The Big 3 and most other major automakers are showcasing what the world will soon see on the streets. Here’s a taste of some of the NVIDIA-powered cars on display.
Congratulations Are in Order
Newly crowned as the show’s “North American Car of the Year,” the sleek, redesigned Honda Civic integrates an NVIDIA-powered touchscreen display that supports the custom Honda Connect interface, as well as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
Doubling down on its Motor Trend “SUV of the Year Award,” the Volvo XC90 just bagged the “North American Truck of the Year” at the show. Volvo will soon add NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 as the artificial intelligence brain of this luxury SUV when its Drive Me program kicks off next year. This first-of-its-kind program will let Volvo customers operate leased XC90s in a fully autonomous mode around Volvo’s hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Straight Out of Stuttgart and Ingolstadt
Audi will wow the crowds with its all-new A4 allroad quattro and h-tron quattro concepts. With a higher ground clearance and sharper edges, the allroad quattro is perfect for all sorts of road conditions. It includes the new Audi virtual cockpit and MMI navigation-plus. These feature NVIDIA tech to make sure the driver experiences a high level of confidence and convenience, whether glancing at Google Maps to get real-time traffic or checking weather and gas prices.
]]>If you’re planning to visit NAIAS, here’s a quick guide to getting the most HOT ROD experience.
1. See How Things Work
The displays at the auto shows are getting more interactive, which is awesome. We’re happy with a simple cutaway, but now you can find see-through casings, moving parts, and explanatory videos. If our physics classes had been this clear, we might be astronauts by now.
2. Participate
We have to give the award for most fun booth to Ford. Its family-friendly display included coloring books, Legos, and a virtual off-road simulator, but Ford wasn’t the only company encouraging people to engage with the product. Dodge had a Viper “drive” experience in the back corner, and numerous other brands had Forza and other videogame consoles ready to offer you a safe chance to ram a new car into the wall coming off the Laguna Seca corkscrew.
3. Celebrity Spotting
Bone up on your auto industry VIP stalking skills. Detroit is home to a huge amount of designers, engineers, and executives. From Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis to Camaro’s chief engineer Al Oppenheiser, NAIAS is a great place to tell the men and women in charge what you think of the new sheetmetal.
4. Comparison Shop
Looking for a muscley two-door? Scope out the Ford GT350 Mustang, Chevy’s new Camaro, the Dodge Challenger—available in Hellcat, Scat Pack and Plum Crazy Purple, not all mutually exclusive. Stop by Cadillac and consider the more upscale muscle in the CTS-V, if you have time to wait, maybe consider the stunning concept Buick Avista. Compare the American offerings to a Nissan GT-R or the new Lexus LC 500. It’s encouraging for hot rodders that there are still so many new V8s, but it’s also interesting to see the six-cylinder engines competing with V8s. Have a look at them all. If you want something even sportier, take a seat in the Corvette Z06 or consider the Viper ACR. Why not to match up the Acura NSX with the Ford GT? It’s not often you see them all in one place.
To be clear, those days are over.
Yes, a given manufacturer will still blow the budget sky-high in an effort to steal ink out from under the collective noses of competitors. On these occasions, the lion’s share of the funds will be diverted not toward dry ice providers or back-up dancers, but to celebrities on all of the lists from A to D or to special events organized outside the car shows themselves.
The car show strategy, in effect, has become far more strategic.
This is a critical development because manufacturers and their representatives are divided on how important the modern-day car show is to the bottom line. The age of the Internet has triggered changes; people don’t need to attend a car show to know all about a new vehicle within minutes of it being unveiled. Also, if a new car release is significant enough, these details will often migrate over from enthusiast outlets to mainstream media outlets.
But here’s the kicker: Having a presence at a big car show is an expensive proposition – so expensive, in fact, that it’s no longer a given that every manufacturer shows up every time. This development came to light in 2008, when the global recession hit like a thunderclap and sent sales tumbling. Later that year, Porsche and Nissan opted out of the North American International Auto Show – a move that would’ve previously been unthinkable.
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