2011 Suzuki Kizashi Sport Gts Sedan 4-door 2.4l-awd on 2040-cars

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Funning around with ZF's Smart, Advanced Urban Vehicles

ZF has a lot of experience building various electric vehicle parts, including transmissions, but it doesn't put them all together into one cute little package that often. The ZF Advanced Urban Vehicle changes that, and shows what the company can do when it takes bits and pieces of its admittedly cool tech and throws them all into the shell of an old Suzuki Swift. We got to control the all-electric beast at an event in Germany this summer, using nothing but a connected iPad. There were three headline technologies on the AUV (also called the Smart Urban Vehicle): the remote control Smart Parking Assist function, the all-electric rear-axle drive electric Twist Beam (eTB), and the PreVision Cloud Assist. PreVision Cloud Assist ZF had a short track set up for us to try out the PreVision Cloud Assist. The first time around the track, nothing was different. It's not supposed to be. The trick with Cloud Assist is that the car saves real-world driver interactions into its memory and, with the addition of GPS coordinates, starts to learn how to drive the route. Go to work the same way every day? If you're being assisted by a cloud, then all you have to do is steer. The car learns how fast it can take a turn and when it needs to slow down, with the idea here is to let the car move when it can, increasing the efficiency and range of an EV. You're still in charge in case of traffic ahead, but in open road circumstances, you won't need to touch the brakes or the gas. Just the steering wheel. On my second time around the demo track (which had data from other drivers who had tested the car earlier in the day), I kept my feet off the pedals, and the darn thing worked. It slowed me down when necessary to make a curve, but kept me at a brisk pace that felt a bit too fast but was in fact totally appropriate. Electric Twist Beam There's another bit of cool tech hidden near the front wheels. The car uses a MacPherson strut that was modified to offer a wider steering angle, up to 75 degrees, to be exact. ZF calls this the electric Twist Beam (eTB), and it gives the car an incredibly tight turning radius, about 6.5 meters. An axle like this could go into an EV or an ICE vehicle, but it makes a lot of sense in an electric car since it does have a major problem: it can't be powered. No worries, thought ZF engineers, who made the little SUV rear-wheel-drive by adding two electric motors.

Suzuki Vitara shows its face ahead of Paris debut

The death of Suzuki's American automotive operations can be chalked up to many, many things. One thing it cannot be blamed on, however, is the arguable goodness of its products. The company's criminally underrated offerings included the Kizashi sedan, the SX4 compact and your author's personal favorite, the Grand Vitara.
The GV rode on a radically different version of General Motors' Theta platform, which underpins the American manufacturer's current crop of crossovers, like the Chevrolet Equinox. What made the Grand Vitara special, though, was that it wasn't just another run-of-the-mill CUV. Buying the cheapest model meant living with rear-wheel drive rather than the Theta's typical front drive. Spend a bit of money, though, and you'd end up with an honest-to-goodness off-roader, sporting selectable four-wheel drive complete with low-range gearbox. It also comfortably sat five, was reasonably efficient and was quite handsome. We aren't totally sure how it turned into this.
This, of course, being the new Vitara (it replaces the Escudo, the vehicle Americans know as the Grand Vitara), and it will make its global debut at October's Paris Motor Show, which has ditched its four-wheel-drive system for a part-time all-wheel-drive system called Allgrip.

Suzuki Alto goes back to basics in Japan

Believe it or not, you're looking at a brand new car. Not an old model from the '80s that's still being manufactured in some far-flung corner of the world, not a rehash of old technologies, but an all-new model introduced in Japan for the Japanese domestic market. Looking like a cross between a Jimny and a VW Up!, the new Suzuki Alto is a different machine entirely from the somewhat ungainly but comparatively modern model of the same name manufactured in India by Maruti Suzuki for markets around the world. This is the JDM version, built to Kei car specifications, and shares little more than its badges with the Indian model. Based on a supposedly all-new platform, the new Alto boasts what Suzuki claims is the best fuel economy of any non-hybrid in Japan. That's partially because of its spritely curb weight, down by 132 pounds over the model it replaces to tip the scales at just 1,345 pounds. That's over 600 pounds lighter than a Smart Fortwo. The whole thing rides on a tiny 97-inch wheelbase, of which 80 inches are taken up by the passenger compartment. Power comes from a 660cc three-cylinder engine mated to either a five-speed automated manual or CVT in a number of configurations that ought to help Suzuki sell even more of these than the 4.8 million Altos it's sold in Japan alone since its introduction 35 years ago. Featured Gallery 2015 Suzuki Alto (JDM) News Source: Suzuki Green Suzuki Hatchback Lightweight Vehicles JDM kei kei car