2012 Cadillac Escalade Base Sport Utility 4-door 6.2l on 2040-cars

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Three automotive tech trends to watch in 2018 and beyond

Every year, technology plays a bigger and bigger role in the auto industry. To put things in perspective, 10 years ago iPod integration and Bluetooth were cutting-edge in-car innovations, and smartphones and apps weren't yet a thing since the first iPhone was only about six months old. And I can't recall anyone talking about autonomous cars. Compare that to today, with mainstream coverage of the auto industry dominated by autonomous technology, along with electrification and almost every move made by Tesla. These three topics were the most significant trends of car tech in 2017 and I believe they will continue to shape the auto industry in 2018 and beyond. Let's examine them. Full Autonomy Gets Closer to Reality While there were many developments this year that indicate we're inching closer to fully autonomous vehicles, I was behind the wheel for hours to witness one of them. In October I had the chance to test Cadillac Super Cruise on a 700-mile, 11-hour drive from Dallas to Santa Fe – and had my hands on the wheel for maybe 45 minutes max throughout the entire trip. Super Cruise is far from making the Cadillac CT6 or any GM vehicle fully autonomous, and has limitations such as functioning only on pre-mapped main highways. While it simply adds a layer of lane centering to adaptive cruise control, the technology will go a long way in making mainstream drivers more comfortable with letting machines take over. On a separate front, GM is pushing ahead with fully autonomous vehicles and announced last month that it plans to launch of fleets of self-driving robo-taxis in several urban areas in 2019. While most automakers are also in the race to make autonomous cars a reality, GM's turbocharging of its efforts appeared to be in response to Waymo, which announced just weeks earlier that its Early Rider Program in the Phoenix area would go completely driverless. The Early Rider Program launched last April, offering the public a chance to ride in Waymo's autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans. In this new phase of testing, Waymo is using its own employees as guinea pigs instead of the public while the vehicles operate without a human behind the wheel, and takes another giant step forward for fully autonomous driving.

Drive like a prince: Join us for a walk through Monaco's car collection

Small, crowded, and a royal pain in the trunk lid to drive into during rush hour, Monaco sounds like an improbable location for a huge car museum. And yet, this tiny city-state has been closely linked to car culture for over a century. It hosts two major racing events every year, many of its residents would qualify for a frequent shopper card if Rolls-Royce issued one, and Prince Rainier III began assembling a collection of cars in the late 1950s. He opened his collection to the public in 1993 and the museum quickly turned into a popular tourist attraction. The collection continued to grow after his death in April 2005; it moved to a new facility located right on Hercules Port in July 2022. Monaco being Monaco, you'd expect to walk into a room full of the latest, shiniest, and most powerful supercars ever to shred a tire. That's not the case: while there is no shortage of high-horsepower machines, the first cars you see after paying ˆ10 (approximately $11) to get in are pre-war models. In that era, the template for the car as we know it in 2023 hadn't been created, so an eclectic assortment of expensive and dauntingly experimental machines roamed whatever roads were available to them. One is the Leyat Helica, which was built in France in 1921 with a 1.2-liter air-cooled flat-twin sourced from the world of aviation. Fittingly, the two-cylinder spun a massive, plane-like propeller. Government vehicles get a special spot in the museum. They range from a Cadillac Series 6700 with an amusing blend of period-correct French-market yellow headlights and massive fins to a 2011 Lexus LS 600h with a custom-made transparent roof panel that was built by Belgian coachbuilder Carat Duchatelet for Prince Albert II's wedding. Here's where it all gets a little weird: you've got a 1952 Austin FX3, a Ghia-bodied 1959 Fiat 500 Jolly, a 1960 BMW Isetta, and a 1971 Lotus Seven. That has to be someone's idea of a perfect four-car garage.  One of the most significant cars in the collection lurks in the far corner of the main hall, which is located a level below the entrance. At first glance, it's a kitted-out Renault 4CV with auxiliary lights, a racing number on the front end, and a period-correct registration number issued in the Bouches-du-Rhone department of France. It doesn't look all that different than the later, unmodified 4CV parked right next to it. Here's what's special about it: this is one of the small handful of Type 1063 models built by Renault for competition.

2021 Cadillac Escalade vs. 2020 Lincoln Navigator | How they compare on paper

The 2021 Cadillac Escalade arrived late last night, and we all know what that means: It’s comparison time. Specifically, weÂ’re pitting the new Escalade versus the 2020 Lincoln Navigator. The sales gap between the long-time competitors has grown dangerously close for Cadillac ever since the revolutionary new Navigator came out for the 2018 model year. In 2019, the Navigator was only about 4,000 units down from the Escalade. Cadillac intends to widen that gap back up with a new truck, and now itÂ’s time to see if itÂ’s brought the right goods to the party. With the redesigned model that now features an independent rear suspension, these two are more alike than theyÂ’ve been in a long time. The Escalade was stuck with the less space-efficient solid rear end up until now, as GM hadnÂ’t yet made the switch to IRS that Ford long-ago did. Now that it has, these two are super similar from a dimensions perspective. Cadillac was playing catch-up in this fight, so it knew exactly where it needed to aim to come out victorious in a specs battle such as this one. A quick note on the chart below. Both of these models have a “regular” and “long” version. The EscaladeÂ’s long variant is still named ESV, and the NavigatorÂ’s long version is simply named L. In the dimensions section, we distinguish between the two with a “/” — the “regular” length version is on the left, and the “long” version is on the right side of the slash. The numbers are below: Powertrain The Lincoln Navigator still reigns supreme when it comes to power, as the 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 is high on both horsepower and torque. GMÂ’s small-block V8 comes close, but ultimately falls short by 30 horsepower and 50 pound-feet of torque to the twin-turbo V6. Cadillac does have an ace up its sleeve, though. It comes in the form of the 3.0-liter turbo-diesel inline-six engine. Lincoln hasnÂ’t dropped the PowerStroke diesel into the Navigator (and we'd be shocked if it does), so Cadillac has a unique offering in this segment now. The diesel will be optional on the Escalade, but it has less horsepower and the same amount of torque as the V8. We expect the big advantage for the diesel will come in fuel economy, an area where the Silverado Duramax diesel currently outpaces the full-size truck competition. Both of these big SUVs come standard with 10-speed automatic transmissions. Intriguingly, itÂ’s the 10-speed automatic that was co-developed between Ford and GM.