#cars

In stylish new clothes, inside and out, the 2013 Toyota Avalon debuted today at the New York Auto Show.

Despite getting a refresh in 2011, Toyota seems to have recognized that its full-size sedan, aimed squarely at baby boomers looking for value and comfort, needed a new face to continue competing with the ever-changing car market.

Compared to the 2012 model, the upcoming Avalon features a stylish interior that feels more like a German luxury car than its predecessor. While pricing details aren’t available yet, last year’s model started in the low $30,000’s so it seems reasonable to assume this car would stick in the same range.

An LCD screen that fits nicely into the redesigned center stack shows everything from infotainment options music selection to maps. A colorful gauge cluster with white numbers further compliments the redesigned interior which has more space than a BMW 5 Series. There’s also a charging station for mobile devices and captive-touch controls for climate settings.

Other features that were present in previous generations like a power rear window shade remain for rear-seat comfort as well.

“There’s also an unmatched list of technology-driven safety features, including a best-in-class 10 airbags, blind spot monitor with cross-traffic detection and pre-collision system,” said Toyota Motor Sales group vice president Bob Carter.

Volkswagen‘s Up! continued the trend from the past four years of small cars winning the World Car of the Year Award at the New York Auto Show today.

“Our goal was always to make something small great,” a Volkswagen executive said on stage.

To garner the award, the Up! beat both the volume-selling and luxurious BMW 3 Series and the thrilling Porsche 911. The victory suggests that journalists across the world are putting a growing emphasis on greener, or at least more fuel-efficient vehicles.

This victory for means the automaker won four of the past five years for the most prestigious of the four awards offered by the World Car Awards each year.

The Mazda Takeri concept that originally debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show last year took its American bow today at the New York Auto Show. 

Absence from the New York Auto Show today didn’t stop the new Jaguar F-Type from stealing the show.

Instead of a traditional teaser, Jaguar poked fun at the spy photographers publications rely on by offering them a break from hanging out in trees. Instead, those attending the press conference saw a short video featuring plenty of footage with a “properly camouflaged” test mule flying around a track.

While mechanical details weren’t released on the F-Type, Jaguar global brand director Adrian Hallmark said during the conference that the F-Type would remain almost entirely true to the C-X16 unveiled last September.

Leaks aside, Nissan debuted its 2013 Nissan Altima today at the New York Auto Show, displaying a host of new features in its refreshed mid-size sedan.

Much of the information about the new Altima made its way onto the internet yesterday thanks to a set of loose lips, or careless fingers as it were but there’s still more to tell. “NASA inspired zero-gravity seats” make their first debut in the car.

The automaker turned to  NASA in an effort to develop seats that keep the driver and front passenger in the most natural position possible for ideal comfort. Of course, people come in all shapes and sizes, so anything short of a test drive is probably inadequate to render judgement.

With the advent of hybrids and electric vehicles, many skeptics thought the age of high-performance sports car would die out. Reality couldn’t be any more different, as America has more than 70 cars on sale today that make 500-hp or more.

The number of vehicles pushing out 500-hp or more has nearly doubled in the last five years. What is more remarkable is more than a decade ago, there were just two vehicles in the club: the Ferrari 575M and the Lamborghini Murcielago. Now Ferrari alone has four models pushing out over 500-hp.

The ability to pump out so much horsepower has been aided by the leaps and bounds that engineering and technology has made over the last decade. Automakers are now able to equip their vehicles with smaller, more fuel efficient engines, which thanks to forced induction, can reliably crank out plenty of peak horsepower.

[Source:  Autoweek]

In the market for a new car and have cash ready to go? You might want to check out a joint promotion between eBay Motors and AutoNation, the largest group of U.S. car dealerships.

Disney’s Pixar has a magical way of not only touching the hearts of children, but also the hearts of adults through their movies. The movie Cars and its sequel Cars 2 are of course our favorites, and Disney California Adventure is adding a Cars-themed ride to their amusement park.

The attraction Cars Land will open to the public on June 15th, but the team at the amusement park is hard at work testing the Radiator Springs Racers seven days a week, mostly at night. But Disney decided to release a sneak preview of what we can expect when the ride goes live, and it appears they’ve done a fantastic job bringing Radiator Springs to life.

Clearly this will be one of their most heavily anticipated openings for both children and adults, considering how successful the Cars franchise has become over the years.

Watch the test run through Cars Land after the break.

[Source: Disney Blog]

Daimler got caught with their pants down this year when Audi passed Mercedes-Benz for the first time in history to become the world’s number two luxury car maker. That won’t be the case if they have their way next year.

Circuit of the Americas is halting of the Formula One circuit in Austin, Texas, effective immediately.

Slow sales by Fiat are causing layoffs for workers in  Chrysler‘s Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance Plant in Dundee, Mich., responsible for building the 1.4-liter FIRE engine used in the 500.

The rising yen is making exports from Japan increasingly unprofitable and Honda is looking to cut vehicle exports by 50 percent over the next 10 years as a response to the change in currency valuations.

While General Motors seemed desperate to sell Opel back in 2009, GM CEO Dan Akerson now says that the terms of the sale were a “bad deal” and that Opel, along with GM’s other global divisions, are now profitable.

General Motors has its hands in all corners of the globe, and while most consumers know about their operations in Europe and South Koreas, their arm in the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan is shaping up to be quite the powerhouse in the all-important Russian market.

The Cars franchise is about more that just marketing and merchandising. In fact, the characters of Cars 2 (in theaters June 24) has teamed up with the Department of Transportation (DOT), to help fight distracted driving with a new public service ad.

Staring Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater, the 30-second PSA is called, “Only the bad guys drive distracted.” Basically, it reminds drivers of a very important message: “No calling, no texting. Nothing that can take away your focus.”

This PSA can be seen in more than a dozen countries and various languages. As well, DOT is working on using the ad as part of the Make Roads Safe campaign for global road safety.

This isn’t the first time the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has worked with Disney on driving safety campaigns. You may remember the re-release of Cinderella in 2005 urging parents to fit their children properly in booster seats.

You can watch the Cars 2 PSA after the jump.

[Source: Consumer Reports]