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16th
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The auto show season, which runs from September to April is (believe it or not) not always the busiest part of the year. If this past summer is any indication, the car show season is only a lead-up to what is to come.
If nothing else, that's what all the ginormous booths, pageantry, and spotlights are all about. These next few months are all going to be about the shiny new cars, state-of-the-art technologies, and the people who bring them to your driveways.
The current trend is performance with special attention given to the environment. Engines continue to be reduced in size, but outputs remain and even climb. CO2 emissions and fuel consumption numbers drop, as do 0-100 km/h times.
Hybrids and electric vehicles, once oddballs and slightly embarrassing, are now clear and present symbols of both “green” progress and performance. On that front, I've driven as many high-powered EVs as I have regular ones. There's quite the future in electric cars. Think Porsche 918 if you can't picture a sports-hybrid car...
On the technology front, striving to seamlessly blend the smart phone into the vehicle -- thus creating the ideal HMI experience -- continues to occupy the minds of countless engineers. For some, the perfect combination of car and phone will come when cars get closer to being as autonomous as possible.
Autonomous cars is the other “way of the future” that is currently soaking immense resources at a number of manufacturers around the globe.
Meanwhile, powerful and expensive luxury and exotic cars continue to surface from carmakers. Bentley, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bugatti, and more all have new products that stir emotions and wallets with seemingly little or no concern for the environment.
In the end, manufacturers are working hard at making the world a better place to live in, but in order to do so they need to make money. They can't print their own dollars so they create saliva-producing cars that few will purchase, but that will hopefully influence you and I to buy one of their latest and most efficient cars.
So, here's to another auto show season taking off and the promise of new and exciting cars coming our way.
Change is good! Right?
If nothing else, that's what all the ginormous booths, pageantry, and spotlights are all about. These next few months are all going to be about the shiny new cars, state-of-the-art technologies, and the people who bring them to your driveways.
 |
| 2013 Frankfurt autoshow (Photo: Mathieu St-Pierre) |
The current trend is performance with special attention given to the environment. Engines continue to be reduced in size, but outputs remain and even climb. CO2 emissions and fuel consumption numbers drop, as do 0-100 km/h times.
Hybrids and electric vehicles, once oddballs and slightly embarrassing, are now clear and present symbols of both “green” progress and performance. On that front, I've driven as many high-powered EVs as I have regular ones. There's quite the future in electric cars. Think Porsche 918 if you can't picture a sports-hybrid car...
 |
| Porsche 918 Spyder (Photo: Porsche) |
On the technology front, striving to seamlessly blend the smart phone into the vehicle -- thus creating the ideal HMI experience -- continues to occupy the minds of countless engineers. For some, the perfect combination of car and phone will come when cars get closer to being as autonomous as possible.
Autonomous cars is the other “way of the future” that is currently soaking immense resources at a number of manufacturers around the globe.
Meanwhile, powerful and expensive luxury and exotic cars continue to surface from carmakers. Bentley, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bugatti, and more all have new products that stir emotions and wallets with seemingly little or no concern for the environment.
 |
| 2013 Frankfurt autoshow (Photo: Mathieu St-Pierre) |
In the end, manufacturers are working hard at making the world a better place to live in, but in order to do so they need to make money. They can't print their own dollars so they create saliva-producing cars that few will purchase, but that will hopefully influence you and I to buy one of their latest and most efficient cars.
So, here's to another auto show season taking off and the promise of new and exciting cars coming our way.
Change is good! Right?