Acura Mdx 08 All Wheel Drive Technology Package on 2040-cars

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Inside Honda's ghost town for testing autonomous cars

On the edge of the San Francisco suburb of Concord, California sits a ghost town. Dilapidated buildings and cracked roads are framed by overgrowth and slightly askew street signs. The decommissioned five acre portion of the Concord Naval Weapons Station that once housed military personnel and their families is now home to squirrels, jack rabbits, wild turkeys and Honda's mysterious testing lab for autonomous vehicles. This former town within a Naval base – now dubbed "GoMentum Station" – is the perfect testing ground for Honda's self-driving cars. An almost turn-key solution to the problem of finding somewhere to experiment with autonomous vehicle inside an urban area. Thanks to the GoMentum Station, the automaker has access to 20 miles of various road types, intersections and infrastructure exactly like those found in the real world. Just, you know, without all the people getting in the way. While the faded lane markers and cracked asphalt might initially make it difficult for the car to figure out what's going on around it, that's exactly what you want when training a self-driving system. Many roads in the real world are also in dire need of upkeep. Just because autonomous vehicles are hitting the streets doesn't mean the funding needed to fix all the potholes and faded lane markers will magically appear. The real world doesn't work that way and the robot cars that will eventually make our commutes less of a headache will need to be aware of that. Plus, it's tougher to train a car to drive downtown than to barrel down the highway at 80 miles per hour. A company is going to want to get as much practice as possible. While semi-autonomous driving on the everyone-going-the-same-way-at-a-constant-speed freeway is already a reality, navigating in an urban environment is far more complex. If you've driven on the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago or Seattle you know that driving downtown takes far more concentration than cruising down the interstate. With all that in mind, Honda's tricked out Acura RLX did a good job during an (admittedly very controlled) hands-free demo. It didn't hit either of the pedestrians walking across its path. It stopped at stop signs and even maneuvered around a mannequin situated in the middle of the road. The reality is, watching a car drive around the block and safely avoid stuff is boring. Not to metion, Google has been doing this for a while in the real world.

Maserati Quattroporte Trofeo, GMC Yukon XL, Tesla earnings, Maine Mitsubishi Delicas | Autoblog Podcast #689

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Road Test Editor Zac Palmer. They discuss recently driven cars: the GMC Yukon XL diesel, Maserati Quattroporte Trofeo and Acura TLX Type-S. After that comes recent Tesla news along with cancelled Mitsubishi Delica registrations in the state of Maine. Finally, the editors help a reader spend their money on an affordable crossover. Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com. Autoblog Podcast #689 Get The Podcast Apple Podcasts – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes Spotify – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast on Spotify RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown What we're driving: 2021 GMC Yukon XL diesel 2021 Maserati Quattroporte Trofeo 2022 Acura TLX Type-S News: Tesla earnings and delays Mitsubishi Delica registrations in Maine Spend my money Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on Apple Podcasts Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related video:

Here's a sneak peek at the 2023 Acura Integra interior

Photos: Zac Palmer / Autoblog DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Acura staged its Integra Prototype at a display at the Rolex 24 at Daytona this weekend, inviting enterprising amateur and professional photographers alike to sneak a peak at the interior thanks to the bright Florida sun. The photos you're looking at here are ones we took at Rolex, and they essentially reveal what the 2023 Acura Integra's interior will look like. If you recall from the car's initial reveal, Acura did not show photos of the Prototype's interior. Before we dive too deep, though, we can tell that while the design appears to be final, some of the finer details are still a bit rough. Not all of the plastics, surfaces and badging look final, so don't expect everything you see here to directly port over to production. That said, this is still an awesome sneak peek at the upcoming Integra that we weren't expecting to get. From what we can see here, the interior design seems to take a cue from the Integra's underpinnings, which can be traced back to the sporty Honda Civic Si. Photos posted to integraforums.com show the prototype's dash before Acura's reps covered the upper portion to hide it from view. In them, you can see the mesh air vent design that debuted on the Civic, albeit with a different execution here (that treatment runs the full width of the dash in the Honda). Plus, the touchscreen infotainment rising from the dash is also in plain view. The seats look like Acura's latest seat style as opposed to Civic Si seats, and they even feature a neat two-tone black and white design. What does appear to be a direct Civic rip is the steering wheel, which gains an Acura badge and what looks like the rough outline of an A-Spec badge for Integra duty. We'll note that this likely means that the Integra will be offered in A-Spec trim, just like every other new Acura on sale today. The original Integra was never sold as an A-Spec in the U.S., but the RSX Type S (named Integra outside the U.S.) was available in A-Spec trim. Another difference between the Integra interior seen here versus the Civic is a new door panel design. Very little changes in the rear bench, though, as it's featuring the same drop-down armrest and pair of USB ports for rear occupants. The Integra Prototype is notably longer than a Civic Hatchback, but we didn't see any discernible increase in utility in the back.