car tech

The advent of Bluetooth systems in cars became a boon for drivers, enabling hands-free phone calls and wirelessly streaming music from a smartphone. But if your car is more than five years old, it likely does not feature this technology. The Kinivo BTC450 makes for an easy and inexpensive way of adding Bluetooth to an older car.

The Kinivo BTC450 is a Bluetooth adapter. Lacking its own speaker, it is designed to plug into a car stereo's auxiliary input.

And therein lies its biggest limitation.

The majority of cars equipped with an auxiliary input but no Bluetooth system were … Read more

Car-focused movies, such as the "Fast and Furious" series, show high-speed chases where the hero hits a nitrous button, causing his car to rear up, the front axle leaving the ground. The 2013 Kia Sportage SX felt a bit like that when I mashed the gas pedal. And it was a front-wheel-drive crossover.

The SX version of the Sportage gets near-uncontrollable power from a turbocharger.

The Sportage, Kia's answer to the Honda CR-V and Ford Escape, checks in as a plump-looking crossover. Cargo area with the rear seat up measures 26.1 cubic feet, enough for a … Read more

If you rob a bank and get away in a driverless Prius, will the owner be indicted as the driver? Or will Toyota? Or maybe Google?

If your driverless car decides -- as so many machines do in movies -- that it has a mind of its own, will you be responsible when it decides to mount the curb and plow straight into your favorite donut store? And what if someone hacks into your driverless car and you suddenly end up in Alaska, with an instruction to mow down moose?

You'll tell me this will never happen. I will point you to the fine profits regularly earned by the world's insurance companies.

I suspect that not everyone has the answers yet for all the ramifications of ceding your steering wheel to Google's machines.

Thankfully, though, all those who have the deepest knowledge of the self-driving future will be meeting in June to have a freewheeling exchange.… Read more

I figured it would be a slow week when Mitsubishi delivered to the CNET garage a 2013 Lancer that lacked either Evo or Ralliart badges. The rally star Lancer Evo is a glorious little street-fighter, while the Ralliart version is almost as good.

But this 2013 Lancer SE showed me a couple of tricks that ultimately made for some fun driving adventures.

Bargain four-wheel-drive Among Mitsubishi's limited line of vehicles, the Lancer is the stalwart -- an economy car offered in multiple trims, and with some tech options. The Lancer SE delivered to CNET was a midtrim model, above … Read more

Update: Kia released pricing and new details about trim levels on April 19, 2013. The Cadenza wil be available for a base price of $35,100. The Luxury package, referred to in this review as Premium, raises the price to $38,100. Kia set the price of the Technology package Cadenza at $41,100.

Driving the 2014 Kia Cadenza, I contemplated the older-model Mercedes-Benz E320 sitting in front of me, and realized that the Kia had a much better cabin.

The thought of comparing Kia favorably with Mercedes-Benz was unheard of 10 years ago.

Issues of used versus new aside, … Read more

Lexus injected its brand, which had taken the place of Cadillac among AARP members, with a little excitement when it introduced the LFA and the IS-F. While those models have legitimate sport cred, the F-Sport line of cars, exemplified here by the 2013 Lexus RX 350 F Sport, comes off as much less convincing.

In colloquial terms, F Sport is all hat and no cattle.

On its own, the Lexus RX 350 works as a solid luxury SUV. Seating for five, flexible cargo space, and an easy driving character have made it a strong seller for Lexus, and a success … Read more

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Got a lot of email from you about turbos and superchargers, the purposes and differences of each. Not surprising, since there are a lot of both showing up in all kinds of cars these days, not just in hot rides. So this week we lay out the difference by walking you through some cutaway engines.

We're pretty smart about the data on our computers and phones these days, but most people do not give enough thought to the fact that … Read more

Piloting the 2013 Dodge Challenger SRT8 392 Special Edition in heavy traffic on a damp road, I began to list all the other cars I would rather be driving at that moment. The Challenger looks good and justifies its retro-muscle-car status with a massive engine, but wouldn't be my first choice for making a quick trip out to the grocery store.

The 392 badges on the fenders make a historical reference to an earlier version of Dodge's Hemi engine and recall a time when we used cubic inches instead of metric liters to measure engine displacement. However, those … Read more

This week our Car Tech team was on-hand at the 2013 New York auto show, busily scouring the floors in order to bring you the best from the event, here in video format.

1. 2014 Kia Soul

The 2014 Kia Soul is the surprise of the 2013 New York auto show and a hit of the "box on wheels" movement, plus it comes stacked with some nifty tech.