NEW YORK – New production models and concept cars might have stolen this year's New York International Auto Show, but underneath all that aluminum, steel and carbon fiber was some impressive new technology, most of which is headed to a car near you in the coming months and years.
From all-wheel drive hybrid powertrains to cloud-connected digital dashboards, the vehicles lining the halls at the Javits Center are harbingers of the future, and we've compiled the stand-outs here in the best new automotive technologies of the 2012 New York Auto Show.
Cadillac's CUE On View
We told you about Cadillac's
CUE infotainment system when it debuted late last year. This was the first chance we had to try it out, and we came away cautiously impressed.
In the CUE cockpit we sampled, button presses were accompanied by light haptic feedback. Superfluous controls faded away after 15 seconds of non-use, freeing up screen space for an easy-to-read display. Move your hand closer to CUE's center touchscreen and all those menus will reapear. We especially liked a new row of preset buttons that allows you to program navigation destinations and phone numbers alongside radio stations – something that BMW has been doing for years.
Lots of cars have digital displays for gauge clusters, but most of them either mimic analog controls or look like something out of an airplane cockpit. Cadillac offers up four separate display settings which range from simple to complex depending on what sort of information the driver prefers. Technophobes will probably prefer the bare-bones "Simple" display, while "Performance" and "Enhanced" offer additional, customizable functionality. The whole system is Linux-based and will eventually support open source applications.
While we'll always lament the loss of simple audio and HVAC controls, the connected car is gladly here to stay. CUE might be one of the best solutions we've seen so far to integrate new technology with old.
Photo: Noah Devereaux/Wired
