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2019 Cadillac ATS-V, CTS-V get cool color, weird name

A lot of special-edition cars are really not all that special. They consist of some special paint combo, and maybe a couple of optional features made standard. The Cadillac ATS-V and CTS-V Pedestal Editions are actually pretty much that. But they make up for the mild content list with a really nifty color, great exclusivity and also a weird name. They also help celebrate the ATS-V and CTS-V before they disappear from the line. First let's take a look at the color. It's a shade called Bronze Sand Metallic. It's an earthy, dark brown with a yellow-green tinge to it. We suspect it probably looks more impressive in sunlight, and it's unlike most browns we've ever seen. It's sure to garner attention in any parking lot stuffed with black, silver and white luxury cars. It's matched with sand-colored ultrasuede inserts and bronze-threaded carbon fiber trim on the interior that look sumptuous. Each also comes with carbon fiber exterior trim, red brake calipers, and the CTS-V adds the performance data recorder and Luxury Package. The name really is strange, though. Cadillac says, "The special-edition variants are named in tribute to Cadillac V-Series' time spent at the pinnacle of luxury high-performance." So it seems the thinking was that these cars are up on a pedestal compared with other performance luxury cars. But even in that sentence from Cadillac, there's a word that would be better and more recognizable for excellence: pinnacle. We can think of other great words for marking the peak or the top of performance and luxury, words such as "apex" or "climax." Well, maybe not that one. One of the big appeals of these cars is that there won't be many of them. There will only be 300 built, and that's the total between the ATS-V coupe and CTS-V sedan. The final total for each model will be determined by orders. Ordering opens up on the first week of November, with production coming at the end of that month. The cars will only be available to buyers in the U.S., Canada and the Middle East. There are significant price differences between the two cars. The ATS-V coupe starts at $77,090, while the CTS-V starts at $102,590. That puts the ATS-V at roughly $10,000 more than a base model, and the CTS-V at roughly $12,000 more than its base model. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2019 Cadillac ATS-V and CTS-V Pedestal Edition View 9 Photos Image Credit: Cadillac Cadillac Coupe Luxury Performance Sedan cadillac ats-v

Teaching autonomous vehicles to drive like (some) humans

While I love driving, I can't wait for fully autonomous vehicles. I have no doubt they'll reduce car accidents, 94 percent of which are caused by human error, leading to more than 37,000 road deaths in the U.S. last year. And if it means I can fly home at night in winter and get safely shuttled to my house an hour-plus away — and not have to endure a typical white-knuckle drive in the dark with torrential rain and blinding spray from 18-wheelers on Interstate 84 — sign me up. Autonomous technology will also take some of the stress, tedium and fatigue out of long highway drives, as I recently discovered while testing Cadillac Super Cruise. AVs are also supposed to eventually help increase traffic flow and reduce gridlock. But according to a recent Automotive News article, as the first wave of AVs are being tested on public roads, they're having the opposite effect. Part of the problem is they drive too cautiously and are programmed to strictly follow the written rules of the road rather than going with the flow of traffic. "Humans violate the rules in a safe and principled way, and the reality is that autonomous vehicles in the future may have to do the same thing if they don't want to be the source of bottlenecks," Karl Iagnemma, CEO of self-driving technology developer NuTonomy, told Automotive News. "You put a car on the road which may be driving by the letter of the law, but compared to the surrounding road users, it's acting very conservatively." I get it that, like teen drivers, AVs need a ramp up period to learn the unwritten rules of the road and that a skeptical public has to be convinced of the technology's safety. But this is where I become less of a champion on AVs, since where I live in the Pacific Northwest we already have more than our share of overly cautious human drivers. Since moving here 12 years ago, I've found it's an interesting paradox that a region famous for its strong coffee, where you'd think most drivers would be jacked up on caffeine, is also the home to annoyingly measured motorists. As an auto-journo colleague living in Seattle so aptly put it: "People in the Pacific Northwest drive as if they have nowhere to go." If you drive like me and always have somewhere to go — and usually are in a hurry to get there — it's absolutely maddening.

Economy-car buyers increasingly get the best deal on technology

One of the great things about technology is – with the exception of Apple products – consumers get more for their money every year. For example, the first 1GB USB drive I bought in 2005 cost me $30. Today you can get 10 for that price, delivered to your door thanks to Amazon. The same goes for car tech. Features such as navigation and Bluetooth started out on high-end vehicles before trickling down to entry-level cars. Same with driver assist features ranging from rearview cameras to forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking — so now it's not only rich people who are protected in car crashes. I've found that this democratization of tech has reached a point where amenities on low-cost cars can be as good — and sometimes even better — than those on vehicles costing tens of thousands of dollars more. While attending a media event for the launch of the all-new 2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback, I was impressed by the car's cool styling and go-kart performance. Equally noteworthy is the amount of standard tech on the low-cost hot hatch. (Pricing will be announced later this month, but expect it to come in a bit higher that the current Corolla iM's roughly $19,000 base.) Even the base SE CVT trim of the 2019 Corolla Hatchback comes with an 8-inch touchscreen and Toyota's Entune 3.0 infotainment system. Among other features, Entune 3.0 provides Wi-Fi capability, Amazon Alexa connectivity, the Entune App Suite for integration of smartphone apps such as Pandora and Yelp and, for the first time in a Toyota, Apple CarPlay (but no Android Auto). The 2019 Corolla Hatchback is also the first North American vehicle to get the second-generation Toyota Safety Sense (TSS) suite of driver assists that's also standard on the base model. TSS 2.0 includes Toyota's Pre-Collision System (forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking) with new daytime and low-light pedestrian detection and daytime cyclist detection features, lane keeping and lane departure alert with steering assist, auto high beams, adaptive cruise control, and road sign detection. While the 2019 Corolla Hatchback sets a new benchmark in standard tech on a budget-mobile, competing cars aren't far behind. The 2018 Honda Fit LX, for example, includes forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning and assist and adaptive cruise, while the automaker's Lane Departure Mitigation and Lane Watch camera system is added the two top trims.