We are down to the final four winners of AUTO Connected Car News Tech CARS Awards. We have announced the winners that received the greatest number of votes for:
- Security, Software, Apps & Bluetooth
- Smartphone Integration, Maps, Apps & Personality
- OBD, Anticipated, Trade Show & PR
The top and most important categories including most important, best ADAS, best self-driving car and the worst.
Best Safety ADAS
The most advanced safety features are usually only found in very expensive luxury cars or high-end SUVs. At the Los Angeles Auto Show Buick announced the 2017 Buick LaCrosse with an impressive list of “Guardian Angel” safety features available including Pedestrian/Front Auto-Braking, Auto Park/Lane Keeping Assist, Advanced Adaptive CC, Lane/Blind Alerts, Rear-Cross Traffic Alert, Teen Monitoring & Safety Seat. The 2016 Toyota RAV4 for Toyota Safety Sense followed in second place.
The winner of AUTO Connected Car News’ Tech CARS Award for Best Deployment of ADAS Features goes to the 2017 Buick LaCrosse.
“Car shoppers taking a new look at Buick are going to find beautiful designs paired with advanced safety and technology features they and their families deserve. The 2017 LaCrosse is our most advanced sedan yet, with a long list of active safety like our patented Safety Alert Seat, which can’t be found with competitors at any price,” said Stuart Fowle, PR Manager at Buick.
Best Self-Driving Autonomous Car
According to research there are two approaches to autonomous car development. Google is trying to create completely autonomous cars, while automakers and auto suppliers are adapting safety features to provide increased levels of autonomy. Delphi’s self-driving Roadrunner made the world’s first cross-country trip across the United States. The Delphi cross-country autonomous drive, in an Audi SQ5 outfitted with Delphi self-driving technology, covered 3,400 miles, 99% of the time in self-driving mode.
Our readers who closely follow the self-driving car race, seem to prefer the cautious methods used by the Delphi over Google’s approach because more votes were received for Delphi’s Roadrunner than any other self-driving robotic driverless car. In fact, Delphi is taking self-driving cars to the next step with V-2-everyting technology that was recently demonstrated in Las Vegas.
AUTO Connected Car News’ Tech CARS Award for Best Self-Driving Autonomous Car of 2015 goes to Delphi’s Roadrunner for its cross-country trip.
“We are very proud of this acknowledgment and what we have been able to achieve. The knowledge obtained from this trip will help optimize our existing active safety products and accelerate our future product development, which will allow us to deliver unsurpassed automotive grade technologies to our customers,” said Scott Fosgard Product Media Relations Manager at Delphi.
Overall Best Implementation of New Car Tech to Make Lives Better or Easier
So what do AUTO Connected Car News’ readers think is the most important event in connected car news that makes lives better or easier?
2015 was the first year that Android Auto and Apple CarPlay became available on many new GM models. Ford updated its software for Siri Eyes-Free. Both of these events weren’t the most popular events of the year, instead Tesla’s offering of AutoPilot through a software update received 54% of the vote. It was followed by GM’s massive deployment of Android Auto and CarPlay across 47 models in second place with 29% of votes.
The Tesla win illustrates two important tends in the connected car automotive industry, the trend for self-driving cars and Over-the-Air(OTA) updates. The OTA update requires a connected car to download and install the update. The Autopilot feature, however, was later downgraded to work at only 5 mph above the speed limit on surface streets through another OTA update which added Autopark and summoning.
Hands-on driving never felt so relaxed. Feel for yourself https://t.co/L37idEc88v https://t.co/w5yb4Fpdk4
— Tesla Motors (@TeslaMotors) November 19, 2015
Worst SNAFU Ever in History of the Awards
It is no surprise that for Edsel Yugo Award for the Biggest Snafu in Car Technology, the highest percentage of votes out of any category went to Volkswagen/Audi Diesel Test Spoofing Scandal with 60% of the vote which is considerably more than Takata Air Bags with 22% of the vote.
The scandal broke in the fall when researchers discovered that Volkswagen engineers programmed Audi and VW diesel cars to show lower NOX emissions when they were being testing. However when they were on the road the cars emitted up to 40x the allowable amount of noxious gases. Although you can’t see the NOX gas coming out of the Volkswagens or Audis every person on the earth can be affected. According to the EPA, NOX and the pollutants formed from NOX can be transported over long distances.
NOX is one of the main ingredients involved in the formation of ground-level ozone, which can trigger serious respiratory problems. Children, the elderly people with lung diseases such as asthma, and people who work or exercise outside are susceptible to adverse effects such as damage to lung tissue and reduction in lung function.
The AUTO Connected Car News Tech CARS Edsel/Yugo Award or the Biggest Snafu in Car Technology goes to Volkswagen and Audi for the Test Spoofing Scandal.
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