Toyota Corolla 2014

2013 has only seen the end of its second quarter, but the world is already talking about the new look of Toyota Corolla 2014. The upcoming vehicle is the most revolutionary model of Toyota Corolla which the world has ever seen. From the external shape to the interior, everything has been redesigned.

This is the 11th generation of Toyota Corolla automobiles in the world. The new design is more dynamic and stylish than the preceding ones. Corolla has always been a practical car, but in 2014, it will also be more stylish with its new magnificent exterior. Instead of Corolla’s conventional design which the world has been seeing for generations, the new look will be rather sportier.

Starting from the front, there are slimmer headlights with LED beams. Plastic has been replaced with glass owing to the comparatively cooler temperature of LED. So, the 2014 model has a front which looks lighter and sleeker. The same old boring design has been replaced by this new, slightly sporty look.

Toyota Furia Concept revealed a compact car for 2014. Despite being compact, the new Corolla is more spacious than its predecessors. It is a little longer as well as wider than the preceding generations. The wheelbase is approximately 3.93 inches longer.

The car has a gracefully designed interior, lavished with comfort of the users, making it a perfect ride for long drives with the folks. It has a 40L fuel tank, which is big enough to take your family long distances. It has an overall length of 3845mm, a 170mm ground clearance, 4 cylinders, bore x stroke of 72.0 x 61.0 mm, sun visor on both sides, colored bumpers and blue tinted head lamps, creating a modest blend of quality and necessary features. It has been gifted with the new G10B EFi engine, and its transmission is 5-speed all synchromesh. All these features make it flexible, extremely cost efficient and also highly enjoyable; also making it the car that everyone in the family will love.

This car is the perfect example of how you do not have to spend out of your range to avail good features in a car; at an affordable price, it offers you so much more. The Suzuki Cultus VXRi 2013 price in Pakistan places this car right in the middle of low cost 4-wheelers like Suzuki Mehran and luxury cars like Toyota Corolla. It is a perfectly designed vehicle with all the features of this small fit wonder car for a happy family. The fact still stands strong that this car is affordable and flexible for all families. The Suzuki Cultus has received positive views and reviews from people and is a successful car without any flaws. This is the one addition your perfectly small family needs.

Kia Cadenza

Kia Cadenza

What is it? Kia is moving to get into the premium sedan business with the new Cadenza, which the carmaker says will be its most technologically advanced, luxurious, and largest vehicle available to U.S. buyers to date.
If a lot of that sounds familiar, that’s because the Cadenza is pretty much a Hyundai Azera underneath that stylish Kia skin.
Powered by a 293-hp, 3.3-liter six-cylinder engine paired with a six-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters, the Cadenza also comes with standard navigation and Kias's Uvo telematics system displayed an eight-inch center screen.
Predictably loaded up with a full compliment of techno stuff, the Cadenza gets a backup camera and reversing warning system standard. Buyers who want to step up to the Technology package can also get a distance-sensing cruise control system, blind-spot warning, and lane departure warning.
Dual-zone climate control, leather seat trim, a 10-way power driver’s seat, and keyless entry & start are all standard features.
What is new or notable? Everybody is trying to get into the upscale sedan market that, for decades, has been the stomping ground of Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz. It’ll be interesting to see if bringing more tech to the table for less money will make Kia a competitor. 
CR's take: Despite objections that they are two different companies, it’s clear Kia and Hyundai are pretty much joined at the hip. Like its sister carmaker, Kia continues to bring a lot of value to the table, which helps increase market share for the Dynamic Korean Duo. 

Chevrolet Impala

Chevrolet Impala

What is it?  This large sedan has received a thorough
redesign for the first time since the 2000 model year. Designated a 2014 model, the born-again Impala will share a platform with the very good Buick LaCrosse. Its array of electronic convenience and safety features
will include adaptive cruise control, forward collision
mitigation, a backup camera, and lane-departure and rear cross-traffic warning systems.
Engine choices include two four cylinder four cylinder
versions and a V6. The base 182-hp four will use GM’s eAssist mild-hybrid system, with which we got a very good 26 mpg overall in the LaCrosse. The 303-hp, 3.6-liter V6 is stronger but far less economical; our V6 LaCrosse got only 20 mpg.
Pricing will start at $27,530 including an $810 destination charge.

What is new or notable? Optional Chevrolet MyLink adds an eight-inch infotainment screen for navigation and Bluetooth audio streaming.

CR’s take: With its spacious cabin and up-to-date technology, the new Impala should finally compete well with its large-car peers.

Cadillac CTS

Cadillac CTS

What is it? Cadillac introduces a bigger, and possibly more driver-focused,CTS for 2014. The exterior is much more modern than its predecessor; the look is stunning with crisp lines and abundant LED detailing in the front. The car has also grown five inches, with two of them sprouting in the wheelbase to make the CTS a stronger competitor for the BMW 5 Series and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class. Based on the smaller ATS’ lightweight platform, Cadillac claims the redesigned CTS shed 244 pounds, making it the lightest car in its class and weighing some 200 pounds less than a BMW 528i.
Engine choices include a 272-hp, 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder and a 321-hp, 3.6-liter V6, both available with rear or all-wheel drive. There is also a high-performance Vsport model, with a twin-turbo 420-hp, 3.6-liter V6 and eight-speed manual transmission, more aggressive suspension tuning, and rear-wheel drive.
What’s new and notable? The interior is nicely finished, but like other Cadillacs it has the frustrating and distracting CUE infotainment system. That feature really marred our experience with the ATS in our road test earlier this year.
CR’s take: We really look forward to driving this new CTS. If it drives anything like its smaller ATS sibling, we’re really going to be in for a treat.
When will it be available? Fall 2013.

Is the carbon-fiber BMW i3 the car of the future?

By Consumer Reports News | ConsumerReports.org

ConsumerReports.org - Is the carbon-fiber BMW i3 the car of the future?

Expect to hear a lot about the BMW i3 in the coming months. A four-seater about the size of a Nissan Juke, BMW's first electric car for sale will combine several cutting-edge technologies, potentially making it one of the most advanced vehicles on the road.
BMW calls the i3 an all-electric car, but it is more than that. It has several tricks up its sleeves.

For starters, the i3 will be the first production car for the masses to use a carbon-fiber body to save weight. Electric car engineers say this is key since it allows the car to travel farther on a smaller, lighter, and cheaper battery. At just 2,630 pounds, the i3 weighs less than many subcompact cars. (The car is about 151-inches long, 79-inches wide, and five-feet tall, with a 101-inch wheelbase.) BMW claims a range of 80-100 miles, similar to other electric cars, from the i3's 22-kWh lithium-ion battery.

However, that's not the end of the story. BMW will also offer an optional gasoline engine as a "range extender"--a 34-hp, 650-cc motorcycle-type two-cylinder engine. This engine will generate electricity for another 60 miles of travel before its 2.4-gallon tank needs a refilling. Sounds familiar? It's the same idea behind the Chevrolet Volt.

This fulfills another promise of plug-in hybrids: dramatically downsizing the gas tank and engine to offset the size, weight, and cost of the battery. (Other plug-in hybrids today use four-cylinder engines ranging from 1.0 to 2.0 liters.) As a plug-in hybrid, the i3 may have twice the electric range of the Volt.

BMW will sell the i3 along with a suite of services called 360 Electric, including a home charger, free access to a network of public chargers, and car sharing through the DriveNow network, providing access to other BMW models for longer-trips. (That is a good concept, because, really, who wants to refill a tiny gas tank every hour?)

In earlier trials with the Mini-E and the BMW Active-E, the company found that in 12.5 million miles of driving, 1,000 EV drivers averaged about 30 miles a day. With its big battery, range-extending engine, and available assortment of replacement loaners, the i3 should be more than capable of meeting these needs. And when it debuts next year, the company also promises that the i3 will drive like a BMW to boot.

—Eric Evarts

2014 Mercedes-Benz

2014 Mercedes-Benz S550, your self-driving luxury suite awaits: Motoramic Drives

By Brett Berk | Motoramic

The 2014 Mercedes-Benz S550 can drive itself.

This is not hyperbole, but an indubitable fact. Buy the new flagship sedan for an as-yet undisclosed price (we can’t imagine it returning many Sacagawea coins from a $100,000 bearer bond), tick the order boxes for the $4,500 Premium 1 Package and the $2,800 Driver Assistance Package, twist the key in the starter and slide the memory stick-sized column shifter into D, and sit back and relax. The car’s suite of stereoscopic cameras, radar sensors and ultrasonic gewgaws create what Mercedes — in a Snowden-level defection from Earth-bound physics — calls “6-D Vision.” This double-down dimensionality apparently endows the vehicle’s robot brain with an omnipotence once ascribed solely to God.

Bow deep, luxury shopper. The automotive world has a new deity.

All of these electronic systems create an eerie and unfamiliar dynamic, one in which the distinctions between being in the pilot’s seat and being a passenger disappear. Given the status afforded the S550’s passengers — who are all mollycoddled with heated, ventilated, reclining, massaging, perforated, diamond-stitched, perfume-shpritzed (!), flatscreen-equipped, remote-controlled, Internet-enabled, mother-hugging, veal-soft leather seats, at least one of which (the right rear) can be made to prostrate toward a slumber-inducing horizontality — this is not meant as an insult. Still, in our years of test-driving vehicles, we have never before been confronted with the consistent desire, or ability, to remove ourselves from driving and turn around to speak to our passenger, who was splayed out in the aforementioned Diamond Class position like a resplendent Roman atop his villa’s stibadium.

There are about 16,000 actions, previously left to the hands and feet and eyes of the driver, which the S550 can now perform with complete autonomy. These include starting, stopping, steering, braking, remaining in a lane, avoiding a head-on collision, avoiding a cross-traffic collision, fending off a rear-end collision, spotting street signs, reading street signs, spotting wildlife, parallel parking, right-angle parking, maintaining a safe following speed, spotting pedestrians, avoiding killing pedestrians and flashing the high beams at pedestrians spotted on the side of the roadway at night.

We had the opportunity to experience and be awed by every one of these except the final one, as it is our feeling that whenever there is a pedestrian on the side of the road at night, he is up to something, and the last thing we want to do is call attention to the fact that we spotted him and highlight — with ten-zillion lumens of LED headlamp power — his act of burying whomever he’s just murdered and dismembered. Also, contrary to rumor, it is not possible to receive an upright MRI while positioned in the driver’s seat of the new S-Class.

Yet.

If one gets uppity, and decides to disable all of these systems — which can be easily accomplished, and, as far as we can tell, invites no significant retaliation from the onboard HAL 9000 — the S550 rewards with precisely the kind of driving experience one expects from an S-Class. The twin-turbocharged V-8, while displacing 4.6 liters in violation of traditional Daimler nomenclature, puts out a creamily potent 455 hp and a Caterpillar-esque 516 lb-ft of torque, which pulls the 17-foot, 4,300 lb. behemoth to 60 mph in a manufacturer estimated 4.8 seconds. (The inevitable S63 AMG, which we expect to see revealed at or before the Frankfurt Auto Show in September, should improve on this.)

The exhaust does not bark, even if held to redline via the steering wheel’s paddle shifters in one of the transmission’s seven gears — instead releasing a maundering zephyric undertone, like that in a private jet or a Christopher Nolan film. The 18-inch standard wheels keep their rubber properly planted to any surface, via a quartet of shocks and continuously adjustable air springs, with an optional assist from MAGIC BODY CONTROL, which emits indomitable laser frequencies that seemingly pulverize into flowing silicone any proximate road imperfection. (For the flashy, 19-inch twin-spoke and 20-inch multi-spokes wheels are available, with concomitant all-season or performance tires, from AMG for $5,900 or $6,650 dollars.) And, of course, the entire structure is as rigid and inflexible as a filibustering lawmaker.

And what a lovely structure it is. We personally felt that the outgoing S Class, the W221, had an uncouth appearance that was half bluster and half blather, with goofy cartoonish eyeballs and steroidal muscle bulges that put us more in mind of Mighty Mousen than a real Masters of the Universe. The new car, coded W222, smoothes out all of those crests, leaving a car that has an almost Italianate elegance without sacrificing any of the Teutonic purposefulness. The car is larger than its predecessor, but its refined cohesiveness, and the absence of overwrought “design” details that have plagued recent Benzes, make it appear more taut. If anything, the truncated trunk, while nicely integrated, might be a bit too small for a car of this scale.

Or perhaps we were just operating under the swooning long decked influence of the 1980s W126 420 SEL Mercedes had on hand for chauffeur-driven comparison. We worship the W126. But while being ferried about in this car made us feel like a 1980s banker, driving — or should we say "driving" — the new S550 made us feel like we owned the bank. Or the bank owned us. Or we were inside an impenetrable vault in a bank controlled by our robotic avatar located in the sixth dimension and manipulated by proxy via a complex series of intergalactic shell corporations. Like the markets themselves, the S-Class excels at using technology to upgrade one's securities.

2012 Ford F-Series Super Duty

2012 Ford F-Series Super Duty: New Car Review

Pros: Great power for towing and hauling; numerous configurations and interior options; if you like chrome, the Super Duty deals it up in spades

Cons: Poor fuel economy; not easy to maneuver in small spaces; high-end models cost as much as some luxury sedans

Those in need of light-duty hauling and towing should be fine with any number of half-ton pickups. But when the work at hand requires towing numbers in the 10,000-pound range, a three-quarter-ton or one-ton pickup is the only option. To this end, you have a choice of Ford, Ram, GMC and Chevrolet. Toyota and Nissan don't play in this field, and it's probably good that they don't. Why? Because the people who buy these big trucks are a loyal bunch, and none more loyal than the owners of Ford's Super Duty trucks. The F-250, the F-350 and the F-450 dually comprise the Super Duty lineup, which is almost as extensive as the F-150.

Super Duty trucks can be had in a variety of configurations, including Regular Cab, Crew Cab and Supercab. Bed lengths also vary between 6 ¾ and 8 feet, and Ford offers the choice of a power gasoline V8 or a more powerful Power Stroke V8 turbo-diesel. The maximum tow rating for the Super Duty is 17,500 pounds at the hitch and 24,500 pounds with a fifth wheel. We understand that Ram and Ford are in a bit of a spitting war over which truck has the most power and best tow ratings, but really, both trucks can pull the same payloads. For the record, the Super Duty's Power Stroke diesel matches the Ram's high-output Cummins diesel's torque output of 800 lb-ft but bests it in horsepower and fuel economy.

Comfort & Utility

It might be hard to believe there's much leeway for comfort in a full-size heavy-duty pickup, but Ford has turned this conventional wisdom on its head. In the base XL truck, the interior is pretty basic, composed mainly of vinyl and hard plastics designed to take a beating. The XLT softens the interior somewhat, bringing softer seats, carpeting, power windows and locks and cruise control. The Lariat and King Ranch push the pickup-truck paradigm to new heights, offering lush leather seating, advanced audio and navigation, power adjustable pedals, power extendable side trailering mirrors, a rear-view camera, 10-way power driver's and passenger's seats, a power moonroof, heated and cooled front seats and Ford's SYNC communication, information and entertainment system.

The Regular Cab trucks feature a 40/20/40 front split bench seat, with the option of a 40/console/40 setup that features a fold-down console/armrest between the driver's and passenger's seats. Super Crew cabs feature a small rear seat that can be flipped up or folded down to increase cargo space. The SuperCab has under-seat lockable storage with a 110-volt inverter power point, a folding center armrest and dual integrated cupholders.

To make hard chores a bit easier, the Super Duty can be equipped with a stowable bed extender, a built-in tailgate stepladder and a spray-in bedliner. Also available are rear sonar parking sensors, auxiliary uplifter switches for adding aftermarket accessories to the existing electric system and Ford's Crew Chief telematics, which allow a dispatcher to know the vehicle's location, operating condition and performance.

Technology

The high-end King Ranch and Lariat versions of the Super Duty can be equipped with Ford's voice-activated navigation. The system is compatible with Sirius Travel Link and provides a 10-GB digital jukebox for storing music. The SYNC AppLink system is available on all trims and includes hands-free Bluetooth phone calling, voice-activated music searches and the ability to stream audio from your cell phone via Bluetooth music streaming.

Another interesting option is the LCD Productivity Screen, which shows various data such as fuel economy, towing information, angle of ascent and descent and four-wheel-drive data.

Performance & Fuel Economy

The standard engine on the Super Duty F-250 and F-350 is a 6.2-liter flex fuel V8 good for 385 horsepower and 405 lb-ft of torque. Optional on the F-250/350 and standard on the F-450 is the 6.7-liter Power Stroke turbo diesel that generates 400 hp and an astounding 800 lb-ft of torque. Both engines are connected to a heavy-duty TorqShift six-speed automatic transmission that offers manual shift ability.

There are no EPA ratings for the Super Duty, but mileage is expected to be in the low to middle teens. On diesel models, Ford offers two interesting options. First is the Live Drive Power Takeoff (PTO) that allows the transmission to power external accessories such as a snowplow or a truck lift, provided the diesel engine is running. The other is the exhaust brake function, which limits combustion by restricting exhaust, which helps maintain desired speed when towing.

Safety

Interior safety features include front, front seat side impact and front and rear side curtain airbags.

To help maintain control in all driving situations, the Super Duty includes four-wheel ABS, electronic traction and stability control with roll stability control and trailer sway control. Hill Start Assist and Hill Descent Control use the brakes to control the vehicle, keeping it from rolling backward on takeoff or descending steep hills too quickly. A factory-installed Trailer Brake Assist option eliminates the hassle of getting aftermarket systems installed.

Driving Impressions

For such a massive truck, the Super Duty is surprisingly manageable. If you feel comfortable behind the wheel of a Ford F-150, the Super Duty adds a bit more bulk up front but basically feels about the same. The fully boxed frame is impressively stiff, an important attribute for towing and hauling heavy loads. On the road, the ride is not luxury-car smooth, but it isn't harsh, either. The steering is tight and direct, and the cabin is fairly quiet, especially on the King Ranch trim.

Acceleration is good with the gasoline engine, but it's the Power Stroke Turbo Diesel that gives the Super Duty the power it needs to pull, haul and climb.

Other Cars to Consider

Ram 2500/3500 - The Ram 2500/3500 can match the Super Duty's torque but not its horsepower or trailer tow ratings with a fifth wheel attached. Although we like the looks of the Super Duty, we find the Ram's design a bit more refined.