Hybrids Dominate the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans

Photo: David Vincent/AP

The 80th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans happened in France this past weekend, and with it came the introduction of new technology, a new top-tier competitor and one radical concept that’s been heralded as the future of Le Mans Prototype racing.

But before we get into the action, beware. There are plenty of spoilers ahead, so if you’ve someone avoided the race and want to remain blissfully ignorant until you boot up your Tivo, don’t click through.

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Simply Say ‘Siri’: How Automakers Can Integrate Apple’s ‘Eyes Free’

Image: Simon Lutrin/Wired

Apple’s announcement that Siri is coming “Eyes Free” into cars left more questions than answers at WWDC this week. But after talking with automakers, examining how voice controls are currently embedded in vehicles and looking at Apple’s own patent filing for a steering wheel-mounted remote, we have a clearer view of how Apple’s personal assistant will integrate into your next ride.

There’s been plenty of confusion about what form Siri Eyes Free will take when it eventually comes to vehicles in the next year, and from what we can gather, there are a few possible models that automakers working with Apple will follow.

Image: BMW

The first thing we can conclude is that Apple probably won’t have its own button in your car. Many new vehicles are already equipped with a voice control button on the steering wheel, and it’s doubtful automakers will develop and install a dedicated button just for Siri. After all, there are plenty of non-Apple smartphones in the world, and automakers want to cater to as many devices as possible.

So they will likely use the existing voice control button. In its current form, when the voice button is depressed, the factory-installed infotainment system brings up a series of possible commands the driver can execute, from “Navigate” to “Play playlist Kid Cudi.” To maintain existing infotainment functionality, automakers won’t completely cede control to the user’s iPhone. Instead, when the voice button is pressed, the user could simply say “Siri” and the on-board controls would recognize the command and divert the following voice commands to the iPhone. This solution allows automakers to keep their existing controls in place and maintain a modicum of control, while still allowing drivers to utilize Siri’s multitude of natural language inputs.

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Chevrolet Volt Outselling Corvette in 2012

Images: General Motors

Chevrolet’s plug-in hybrid sedan is in its first year of full production, and after six months of sales, the Volt has toppled the Chevy Corvette in the retail race.

So far in 2012, Chevy has offloaded 7,057 Volts, compared to the the Corvette’s 5,547 sales. It deserves noting that the figures General Motors — Chevrolet’s parent company — has released are for deliveries to dealers, and not vehicles parked in customer garages.

Still, the duality of the two vehicles sold under the same marque couldn’t be more clear. Both the Corvette and Volt could be considered niche products — one a sports car, one a plug-in hybrid with a 40-mile range and absolutely no sporting pretenses.

There’s also the price discrepancy — not that anyone is cross-shopping the two models. The Volt comes in at $39,995 before any state or federal incentives, while the Corvette starts at just over 50 large. And of course, the fuel economy of both models stands in stark contrast: The Volt gets a combined rating of 94 MPGe, while the ‘Vette and its 6.2-liter V8 manages to eek out 16 MPG in the city and 26 MPG on the highway.

In 2011, Chevy managed to move some 13,596 Corvettes, and if Volt sales continue as expected, Chevrolet expects around 20,000 Volts sold by the end of this year.

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Review: 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid Is a Pleasant Populist

Until I passed the radar-equipped eye of the local constabulary, nobody had noticed the Toyota Camry I was driving.

“Do you know how fast you were going?” the officer predictably asked. I was dumbfounded — before I’d been pulled over, the drive had been a total blur. Outside of speed traps, the Camry beats Buster Bluth at being neither seen nor heard. That’s why consumers love it and enthusiasts hate it, and why I had paid scant attention to speed limits or blue-and-white Crown Vics. Substitute a hazelnut latte for amphetamines and Terry Gross for Super Soul, and I was Kowalski.

After I got off with a warning, the rest of my week with a Cypress Pearl (gray) 2012 Camry Hybrid XLE (MSRP $30,021) was predictably uneventful. It’s a competent cruiser with a big back seat and unobtrusive technology on the dash and under the hood, but the sedan has a few shortcomings that keep it from being a pantheon of practicality.

Continue reading Keith’s review of the Toyota Camry Hybrid on Wired Product Reviews.

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App Lets Friends Catch ‘Glympse’ of Mercedes A-Class Owners

Photo: Mercedes-Benz

For social media’s most ardent adherents, there’s no such thing as oversharing. We’re not convinced that anyone cares that you just liked Frank Bacon on Facebook, tweeted some mundane thought that twitched through your brain, Instagrammed moody snapshots of your surroundings or checked in on Four Square at a hipster watering hole where you can barely afford to buy a beer.

Most car buyers aren’t exactly clamoring for social media in the dashboard either, according to the latest research. But that isn’t stopping car companies from participating in a social media arms race to add such sharing capabilities to cars. Mercedes-Benz’s new mbrace2 telematics system that launched last month in the 2013 SL550 includes Facebook status updates. And the automaker recently announced that it’s adding Glympse, “the temporary real-time location sharing” service, to the Digital DriveStyle app that will be included in the new compact A-Class when the car becomes available in Europe in September and hits these shores later.

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