 4 cyl engine, even if it is turbo equipped.
I also can't imagine a V6 being more expensive than an I4 turbo with intercooling, etc.
Well I agree that if the 2.0T was the sole powertrain option, it would be stupid. But I doubt the 2.0T even with hybrid assist will come anywhere close to the claimed combined output of ~380 hp. And it would be even dumber to make the lower-power option more expensive. Maybe it will be just a 2.0T, non-hybrid.
Apples to oranges, but the 3.8 V6 in the Genesis coupe is more expensive than the 2.0T
Shouldn't the ILX be new for the 2018 model year? It's been out 5 model years now and the car it's based on (civic) went through it's redesign in the 2016 model year.
In 2012, Infiniti unveiled the LE Concept, shown, making it among the first of the Asian luxury brands to float an EV concept car. Send us a LetterHave an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.
DETROIT -- German automakers made waves at last fall's Paris auto show with plans to chase Tesla with their own electric luxury cars. Now, the Asian brands are considering the move.
Lexus, Genesis, Acura and Infiniti say they are weighing electric vehicle offerings -- in some cases to meet emissions rules, in others because zippy, futuristic EV cachet enhances their luxury buzz.
None of the premium brands displayed an EV or concept at the Detroit auto show last week, but executives on hand said their companies were in varying stages of putting one on the road.
South Korean luxury upstart Genesis is the most aggressive. The Hyundai spinoff brand aims to roll out as many as three EV models by 2025, with the 1st arriving around 2020.
Additional EV nameplates will arrive at around 3-year intervals, said Lee Ki-sang, senior vice president at Hyundai Motor Group's Eco Technology Center. The Genesis entries will be dedicated stand-alone EVs on a new electric-only platform being developed, he said.
"In Genesis, we absolutely need that kind of luxury electric vehicle," Lee said.
The goal, he said, is a flagship Genesis EV that can outperform the best from Tesla and others.
One motivation is the need for Genesis to meet increasingly stringent emissions rules. While Genesis can average its fuel economy figures with Hyundai for fleet figures in some markets, such as the United States, the brand needs to stand on its own in other markets, Lee said.
Manfred Fitzgerald, Genesis"Swift adoption'
Then there is the image issue. Upscale customers increasingly see the eco-friendly, sporty performance of electric drivetrains as part and parcel of premium prestige. Tesla's luxury play trades largely on its exhilarating electric drive, complete with its ultrafast Ludicrous mode.
"Anybody who has driven an electrified vehicle knows that it has definitely some excitement in it," global Genesis boss Manfred Fitzgerald said. He acknowledged lingering hurdles of range and cost but added, "Once those are taken away, I think you will see a swift adoption."
Mercedes-Benz is among the luxury brands leading that swift adoption. At the Paris show in September, the German marque said it would launch 10 new EVs by 2025 under an EQ subbrand in a bid to become the global leader in EV technology. Other top-tier European brands boarding the EV train include Audi, Porsche and BMW. Aston Martin plans to launch an all-electric RapidE sports car, and Jaguar aims to start selling an EV crossover sometime next year.
Asian luxury brands have been slow to follow, but EVs are finally on their radar.
Infiniti was among the first to float an EV concept car, in 2012, leveraging the electric drivetrain system developed for the Nissan Leaf EV by parent company Nissan Motor Co. But Infiniti put those EV ambitions on hold just a year later to focus on rebuilding its core models.
"Innovative and unique'
Last month, however, Infiniti President Roland Krueger said his company was once again considering "very concrete" concepts for an EV, though he declined to give details.
Acura already has the top of its range electrified, with a hybrid NSX sports car and a hybrid option for its RLX flagship sedan. John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., said Acura also is looking at pure EVs "from an overall brand standpoint."
Acura General Manager Jon Ikeda said there are no serious plans at the moment. But he said EVs are intriguing for Acura because "anything innovative and unique is what we're looking for."
Lexus' product epiphany came during the EV-obsessed Paris show, said Jeff Bracken, general manager of Lexus International.
"Subsequent to that show," he said, "we began conversations with our product planners."
The shift is especially remarkable for a unit of Toyota Motor Corp., a longtime EV skeptic. But attitudes are changing at the parent company, too.
Last month, Toyota formed a special division to develop the company's next-generation of electric cars. Toyota has said the upcoming EVs initially will target markets where regulations require them, such as China.
Toyota pulled the plug on its EV program in 2014, when it killed the eQ minicar and said it would stop building an electric version of its RAV4 crossover with Tesla.
Bracken said nothing was decided at Lexus but added: "I think we'd have our head buried in the sand if we didn't thoroughly study all electric."
Great, 1 more thing for Acura to drag feet on and invest time in and get wrong all the while dropping any further advancement in their other sedans to work on this.
No gear lever. It's going to be a real PITA to have to use the trackpad to select a gear.
And what about the HVAC contols. Are we going to have to use the trackpad to turn on/off recirculation, turn up/down temperature, or even turn on/off the AC?
Will things we once were able to do with the simple press of a button now require going through a series of menu options to accomplish? If so, that would be taking a step back.
Very good point. Why are these trackpads and touchscreens needed in car interiors when buttons and switches are much more intuitive and easier to use plus I think buttons done tastefully make interiors look fuller and more upscale then just doing away with most of them and replacing them with a screen.
Very good point. Why are these trackpads and touchscreens needed in car interiors when buttons and switches are much more intuitive and easier to use plus I think buttons done tastefully make interiors look fuller and more upscale then just doing away with most of them and replacing them with a screen.
I think similar things were said when Apple introduced the first iPhone lol...why no buttons? Now it's so hard to make a call or text someone or do something really simple!
Touch pad on a smartphone is a great ideal as it frees up crucial real estate for a bigger screen, while giving the phone itself a smaller form factor.
I can't think of a single reason why you would have trackpads or trackpad + touchscreen only... that isn't Acura's plan, is it? I found the latest generation iDrive to be very intuitive and responsive. If any manufacturer is going to offer trackpads, there better be an alternative input method. Even then, I don't really see the point. The new Mazdas have both touchscreen and a iDrive-style rotary knob for control, but I didn't use the touchscreen even once on a 700-mile road trip. Why?
Touch pad on a smartphone is a great ideal as it frees up crucial real estate for a bigger screen, while giving the phone itself a smaller form factor.
I can't think of a single reason why you would have trackpads or trackpad + touchscreen only... that isn't Acura's plan, is it? I found the latest generation iDrive to be very intuitive and responsive. If any manufacturer is going to offer trackpads, there better be an alternative input method. Even then, I don't really see the point. The new Mazdas have both touchscreen and a iDrive-style rotary knob for control, but I didn't use the touchscreen even once on a 700-mile road trip. Why?
i was one of those people who preferred touch screen over idrive, until i lived with the new idrive for the past few years..
I can use a lot of the idrive functions without taking my eyes off the road. Can't do that with touch screen.
Honestly, AI has to get better. I don't want touch and I don't want nonsense gestures, either. I want to be able to talk to my car so I can focus on the drive. I can only hope this happens before the cars start driving themselves.
Our spy photographers have stumbled across a mysterious new vehicle that could be our 1st indication that Honda is working on a smaller version of its Acura NSX sports car.
Rumors of a "baby" NSX have been flying since the hybrid supercar debuted in 2015, and we may finally have proof that Honda is developing such a vehicle. It remains unknown if the vehicle spotted today is a concept or simply a design study, but it certainly has many of the design elements of the NSX.
At this point we have far more questions than answers, but it's pretty clear that this mystery roadster uses a mid-engine/rear-drive layout. If the rumors are to be believed, this baby NSX (which could possibly be named ZSX) uses a pair of electric motors to drive its front wheels.
The conventional engine in the ZSX is likely the same turbocharged 2.0L turbo-4 from the Civic Type R. On its own that engine is good for more than 300 horsepower, so this pocket rocket could potentially come with more than 400 horsepower once the electric motors are taken into account.
Previous reports have suggested this mini NSX will be built right alongside the full-size version of the sports car at Honda's Marysville, Ohio production facility. The Civic Type R's engine is also made in Ohio.
On an interesting side note, Australia's Car Adviceposted pictures of what appears to be a coupe version of this mystery vehicle back in the summer of 2016. It seems unlikely that Honda would go to the trouble of making 2 different full-size models of a car that isn't intended for production. But then again, anything is possible.
Although this mid-engine roadster would likely be sold as an Acura in the United States, it could be marketed as a Honda is other global markets (just like the NSX). That could explain why this particular car is emblazoned with Honda logos. However, it's also possible that this car could be sold under the Honda brand as a successor to the S2000.
While we don't know exactly what Honda is up to, we sure are excited to find out. Stay tuned.
This is probably the Honda Project 2&4. Honda has a patent on it: VEHICLE BODY STRUCTURE
The designer is Martin Petersson who used to work for BMW. He has plenty of patent on automotive structural development in his time with Honda. He designed the CRF and the RC-E concept bike. Best of all, he was the lead designer for KTM X-Bow.
Not sure how likely this will go into production, but if does, it will probably bet he first car with a cast backbone. I also wonder how it will do in those crash tests...
Assuming Honda does bring it to the market though, it will probably be one of the purist cars available and will probably generate even more buzz than the NSX...at a much lower price point.
11-17-2016, 07:41 AM
C&d
At the 2016 Detroit auto show, Acura rolled out its fantastical Precision concept car, previewing its future exterior design themes in an extreme form. The concept had an interior, but it was just as crazy as the exterior. At the 2016 Los Angeles auto show, Acura is showing something more production-ready (and, frankly, more relevant): the Acura Precision Concept, a vastly toned-down version of the concept car’s design with Acura’s new touchpad-based interface.The seat buck includes some hardware lifted from the NSX sports car, including the steering wheel, the drive-mode selector knob, and the same insanely comfortable seats. The dual-layer dashboard design was previewed by the concept car but is rendered this time in more producible proportions and covered in black stitched leather. In front of the driver is a 12.3-inch screen that contains primary gauges and other driver-oriented content; on top of the dashboard is another 12.3-inch dual-zone wide infotainment screen.The big news here is Acura’s new interface for the latter display, which is controlled by a slightly concave tray of switchgear nestled into a soft open-pore wood tray with a padded leather wrist rest beneath the center stack. The largest portion of the tray, measuring about three inches by two inches, is a slightly sunken touchpad that uses “absolute positioning” to align actions on the touchpad with those in the larger (left side) section of the screen. Touching it lightly with one finger navigates the screen, while pressing it makes a selection or an adjustment. To the right of the touchpad is smaller sunken section that controls the right side of the screen, on which a different app—say, for weather, notifications, or audio—can be viewed. Three hard buttons across the top include a “back” function, a home menu, and a button to switch between apps on the larger versus smaller sections of the screen. Sadly, no audio volume knob is in sight. Yet.
We spent a fair amount of time poking around the system with the folks who designed it and found that it works fairly intuitively, certainly more effectively than Lexus’s clumsy Remote Touch interface. Other trick features of the Precision Cockpit include graphics and colors that change according to the chosen drive mode—white for Snow, blue for Comfort, Red for Sport, and Orange for Sport Plus. The display ahead of the driver uses what Acura calls a 3D engine to support a dynamic layout that shows other cars, objects, pedestrians, cyclists, and more. When autonomous driving becomes a thing in Acuras, it will be able to recognize other vehicles being driven in autonomous modes via vehicle-to-vehicle communications.
ExtremeTech
Zsx
by Drew Johnson
