2007 Cadillac Escalade Awd Navigation Rear Dvd Back Up Cam Power Liftgate on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Cadillac says it made CUE infotainment a lot better

We've never been huge fans of CUE, the Cadillac User Experience infotainment interface. It's been around a few years now, and the best thing we can say for it is that it now supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, making it easy enough to replace most of the interface with a familiar smartphone-based system. Now Cadillac has made some big upgrades to the system that should address at least some of our concerns. First and foremost, the system is claimed to be more intuitive, with a more logical interface design. Cadillac has added a Summary View that gives an overview of the climate, media, navigation, and phone all at the same time. The system will also be able to receive over-the-air updates, allowing Cadillac to make improvements more often and push them out to owners' cars, mush like Tesla and other automakers already do. The 4G LTE connection will also be used to connect the car with the cloud, where drivers can store and modify their own personalized set of settings. This My Driver Preferences profile will include things like contacts, navigation preferences, and recent destinations, and will also follow them from one car equipped with the system to another. That should come in handy for anyone subscribing to the $1,500-a-month Book by Cadillac vehicle subscription service, which allows participants to swap between cars when they choose. The cloud connection will also carry over to a new available navigation function, which Cadillac claims has a more intuitive, smartphone-like interface. It uses its data connection to provide current destination info and is supposed to learn a driver's habits, such as their preferred routes and frequent destinations, which the system will then attempt to offer up predictively – so the car should be able to know that you're heading home at 5:00. Additional apps for the system will be available through Cadillac's new Collection app store. And it's still compatible with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. One sore spot that appears to have been improved is the digital gauge package, although Cadillac hasn't offered details on that extension of the system. The current iteration's ability to over-customize the interface (our personal favorite is the option to display a total of four speedometers between the head-up display and the gauge screen; see video below) and unintuitive controls make it difficult to use and learn, while the simulated gauges don't look particularly realistic.

2014 North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year finalists announced [w/poll]

The 2014 North American International Auto Show is right around the corner, which means it's high time we found out which cars and trucks would be finalists for the prestigious North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year awards.
The finalists - three in cars and three in three trucks/utilities - are dominated by American brands, with two-thirds of the finalists hailing from either General Motors or Chrysler (don't worry Ford, there's always next year), while outliers from Mazda and Acura can be found in each contest. Here now is the list of finalists for the big prizes:
2014 North American Car of the Year:

The new presidential limo is almost ready and way bigger than a Suburban

If you're familiar with the current presidential limo, which is nicknamed The Beast, you know it's based on a medium-duty truck platform. This new one, shown in aerial spy photos, appears to be just as huge. The vehicles flanking it in these shots are Chevrolet Suburbans, basically the largest passenger vehicle you can buy. And while the limo looks car-shaped, it's very tall and much longer than the three-row SUV. You might say it's yuge. Like its predecessor, The Beast 2.0 is being developed in secret because all of its various systems and defenses are matters of national security. We are fairly confident that it has lots of armor protection, glass that's about five inches thick, and special systems to clean the air in the event of a biological warfare attack. The current Beast is also said to carry a pint or two of the President's blood type just in case something does happen. When the President is being transported in a motorcade, he is at his most vulnerable, so Cadillac One and the vehicles that surround it have to be prepared for almost anything. In fact, two identical presidential limos travel together to make it harder for would-be attackers to do bad stuff. The Suburban escort it's getting here at the GM proving grounds is appropriate, since most of the vehicles used by the Secret Service to accompany the President's motorcade are big GM SUVs. By the looks of this camouflaged prototype, GM is nearing completion of testing the new Presidential car. The styling is a mix of CT6 sedan and Escalade, with a little XTS thrown in, and it looks a lot more sleek by comparison than the current blocky Beast. When it's ready, President Donald Trump will be the first to ride in it on official business and the current beasts will probably be retired and end up in a museum. Related Video: Featured Gallery Cadillac One Presidential Limo Spy Photos View 13 Photos Image Credit: Chris Doane Automotive Government/Legal Spy Photos Cadillac Luxury Sedan the beast cadillac one