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Cadillac XT5 confirmed for 2016 as next-gen SRX

Cadillac's entire lineup of 2016 models gets a major infotainment upgrade this summer with improvements to CUE and integration with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There's one major exception for now, though. The SRX retains the old system until its all-new generation, called the XT5, debuts early in the 2016 calendar year. "When we transition into all new product lines, we will evolve the naming convention to suit the new classification we have announced. So SRX becomes XT5 next year," company spokesman David Caldwell said in an email to Autoblog. Earlier spy shots and rumors suggest the XT5 might be offered with a turbocharged four-cylinder and naturally aspirated six-cylinder engines, plus a nine-speed automatic transmission. For the rest of Cadillac's models, CarPlay arrives with the launch of the 2016 vehicles, and Android Auto joins later. Using either of them requires a connection via USB, and they add a new projection icon on the CUE screen. Once activated, both systems integrate with driver's phone and incorporate features like navigation, music, and contacts. They can also accept voice commands. Even for those that don't want to hook up a smartphone, CUE should work better thanks to a more powerful processor. Start-up times for the infotainment system are expected to be faster, and Cadillac claims that it's also more responsive for voice recognition, navigation searches, and media. The navigation interface is simplified, as well. The Escalade, CTS, and XTS can now be ordered with a 360-degree camera system to display on the screen. Cadillac Enhances Phone Integration for 2016 Models with Apple CarPlay, CUE Upgrades APPLE CARPLAY AVAILABLE AT LAUNCH; ANDROID AUTO COMING LATER IN MODEL YEAR 2015-06-09 NEW YORK – Cadillac's 2016 model year products will feature enhanced connectivity and control, including the addition of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, the predominant new systems for in-car phone integration. These additions are part of a broader enhancement of CUE, Cadillac's user experience, with new features and a faster, streamlined operation. Apple CarPlay will debut in 2016 Cadillac models featuring CUE's 8-in multi-touch screen except the SRX Crossover, a model that will move to an all-new generation in early 2016. Android Auto is expected to be phased into 2016 production at a later date. The 2016 model year will begin this summer.

2016 Cadillac CTS-V First Drive [w/video]

A million insects lost their lives today. Boxelder bugs and mayflies making the ultimate sacrifice in Elkhart Lake, their carapaces no buffer against a rocketing rectangle of safety glass. Their bodies gorily streaking into spangles along the diamond-faceted face of the Cadillac CTS-V. Road America is a four-mile ribbon of pavement snaking its way through the emerald center of the country's northern heartland. Since the 1950s it's seen uncountable fields of diverse racing machinery rocket over its hills and around its 14 corners. I would imagine that on those occasions the tramping of onlookers and hubbub of vehicles, both competitive and commonplace, would dissuade a great number of our six-legged friends from making their way onto the track. But today it's just me turning laps. Inconceivably just one journalist, driving the baddest roadgoing Cadillac ever made, on one of the loveliest circuits America has ever carved out. So big-winged bugs made it out to me in a vast array and a tragic sum, and I drilled through them oblivious to anything but one of the greatest days of driving I've ever had. Cadillac has turned its CTS-V from a performance sedan to a monster. For 2016 Cadillac has turned its CTS-V from a performance sedan to a monster worthy of the carnage described above. The words "epic" and "awesome" are hilariously overused on the Internet, but in the case of the CTS-V's 6.2-liter supercharged V8, their literal meanings are fitting. The capacity to produce 640 horsepower and 630 pound-feet of torque is astounding. Feeling those outputs come to growling life under my foot arch, uncorks different reactions in my brain as the day wears on: first trepidation, next cautious optimism, finally red-eyed bloodlust. A glance at the power and torque curves will show you that the charged V8 behaves more like a naturally aspirated thing than a turbo'd on/off switch. Peak torque arrives at 3,600 rpm, horsepower at 6,400, giving the engine lovely, linear power delivery. Even with top torque happening near the middle of the tach, there's no small amount of the stuff when the engine first spins up, so launching all 4,145 pounds of Detroit iron still feels exotic. Launching all 4,145 pounds of Detroit iron still feels exotic. On the roads around Wisconsin, using all of the available power is hardly advisable, but I have no trouble driving this fast car slowly (sort of).

MIT puts V2V technology on its 2015 Top Ten list

Of all the technologies swimming around the automotive world, it is vehicle-to-vehicle communication that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has fished out as one of its Ten Breakthrough Technologies of 2015. It joined emerging tech like brain organoids, supercharged photosynthesis, and Project Loon on the list, and got the nod over autonomous driving because, as the MIT Technology Review wrote, V2V communication "is likely to have a far bigger and more immediate effect on road safety." How so? Because actual cars transmitting data like their location, speed, steering angle, and state of braking to one another at least ten times per second provides a greater degree of awareness than sensor readings and algorithms. The US Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have been working for years on standards and a regulatory schedule for introducing V2V to the marketplace, and Cadillac plans to incorporate V2V into at least one of its vehicles by 2017. Since we've begun the year with a number of stories of cars being hacked into, that got us wondering about the security of V2V communications. In a recent piece by our own Pete Bigelow on what motorists should know about getting their cars hacked into, he wrote that although cyber break-ins are extremely difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to do remotely, V2V is "one more conceivable avenue a hacker could use to impact multiple cars at a given time." So we spoke to Wilmington, Massachusetts-based Security Innovation about it. The automotive consultancy company has been working with the DOT since 2003 on V2V technology and the issues around it - namely security and privacy - and its chief scientist, William Whyte, is the technical editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1609.2 standard outlining its security protocols. Those protocols are expected to be finalized by the DOT toward the end of this year and then come into effect in 2016, and the company's Aerolink product is the security solution Cadillac will use. Whyte said, "If you hack into a car, V2V is the hardest place to start," and Pete Samson, the general manager of Security Innovation's automotive team, said "There are ten or 12 alternate attack surfaces" around the car that would make much easier targets.