2012 Honda Civic Dx, Salvage, Damaged, Runs And Drives, Honda Sedan on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Google poised to release Apple CarPlay rival this month

Apple and Google. They're the Michigan and Ohio State of the tech world. They're New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, Real Madrid and Barcelona, or whatever sports-based rivalry you want to cook up. Bottom line, if one company expands into a segment, it's only a matter of time before the other follows suit. And now, that rivalry is about to carry over to your car's dashboard.
Unnamed sources are reporting to Automotive News that Google will unveil its very own challenger to Apple's new CarPlay in-car operating system later this month at the Mountain View, CA company's annual developer conference. The system, allegedly called Google Auto Link, will be the first product to come from the Open Automotive Alliance, a partnership between Google, General Motors, Hyundai, Audi, Honda and hardware manufacturer NVIDIA.
The official announcement is expected to be made on either June 25 or 26, at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Expect to hear a lot more about Google Auto Link then.

Honda recalls nearly 10,000 new Civic models over pinched tires

Honda is recalling some 9,816 Civic LX coupes and sedans from the 2014 model year due to a potential tire problem.
According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notice, the safety problem stems from an installation problem at a supplier, which may have caused the tire bead to become pinched between the steel wheel and the mounting equipment. As a result, tire beads may have been damaged, which could result in a loss of pressure, a condition that could lead to an increased accident risk, or at least an increased risk of being stranded and late for work.
Honda spokesperson Chris Martin tells Autoblog, "Only about 1,800 of that 9,800 have been sold because we caught it so quickly. The majority of them were in transit or unsold at dealers."

IIHS says these are the safest cars of 2013

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has revealed its annual list of Top Safety Picks, an award that highlights automobiles it says offer "superior crash protection." A new and still more significant award, the Top Safety Pick+ honor, is given to those vehicles that earn good ratings for occupant protection in four out of five areas of measure. And while some 117 vehicles were given the TSP seal of approval for 2013, just 13 passed muster for TSP+.
To be fair, IIHS only evaluated 29 vehicles with its new testing procedures for TSP+ (we'd expect that the number of qualified cars will rise substantially for 2014). Luxury and Near Luxury midsize cars were the first groups evaluated, followed by midsizers in the Moderately Priced Cars category - unsurprisingly, it's only midsize cars that you'll find among the class this year.
Only two luxury sedans made the list of 13 for 2013: the Acura TL and Volvo S60. The other 11 cars on the list included entries from domestic, Japanese and German car makers: Dodge Avenger, Chrysler 200, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord (sedan and coupe), Kia Optima (but not its close kin, the Hyundai Sonata, strangely), Nissan Altima, Subaru Legacy and Outback, Suzuki Kizashi and the Volkswagen Passat all made the grade.