2020 Top High Tech Cars

2020 Top High Tech Cars

Polestar 1

Consider the Polestar 1 a tech tease from Volvo. This fiendishly complicated plug-in hybrid may be seen in only 1,500 copies, constructed over 3 years in a showpiece, enviro-friendly factory in Chengdu, China. Just as crucial, it’s the first of several planned Polestars, a Volvo sub-logo that goals to extend the enterprise’s electric attain around the globe.

I drove mine in New Jersey, scooting from Hoboken to upstate New York, as fellow drivers craned their necks to glimpse this tuxedo-sharp, hand-constructed luxurious GT. The frame panels are formed from carbon fiber, trimming 227 kilograms (500 kilos) from what’s still a 2,345-kg (five,one hundred seventy-pound) ride. Front wheels are pushed by means of a four-cylinder gasoline engine, whose combo of a supercharger and turbocharger generates 243 kilowatts (326 horses) from simply 2.Zero liters of displacement, with every other 53 kW (seventy one hp) from an integrated starter/generator. Two eighty five-kW electric vehicles power the rear wheels, allowing some 88 kilometers (55 miles) of emissions-unfastened variety—possibly a new excessive for a plug-in hybrid—earlier than the gasoline engine kicks in. Mashing the throttle summons some 462 kW (619 hp) and 1,000 newton meters (737 pound-ft) of torque, permitting a four.2-2d dash to 60 miles in step with hour (ninety seven kilometers in step with hour). It’s speedy, but now not lung-crushing speedy, like Porsche’s Taycan.

Yet the Polestar’s handling is slick, thanks to the ones rear cars, which paintings independently, allowing torque vectoring—the speeding or slowing of man or woman wheels—to reinforce agility. And Öhlins shock absorbers, from the famend racing and performance brand, combine particular frame control with a creamy-smooth ride. It’s a fun power, but Polestar’s first actual test comes this summer season with the Polestar 2 EV. That fastback sedan’s $63,750 base charge and more or less 440-km (275-mile) range will see it rectangular off towards Tesla’s sedans. Look for it in next yr’s Top 10.

Hyundai Sonata

The U.S. Market for circle of relatives sedans has been gutted by using SUVs. But instead of surrender on sedans, as Ford and Fiat Chrysler have completed, Hyundai has doubled down with a 2020 Sonata that’s filled with luxurious-level tech and welcoming design at a mainstream fee.

The Sonata is packed with functions that had been currently discovered handiest on tons costlier automobiles. The listing includes Hyundai’s SmartSense bundle of forward-collision avoidance, automated emergency braking, lane-preserving assist, automatic excessive-beam help, adaptive cruise manipulate, and a drowsy-driver attention caution, and they’re all widespread, even inside the base version. The SEL model adds a blind-spot reveal, however with a cool tech twist: Flick a turn sign and a circle-shaped digital camera view of the Sonata’s blind spot appears in the digital gauge cluster in front of the driver. It helped me spot bicyclists in city traffic.

Hyundai’s modern day infotainment gadget, with a ten-inch (26-centimeter) display, stays one of the industry’s maximum intuitive contact screens. Taking a web page from a whole lot extra high priced BMWs, the Hyundai’s new “smart park” characteristic, preferred on the pinnacle-shelf Limited version, shall we it pull into or out of a tight parking spot or storage with no driving force aboard, managed with the aid of the driving force thru the key fob.

That fob can be replaced by way of a virtual key, which uses an Android telephone app, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Near Field Communication to free up and begin the auto. Owners can proportion digital-key get right of entry to with up to three customers, such as sending codes through the Web.

Even the Sonata’s hood is festooned with fancy electronics. What first looks like standard chrome trim turns out to light up with increasing depth as the strips span the fenders and merge into the headlamps. The chrome become laser-etched to permit a grid of 0.05-millimeter LED squares to polish via. Add it to the listing of brilliant ideas from Hyundai.

Porsche Taycan

Yes, the all-electric Porsche Taycan is higher than a Tesla Model S. And it had damn properly higher be: The Porsche is a much more recent layout, and it sells at as much as double the Tesla’s fee. What you get for all that is a 4-door supercar GT, a technological surprise that starts offevolved the clock ticking on the obsolescence of fossil-fueled vehicles.

This beyond September I spent two days using the Taycan Turbo S through Denmark and Germany. One excessive factor changed into repeated runs to 268 kilometers according to hour (167 miles in line with hour) on the Autobahn, quicker than I’ve ever driven an EV. From a standing start, an automated release mode summoned 560 kilowatts (750 horsepower) for a time-warping 2.6-2nd sprint to 60 mph.

As alert readers have through now surmised, the Taycan is fast. But one among its fine time trials takes area with the car parked. Thanks to the auto’s groundbreaking 800-volt electric structure—with twice the voltage of the Tesla’s—charging is dramatically faster. Doubling the voltage means the contemporary had to deliver a given level of electricity is of path halved. Pulling off the Autobahn in the course of my using take a look at and connecting the liquid-cooled cables of a 350-kW Ionity charger, I watched the Porsche suck in enough DC to fill up its ninety three.Four-kW battery from 8 to eighty percent in 20 minutes flat.

Based on my math, the Porsche added almost 50 miles of range for each 5 minutes of max charging. In the time it takes to hit the rest room and pour a coffee, owners can add about 160 kilometers (a hundred miles) of variety closer to the Taycan’s overall, predicted at 411 to 450 km (256 to 280 miles) below the new Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears to have sandbagged the Porsche, pegging its range at 201 miles, while test drivers record getting 270 miles or extra. Porsche hopes to have 600 of the ultrafast DC chargers up and going for walks in the United States by means of the cease of this 12 months.

That 800-volt operation brings different blessings, too. With less contemporary to hold, the wiring is slimmer and lighter, saving 30 kilograms in the electrical harness by myself. Also, much less modern-day is drawn for the duration of tough driving, which reduces warmth and wear on the electrical vehicles. Porsche says that’s key to the Taycan’s repeatable, consistent overall performance.

In its ordinary using mode, the Turbo S model kicks out 460 kW (617 horsepower) and 1,049 newton meters (774 pound-feet) of torque. The front and back axles each have an electric motor with a sturdy six hundred-amp inverter; in different models the front receives 300 amps and the rear gets 600 amps.

The Porsche’s other massive part is its race-bred managing. Though this sedan tops 2,310 kg (five,100 pounds), its serenity at boggling speeds is unmatched. Credit the whole arsenal of Porsche’s chassis era: 4-wheel-steerage, lively roll stabilization, and an advanced air suspension imparting 3 tiers of stiffness, based on three separate pressurized chambers. Porsche claims class-main tiers of brake-strength recovery. It’s additionally Porsche’s most aerodynamic production version, with a drag coefficient of simply zero.22, approximately as appropriate as any mass-production car ever.

Porsche invested US $1 billion to expand the Taycan, with $800 million of that going to a new manufacturing facility in Zuffenhausen, Germany. For a fairer combat with Tesla, a more-low-priced 4S version arrives in U.S. Showrooms this summer, with up to 420 kW (563 hp) and a base price of $103,800

Audi RS Q8

I’m rocketing up a dormant volcano to the very best height in Spain, Mt. Teide inside the Canary Islands. There may be greater green ways to check a luxury crossover SUV, however none greater fun.

I’m within the Audi RS Q8, a mild-hybrid version of the Q8, added just last 12 months. I’m getting a lesson in how tech magic can make a roughly 2,310-kilogram (5,100-pound) car boost up, turn, and brake like a much smaller system.

The RS Q8’s pulsing coronary heart is a 4-liter, 441-kilowatt (591-horsepower) twin-turbo V8. It’s augmented by a slight-hybrid gadget based on a 48-volt electrical architecture that sends up to 12 kW to fee a lithium-ion battery. That device also powers trick electromechanical antiroll bars to preserve the frame flatter than a Marine’s haircut throughout difficult cornering. An adaptive air suspension hunkers down at speed to reduce drag and middle of gravity, whilst Quattro all-wheel drive and 4-wheel steering offer balance.

A colossal braking device, largely shared with the Lamborghini Urus, the Audi’s company cousin, includes insane 10-piston calipers up the front. That approach 10 pressure points for the brake pads against the spinning brake discs, for brawny stopping power and improved warmness control and pedal sense. Optional carbon-ceramic brakes trim 19 pounds from every corner.

Audi’s engineers nice-tuned it all in rankings of trials on Germany’s fabled Nürburgring circuit, which the RS Q8 stormed in 7 minutes, forty two seconds. That’s quicker than any other SUV in history.

Audi’s virtual Virtual Cockpit and MMI Touch center screens are smoothly included in a flat panel. A navigation machine analyzes beyond drives to nearby destinations, searching at logged records on visitors density and the time of day. And the Audi Connect, an non-obligatory Android app that may be used by up to five humans, can unlock and start the Audi.

Audi costs a conservative 3.Eight-2nd catapult from zero to one hundred kilometers in step with hour (62 miles in line with hour). We’re having a bet on zero to 60 mph in three.5 seconds, perhaps less.