(Credit:
Volkswagen Group of America)
If you're a person who would gladly relinquish the task of parking your car to a computer, there may be a Volkswagen in your future.
Last weekend, Volkswagen Group of America and Stanford University's School of Engineering hosted a dedication ceremony on the Stanford campus for the new Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory (VAIL) that included the "first ever" autonomous parking demonstration by a driverless car.
(Credit:
Volkswagen Group of America)
The car, a VW Passat called Junior, was developed jointly by VW and Stanford and is the same one that finished second in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Driverless cars have come a long way since the first DARPA race in 2004, when not one contestant made it over the finish line, much less parallel-parked itself.
VW donated $5.75 million for the new laboratory, which it called "the next step in the evolution of the two organizations' commitment to drive innovation in automotive development."
"When the new building opens early next year, VAIL will provide a home on campus for faculty and students from around the university to work on advanced automotive research," said Jim Plummer, dean of the Stanford School of Engineering.
The company also unveiled the Pike's Peak Audi TT-S, the latest iteration of driverless vehicles developed through the VW-Stanford partnership.
Five cars enter, one car leaves. Well, actually all five cars get to leave, but only one with the title.
(Credit: CNET)Every year, for the past four years, Green Car Journal picks its Green Car of the Year at the LA Auto Show. Well, the LA Show will be here before you know it, so it's time to start thinking about this year's contestants, which have been narrowed down to five finalists.
The finalists include the Audi A3 TDI, the Honda Insight, the Mercury Milan Hybrid, the Toyota Prius, and the Volkswagen Golf TDI. That's two VW turbodiesels and a trio of hybrids; or four small hatchbacks and a small sedan. No matter how you look at it, there's not too much variation this year. However, three of the vehicles have taken our Editors' Choice award at different times this year and two of them have already done battle in a CNET Prizefight, so it will be interesting to see which is chosen as the overall winner.
A panel of jurors (which includes notables such as Jay Leno, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Carroll Shelby, Matt Petersen of Global Green USA and the Sierra Club's Carl Pope) will have to pick one of these vehicles to be crowned the fifth annual Green Car of the Year--which, by the way, is a very different thing from Greenest Car of the Year. There's apparently a bit more that goes into the choosing than just raw fuel economy and emissions numbers.
Last year, it was the Volkswagen Jetta TDI that walked rolled off with the 2009 crown by winning over the judges with its real-world performance and relatively low price. The year before that, it was the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid which was a really big hybrid that didn't return really big mpgs, but still managed to improve fuel economy by a massive 25-percent over the conventional model. Looking way back to the 2007 and 2006 winners, we can see that the Toyota Camry Hybrid and the Mercury Mariner Hybrid have also seen time in the winners' circle.
Editor's note: Polling is closed, the judges have voted, and the results are in. The 2010 Green Car of the Year award has gone to...
(Credit:
Corinne Schulze/CNET)
Volkswagen's new Jetta wagon delivers sporty performance in a practical package. But we're used to those characteristics from Volkswagen. Its secret sauce is the new cabin electronics package, which includes hard-drive-based navigation with advanced features such as traffic, along with iPod integration for the stereo system. Now if they could have just included Bluetooth phone support, it would be complete.
Read our review of the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen 2.0T.
So what kind of car are you going to get next? Perhaps, I might tempt your credulity by asking you to consider a new eco-car called the LEKO.
A Toyota? No, an IKEA.
A strange Web site has appeared, roulez-leko.com, on which a very relaxed, modern, eco-friendly chap, allegedly the great car designer Christophe Grozs, stands next to an apparent car draped with the word LEKO and the tagline "la voiture selon IKEA."
Yes, the car according to IKEA.
The LEKO (L'eco, get it?), allegedly has the backing of the World Wildlife Fund in France. Which might mean the fund has put money into the creation or that the car will have plastic panda-skin seats.
It also will save you untold (because unspecified) amounts of money on your expenditure. And it is humongously eco-friendly.
This is an ad, right?
If IKEA made a car, the doors might not fit quite perfectly into the body. Then you'd really have to work hard to use those tiny screwdrivers to make sure the engine didn't wobble. And just imagine the number of screws it would take to put in the cup holder.
There's the name too. Real IKEA product names never make sense. They always seem to resemble a fair to middling Scrabble hand--for example, KLIPPAN or LYCKSELE. LEKO is far too meaningful.
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2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Sedan
(Credit: Carey Russ)If you think diesels are slow, noisy, and smelly, or that they're only for trucks, trains, and ships, think again. Or better yet, wake up and join the 21st century.
Volkswagen's 2009 Jetta TDI, available now, is the first clean-diesel vehicle to be offered in all 50 states. To underscore that, VW introduced it to the automotive press in Santa Monica, Calif., with a drive route that included the Pacific Coast Highway, some of SoCal's finest canyon roads, and even a little freeway driving.
As Norbert Krause, director of VW's Environmental Engineering Office, put it so aptly in his part of the morning presentation, "this is not your grandfather's diesel." I got into one of the few stick shift examples in the morning, and twisted the key. No clatter, no smoke, very little noise. A little diesel sound from outside, but luxury car quiet from inside the cabin. An auspicious beginning.
Light clutch, good shift linkage, slip it in gear, and get on the road. Doesn't sound like a diesel. And acceleration is just fine, thank you, with strong torque from about 1,800rpm. Playing a bit with different gears, the engine's sweet spot seems to be around 3,000rpm, and it pulls, strongly, to about 4,500rpm, at which point power drops enough to discourage acquaintance with the rev limiter. According to the specifications, the car has 140 horsepower at 4,000rpm, with 236 foot-pounds of torque from 1,750rpm through 2,500rpm.
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At the 2008 Geneva auto show, Brian Cooley takes a look at an old favorite that's been redesigned and is ready to roll: the 2009 Volkswagen Scirocco. Unfortunately, unlike its predecessor, this Scirocco will not be hitting U.S. shores anytime soon. .
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CNET Networks)
When we saw the Volkswagen IROC concept at the Paris Motor Show in 2006, we knew that Volkswagen had a two-door sports hatch up its sleeve, and today the wraps came off. The 2009 Scirocco (IROC was fortunately dispensed with) revives the nameplate after a 16-year absence, and from the look of the display models, the new car has been worth the wait. The Scirocco retains some of the side-profile design cues of the IROC with a rising beltline, plus a hidden B-pillar and a meaty C-pillar holding up a swooping roof.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
At the front end, the new Scirocco seems to have taken a leaf out of the Audi R8 design book as its angry-looking dual-headlamp arrangement and an air intake above the slim bumper run parallel to the radiator grille and fog lamps below.
The drivetrain options are also Audi-related as the Scirocco is available with the same 2-liter, 200-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder plant found in the Audi A4. Other engine options include a less powerful turbo-four, a non-turbocharged four-cylinder plant, and a turbo diesel. Other notables include an adaptive chassis, which can be set to one of three modes depending on how responsive the driver wants the steering and suspension, and VW's DSG dual-clutch transmission. Customers in the U.S. shouldn't plan on putting their Golf GTIs up for sale, however. The Scirocco is intended as a Europe-only model, unless VW changes its mind.
We've gathered photos from our Car Tech reviews of every major automaker's software interface. These interfaces are what you see on a car's LCD, and we've covered manufacturers from Mercedes-Benz to GM. Many of the interfaces are poorly designed, probably taken straight from the original equipment manufacturer who built the car's navigation system and stereo interface. For our comparison, we concentrated on music screens, as these show on-screen buttons and fonts. Take a look and tell us which company you think offers the best and worst interface.
Click here for photos of every automotive interface available.
Volkswagen's Routan looks like any other minivan.
(Credit: Volkswagen)Volkswagen rolled out its new Routan vehicle at the 2008 Chicago Auto Show, reinforcing Chrysler's idea that the minivan is alive and well. Frankly, we don't care for the conventional minivan look of the Routan. The minivan segment was pioneered by Volkswagen way back in 1950--with the Type 1 Transporter, or microbus--so we would expect something more interesting looking than the Routan. The Routan offers minivan amenities in the form of three rows of seats, with second row captain's chairs, and 32.7 cubic feet of cargo space. Without the third row seats, there is 83 cubic feet of cargo space.
The Routan uses a hard drive-based navigation system.
(Credit: Volkswagen)The Routan is designed for the U.S., with a 3.8-liter V-6 engine standard, and an optional 4-liter V-6. It also boasts 13 cup holders. The only reason we are remotely interested in the Routan is that it uses Volkswagen's new hard drive-based navigation system, which we also saw on the Volkwagen Passat CC at the Detroit Auto Show. Other tech features are fairly standard, such as optional rear seat DVD entertainment and power sliding doors. We did notice a phone button on the navigation system, which could denote Bluetooth cell phone integration. But, as we've seen on other Volkswagen models, that phone button could be inoperable. What we really want to see on the Routan is a split windshield and eight small windows around the roof.
(Credit:
CNET Networks/Corrine Schulze)
Hot hatchback aficionados dream of a car like the 2008 Volkswagen R32. Where most hot hatchbacks, such as the 2007 Honda Civic Si, use front-wheel drive and a four-cylinder engine, the R32 upgrades those specs with all-wheel drive and a 3.2-liter V-6, giving it exceptional handling and power that doesn't fade at high speed. And the look of the R32 is about as refined as a hatchback can be.
