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2017 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year entries announced

Over 40 vehicles will compete for the 2017 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year awards. If that name looks a little strange, it's because the competition added a third category. In years past, pickup trucks, crossovers, SUVs, commercial vans, and minivans competed for the same award. That's why there were occasionally weird comparisons, like last year's competition between the Volvo XC90 and Nissan Titan XD. The new format separates pickups and commercial vans into the truck contest and CUVs, SUVs, and minivans into the utility competition. A complete list of eligible vehicles is below, but here are a few highlights. For one, the entire list of entries has a luxurious lean. Of the 43 vehicles, nearly half of them are from premium brands. There are two eligible Bentleys – the Bentayga and Mulsanne – the Rolls-Royce Dawn, Jaguar F-Pace, Audi Q7, and the Mercedes-Benz GLS-, E-, and S-Class Maybach. The performance ranks are lofty, too, with the Audi R8, Acura NSX, Alfa Romeo Giulia, Mercedes SL- and SLC-Class, Porsche 718, and F-150 Raptor. The mainstream entries are just as comprehensive. From the Chrysler Pacifica to the Chevrolet Cruze to the Fiat 124 Spider to the Mitsubishi Mirage, NACTOY has covered an enormous price range with this year's contestants. Of course, these are only the eligible vehicles. They'll need to run through three rounds of judging, starting in September at NACTOY's traditional Hell, MI, test drive. The Canadian and American journalists involved in the judging will announce this year's nine finalists – three in each category – on December 6. Cars Acura NSX Alfa Romeo Giulia Audi A4 Audi R8 Bentley Mulsanne Buick Cascada Buick LaCrosse Cadillac CT6 Chevrolet Bolt Chevrolet Cruze Fiat 124 Genesis G90 Hyundai Elantra Infiniti Q60 Jaguar XE Kia Cadenza Lincoln Continental Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan Mercedes-Benz S550 Maybach Mercedes-Benz SL-Class Mercedes-Benz SLC-Class Mini Clubman Mitsubishi Mirage/G4 Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman Rolls-Royce Dawn Toyota Prius Prime Volvo S90 SUVs Audi Q7 Bentley Bentayga Buick Envision Cadillac XT5 Chrysler Pacifica GMC Acadia Infiniti QX30 Kia Sportage Mercedes-Benz GLS-Class Jaguar F-Pace Mazda CX-9 Nissan Armada Trucks Ford F-Series Super Duty pickups Ford F-150 Raptor Honda Ridgeline Nissan Titan half-ton Related Video: Featured Gallery Bentley Bentayga View 23 Photos News Source: Automotive News - sub.

The 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class is a technological tour de force [w/video]

UPDATE: It turns out we won't get the Park Pilot remote parking feature after all. The Mercedes-Benz engineers in Germany said we would, but an update from the US product team says otherwise. The reason, according the Mercedes-Benz, is that remote parking is a feature of Mercedes connect me, the smartphone connected services app used in other countries. Merceds currently offers MBrace in the United States. This could change over the life cycle of the E-Class, but no announcements have been made. The text below is updated to reflect this new information. If there's a theme to the next Mercedes-Benz E-Class, it's technology stuff. No "and," no hashtag. Just technology stuff. The car is so loaded with new and updated features that it eclipses the S-Class as the brand's leading edge automobile just two years after the flagship's debut. The world of automotive technology is progressing at an exponential rate akin to Moore's Law, and the E-Class is at the front of the curve. For the sake of brevity (and totally not for SEO gamesmanship), the 2017 E-Class has so many new and improved features we're just going to list them: remote control parking via a smartphone app, NFC-based unlock and vehicle start using your smartphone, 84-LED adaptive headlights, Vehicle-to-X communication, evasive maneuver assistance that identifies pedestrians and helps you steer away from danger, adaptive cruise control that sets the speed based on road signs, adaptive steering that can follow a car in front even without lane markings, active emergency braking for cross-traffic, rear-seat seatbelt airbags, an air bladder that pushes front-seat occupants towards the center of the car before a side impact, and an audio system that triggers your eardrum's reflexes to prevent hearing damage in a crash. And that huge list is all we know so far – Mercedes hasn't talked about powertrain, chassis, or infotainment yet. We're also told that all of these features will be available when the E-Class comes to the States early next year. Unlike other automakers, which save the fancy tech for Europe, Mercedes will give us all most of the goodies. Here's a breakdown of each item. Park By Smartphone Unfortunately one of the coolest features on the new E-Class is the one that won't come stateside. Mercedes calls its autonomous parking Park Pilot, and it's similar to the remote control parking recently shown on the BMW 7 Series.

Daimler employees can set email to auto-delete during vacation

The Internet has shrunk the world in terms of the way people communicate by making it possible to send an email from Oslo and have it show up in Cleveland almost immediately. But that instant contact has wrecked the work/life balance for many. They get home from a long day at the office, yet they can never fully put their feet up and relax because another hour or more of checking and replying to emails awaits. However, German automotive giant Daimler is putting an end to that churn, at least while its employees are on vacation.
About 100,000 Daimler employees in Germany are eligible to opt-in to a new program called Mail on Holiday, according to The Atlantic. When the workers go on vacation, they can switch it on, and the service auto-deletes all of their incoming email. "Our employees should relax on holiday and not read work-related emails," said Wilfried Porth, board member for human resources, to The Financial Times as cited by The Atlantic.
Mail on Holiday puts a thumb on the scale of work/life balance in favor of a little more free time. The system means that Daimler employees shouldn't even be tempted to check their email on vacation because there's nothing there - and it also avoids them coming back from a relaxing holiday only to find a mailbox packed full of hundreds of unread messages. These days, people are absolutely obsessed with their work, often to the detriment of their health, not to mention spending time with their families and friends. On one hand, Mail on Holiday sounds like the sort of vacation breakthrough we'd need to truly unplug and unwind, but on the other hand, it makes our skin crawl just thinking about the lack of communication. What's your perspective? Have your say in Comments.