2000 Bmw M Roadster & Coupe on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Autoblog fan favorite car ads from Super Bowl XLIX

Super Bowl XLIX is in the books, and the New England Patriots emerged victorious. Of course, if you're like us, the big game wasn't so much about the battle between the east coast and west, so much as a fight between the world's automotive advertisers. We collected and collated all of last night's new ads and put them together for you to vote on. And yes, we're limiting this year's contest to last night's new features. That's why you aren't seeing Dodge's epic Wisdom among our collection of commercials, and it's a similar story with Chevrolet's Truck Guy Focus Group series, which highlights the new Colorado. You can still vote for your favorites. We won't be closing the voting on our Super Bowl page, so while the winners and losers are correct as of this writing, it's entirely possible that there could be some changes in the rankings as time goes on. So, without any further ado, here are the winning ads based on your voting. Nissan: With Dad Fiat: Ready For Action Jeep: Beautiful Lands BMW: Newfangled Idea Mercedes-Benz: Fable NASCAR: America Start Your Engines As for those ads that failed to impact you, loyal readers, Toyota was the absolute, undisputed loser. The Japanese brand ran four ads in total – two for Toyota and two for Lexus – and all of them have negative tallies as of this writing. Lexus' Make Some Noise and Lets Play and Toyota's One Bold Choice and My Bold Dad both had very weak showings among the commercials that aired, although they weren't alone. Neither Mazda nor Kia scored particularly well, despite featuring celebrity magic act Penn and Teller and former James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, respectively. Chevrolet was the winner of the losers, as of our writing, recording the fewest downvotes for its audience-punking The Big Game ad. If you want to take a second look at the losing ads, you can head back to our Super Bowl page for the complete collection. But for now, head into Comments and let us know what you think of the results.

Major Alexa deal will bring Amazon services into more cars

Amazon and its personal assistance service Alexa are partnering with HERE Technologies to create a new connected mobility service powerhouse. Alexa will integrate with HERE's navigation and location services to offer what the two companies are calling a "true voice-first-navigation experience." Alexa will come pre-integrated with HERE navigation on-demand, which the automakers can then enable, which should help cut down on development time. One of the biggest features from this partnership is how directions could be offered and delivered using HERE's Open Location Platform (OLP). Currently, the OLP uses data from several car manufacturers to provide insights into real-time location and traffic. But on Alexa, this could be used to provide directional context. For example, Alexa could say, "Turn right after [such-and-such a building]" rather than just, "Turn right." Amazon has been testing the automotive waters throughout the past decade. Its home-based Alexa-enabled devices are already offered with connections to several manufacturers. To various degrees of integration, it can already pair with Ford, Genesis, Toyota, Lexus, Hyundai and BMW vehicles. At the end of 2018, Amazon took things a step further when it introduced the Echo Auto, a Bluetooth-connected Alexa assistant device that can be physically kept in a car. Currently only available by invitation (its production and distribution have been delayed), the $25 device is essentially a voice service that works together with smartphones and connects to a car's speakers. Users can command it to do a variety of things, including playing music, setting navigation, opening the garage door, finding local stores, making calls, setting reminders, and thousands of other "skills." According to The Verge, nearly 1 million people have already ordered the device. Some (well, probably few) may know HERE Technologies from its maps on Windows Phones. We all know how that turned out, though. Today, HERE has expanded into a multi-function suite that is available in multiple mediums, including many automotive applications. HERE Automotive's connected vehicle services include real-time traffic, parking, weather, fuel prices, hazard warnings, traffic sign integration, and even EV charging stations. These all incorporate and extend the use of HERE's location and tracking programming. HERE is already partnered with BMW, Audi, Daimler, Intel, Mobileye, NVIDIA, and has investments from Bosch, Continental and Pioneer.

Car subscription services: A slow, expensive start — but the potential is huge

Americans are used to paying for subscriptions — to magazines and cable television, for instance — but experience shows they'll cancel when the price of admission gets too high, or there are more tempting alternatives. Cord cutters ditched nearly 1.5 million pay-TV subscriptions in 2017, according to a survey by Leichtman Research Group. Cable TV started out cheap with basic offerings, and then got expensive. The auto industry's subscription offerings are new, but they're starting out costly, and not price-competitive with traditional leasing. The upside is that they take the hassle out of car ownership for busy people by letting the service take care of maintenance, insurance, licensing and taxes. And they give consumers choice, often allowing relatively painless switches between different cars in the automakers' lineup. Subscription services also point the way toward an ownership-free auto experience, and offer an easy transition to a potential world where ride- and car-sharing will be dominant. Subscriptions are here to stay, but consumers may take a while to "get" them. Lincoln's subscription service for lightly used 2015 to 2017 models, offered through the Ford-owned Canvas beginning this year, got off to a slow start. Many early subscribers canceled. Last month, Cadillac announced it would " temporarily pause" its $1,800-per-month Book subscription service for "adjustments" as of December 1. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Snags with the back-end technology used to support the service made some customer-service functions tedious and time-consuming, adding costs for the company." The challenge for automakers is to come up with a strategy that offers consumers a compelling, affordable option to regular ownership, and one that can also make a profit. I think they'll find that sweet spot, but they're not there yet. Jack Nerad, former executive editorial director at Kelley Blue Book and author of " The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buying or Leasing a Car," points out that "A lot of people expected that subscriptions would be very valuable for people who wanted inexpensive transportation, but the reality is quite the opposite. Subscriptions are offering more choices for the wealthy.