Chevrolet has introduced the 2017 Cruze Hatch ahead of its scheduled debut at next week’s Detroit Motor Show.

While the Cruze Hatch was developed primarily for global markets, the Bowtie explains it decided to sell it on our shores because the small hatchback segment grew by nine percent last year. The Hatch is all but identical to the 2016 Cruze sedan that was introduced in Detroit last summer when it’s viewed from the front, but its rear fascia gains horizontal tail lamps and a roof-mounted spoiler that gives it a sportier silhouette.

The Hatch ships with the latest generation of Chevrolet’s MyLink infotainment system which is compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It offers 18.5 cubic feet of trunk space with five occupants on board, and 42 cubes with the rear seats folded flat.

Like the sedan, the Cruze Hatch is powered by a turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine that uses direct fuel-injection to deliver 153 horsepower and 177 lb-ft. of torque. Front-wheel drive is the only configuration offered, but Chevrolet hasn’t revealed what gearbox the hatchback will ship with. A standard start/stop system promises to keep fuel economy in check.

The 2017 Chevrolet Cruze Hatch is scheduled to go on sale in the fall of 2016. Buyers will be asked to choose from just two trim levels called LT and Premier, respectively, and a RS package (pictured) that includes fog lights and a full body kit will also be offered. Pricing information will be published in the weeks leading up to its on-sale date.

BMW has introduced a concept named i8 Mirrorless at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that’s taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The concept’s name couldn’t be clearer: it’s an i8 without mirrors. BMW has sent the mirrors back to the parts bin and replaced them with a pair of tiny cameras mounted in aerodynamic, wing-shaped holders on the doors and an additional camera located right above the rear window. Each camera features dirt-repellent coating and a Gorilla Glass Type 2 lens.

The footage captured by the three devices is digitally stitched and transferred to a high-resolution, 11.8-inch wide screen that replaces the traditional rear-view mirror. The system gives the driver a panoramic view of what’s behind the i8, and it provides visual warnings if it detects that another car, a motorcycle, or a cyclist is traveling in one of the blind spots. Passengers benefit from the mirror-less setup, too, because they have a clearer view of the outside world and they’re not bothered by glare.

BMW’s mirror-less technology sounds promising, but it won’t arrive in showrooms in the near future because state and federal regulations require that all cars have at least two mirrors. Automakers — notably Tesla — have been petitioning the NHTSA to allow cameras. Officials are taking the request seriously, but they haven’t revealed when a final decision will be made.

Careful observers will note that the Volkswagen XL1 boasts similar technology, though the cameras transfer images to individual screens integrated into the door panels.

General Motors has unveiled the production 2017 Chevrolet Bolt at the Consumer Electronics Show.

The official debut provides a closer look at both the exterior and interior, after spy photographers recently spoiled the surprise. The production model stays fairly close to the concept, though its smooth EV facade has been outfitted with a faux grille and thicker LED headlight housings.

Out back, the Bolt’s taillights have been reshaped with a bit of inspiration from the Volt hybrid. The red LEDs are integrated into the full-width hatch, with supplementary LEDs located on the lower bumper.

The company aimed to give the compact “the look of a small crossover,” with a 102.4-inch wheelbase that is two inches longer than the Chevy Trax and Buick Encore. A flat battery pack is mounted beneath the interior floor, enabling seating for five passengers and 16.9 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seat — more than the Honda Fit and BMW i3, as GM proudly notes.

“[The flat battery pack] really opened up the interior and created a fantastic view from every seating position,” said design managing director Stuart Norris. “All of this additional space gave us a lot of opportunities to play with creative design and storage solutions.”

On the inside, a ‘floating’ instrument panel brings a horizontal focus centered around a 10.2-inch touchscreen. A rear-facing camera provides a wide-angle view, presented on a digital display built into the rear-view mirror, while other cameras provide ‘surround vision’ when parking or driving at low speeds.

The company has reaffirmed its promise to deliver at least 200 miles of electric range, though a specific figure has not yet been announced. Production is scheduled to begin before the end of 2016, potentially giving the company a head start against the Tesla Model 3.

Several automakers are expected to introduce long-range EVs in the next two years as battery prices continue to decline. Tesla’s Model S has established a luxury pedigree that could help drive sales of the company’s first mass-market EV, presented as an electric BMW 3-Series rival rather than a battery-powered econobox. GM is the first to show a contender in final production form, however, with a seemingly solid launch window and price tag around $37,000.

Ford has detailed plans to triple its fleet of fully autonomous Fusion Hybrid sedans, claimed to represent the largest fleet of self-driving cars in the automotive industry.

The company does not have thousands or even hundreds of prototypes on the road, but merely 10 in its current test fleet. The expansion will add 20 more sedans, allowing engineers to hasten development of software and hardware technologies for production vehicles.

The cars will be outfitted with Velodyne’s latest Puck LiDAR sensors, enabling the system to ‘see’ out to 200 meters in all directions. LiDAR systems can be seen on nearly every autonomous prototype, but the technology has been prohibitively expensive for production. Velodyne has set a mass-production ‘target’ of $500 for the Ultra Puck, compared to approximately $30,000 for the LiDAR sensors used on the current Fusion testbeds.

Ford suggests the new Puck’s small size will enable the units to be placed on sideview mirrors, allowing the number of LiDAR sensor units to be reduced from four to just two.

The company’s first-generation autonomous vehicle platform was built upon a F-250 Super Duty chassis for participation in the DARPA challenges a decade ago. The Fusion was picked for the second-generation prototypes, introduced in 2013.

“We’ve come a long way since DARPA,” said Ford’s autonomous tech lead, Jim McBride. “A decade ago, no one in the field knew what the art of the possible was. Today, we’re all hustling to make the most ambitious dreams become a reality.”

Moving one step closer to its goal of having a fully-autonomous vehicle on sale by 2020, Volvo announced on Wednesday that its upcoming S90 sedan will be the first vehicle in America to come standard with semi-autonomous tech.

Every S90 sold in the U.S. will come standard with the latest version of Volvo’s Pilot Assist system. Already available in the XC90 crossover, the Pilot Assist system can handling braking, acceleration and steering at speeds up to 30mph when there are clear lane markings and a pilot vehicle to follow. However, the system in the S90 will differ in that it will work at speeds up to 80mph and doesn’t require a lead vehicle.

“Making semi-autonomous features standard in the S90 symbolizes Volvo’s commitment to autonomous driving and our Vision 2020,” said Lex Kerssemakers, President & CEO of Volvo Car USA, “The S90 will be the first vehicle to offer this semi-autonomous technology as standard.”

The Volvo S90 is scheduled to make its world debut at next week’s Detroit auto show. Following its introduction in the Motor City, the S90 will go on sale later in 2016.

BMW has introduced a new concept car called i Vision Future Interaction at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that’s currently taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The i Vision Future Interaction is based on the i8 Concept Spyder that was shown at the 2012 edition of the Beijing Motor Show, but designers have removed both doors. It’s billed as a highly-futuristic roadster that sheds insight into what the sports car of tomorrow might look like.

The convertible offers three driving modes called Pure Drive, Assist, and Auto, respectively. In Pure Drive mode, the concept is an open-top sports car that’s piloted by the driver. In Assist mode, the driver has complete control of the concept but a host of electronic driving aids kick in if they detect that a collision is imminent. For example, the car can autonomously steer itself around obstacles in the road.

Finally, in Auto mode the concept drives itself so that the driver can sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery. The steering wheel retracts by a few inches to give the driver extra space, and the concept-specific seats automatically provide less bolstering to give the occupants more freedom to move.

The i Vision Future Interaction also demonstrates the next generation of the gesture-controlled in-car tech that BMW introduced earlier this year on the new 7 Series. Called AirTouch, it uses sensors built into the dashboard to activate a large panoramic display in mere seconds. The front passengers can navigate the display using hand gestures and motions, and they can confirm an action by hitting one of the AirTouch buttons that are concealed on the steering wheel and on the passenger-side door panel.

This set up makes it possible for both front passengers to navigate the infotainment system with ease. The software also reduces the number of steps needed to make a selection (such as make a phone call) by recognizing what actions the user might take next and displaying them on the screen.

While the door-less i8 won’t reach production as-is for obvious safety reasons, an i8 Spyder is believed to be right around the corner, and the AirTouch technology will likely debut on a regular-production car in the coming years.

Volkswagen showed off its e-Golf Touch at CES Tuesday, touting it as the world’s first compact EV with gesture control functionality.

Building on the Golf R Touch concept that was shown at CES a year ago, the e-Golf Touch shows off an evolution of the company’s Modular Infotainment Toolkit (MIB) featuring early series-production gesture control.

At the center of the new MIB system is a 9.2-inch, high-resolution screen with user-configurable tiles for up to ten onboard functions.

Laid out with a primary tile on the left and two smaller tiles on the right, allowing three functions of the driver’s choosing to be displayed simultaneously. The main area can also be resized to fill the entire screen, allowing applications such as onboard navigation or Android Auto/CarPlay to take full advantage of the available real estate.

The e-Golf Touch also acts as a tech demonstrator for a host of additional convenience features the company plans to bring to production in the coming years, such as wireless charging in the rear armrests for passengers, USB Type C high-speed data and advanced charging and keyword-activated voice recognition.

One particularly trick feature highlighted here is electronic voice amplification. While this sounds like a feature designed to improve phone conversations, it’s actually far more clever than that. The system uses the e-Golf Touch’s hands-free microphones to amplify passengers’ voices in the cabin slightly, improving conversational clarity within the car itself. The system adjusts on-the-fly to account for vehicle speed and the volume of in-car entertainment functions to keep the voice amplification from overpowering desired audio sources.

Other enhancements to VW’s MIB and Car-Net app are also present, many of which should trickle down to subsequent generations of the infotainment platform across the VW lineup in the coming model years.

Volkswagen has revealed a new concept called Budd-e ahead of its debut at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Budd-e is the first car built on Volkswagen’s new Modular Electric Platform (MEB), an architecture that was designed specifically to underpin electric vehicles. It boasts a completely flat 101-kWh battery pack that stretches almost the entire length of the floor, a packaging solution that gives the Budd-e a generous 373-mile driving range while preserving the spacious cabin that consumers expect to find in a van.

Power comes from an electric motor mounted over each axle, and the van has a top speed of 93 mph. The battery pack can be topped up without a cord thanks to a state-of-the-art inductive charging system that will gradually be offered on electric Volkswagen and Audi models over the next few years.

Volkswagen’s newest concept stretches 181 inches long, 76.3 inches wide, and 72.2 inches tall, dimensions that make it about 20 inches shorter, three inches narrower, and four inches taller than a Honda Odyssey. It gets a heritage-inspired design that borrows styling cues such as a V-shaped front end and flared D-pillars from the original, rear-engined Volkswagen van that was built for decades in Germany and abroad, but it’s not full-on retro like the Beetle and the Fiat 500.

The retro treatment is only skin-deep, and the cabin puts a big emphasis on connectivity. Notably, the Budd-e can be programmed to send a message to the driver’s smartphone if he or she has forgotten an item in the car. It also gets real-time weather updates, and it can tell the driver whether or not there is an umbrella in the cabin if the infotainment system detects that it’s going to rain.

Interestingly, the instrument cluster and the screen that runs the infotainment system have been combined into a single unit. The portion that replaces the instrument cluster provides information about the car and its surroundings, while the portion that replaces the infotainment display groups the Budd-e’s entertainment, navigation, and connectivity functions into a single unit that lets the passengers watch videos or surf the web on-the-go. The infotainment system can be navigated via voice commands and via simple hand gestures.

The Budd-e is billed as a concept car, but the Wolfsburg-based car maker openly suggests a slightly toned-down version of it could be introduced before the end of the decade. What’s certain is that the MEB platform will underpin a full range of all-electric models, and Volkswagen has announced plans to become one of the first companies to offer a gesture-controlled infotainment system in a relatively affordable car.

For those deep-pocketed individuals tired of the same old woodgrain accents, Bentley’s Mulliner division has developed a new way to trim out your next Continental or Flying Spur — with stone.

The stone veneers are available now and come in four different natural colors — Galaxy, Autumn White, Terra Red and Copper. Like their wood counterparts, each stone veneer is shaped and hand finished at Bentley’s factory in Crewe, England.

“Bentley is the established expert in the handcrafting of wood and leather, and now we are exploring new, fine and rare materials to offer even more bespoke tailoring and choice to our customers,” said Geoff Dowding, Director of Mulliner Operations. “Stone veneers are another first for Bentley – but only the beginning of what we plan to do with this luxurious and unique material.”

The stone veneers, which are sourced from quarries in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, India, are cut from larger pieces of rock and are cured using glass fiber and a bespoke resin. Measuring just 0.1mm thick, Bentley says the veneers are both light and translucent.

Audi will hone its high-speed autonomous vehicle technology at Thunderhill Raceway Park in norther California, the company announced on Tuesday.

Like several other automakers, Audi has already begun highway testing of its self-driving vehicle tech, but public roads aren’t suitable for high-speed evaluations. In order to test the upper limits of its autonomous systems, Audi has signed a multi-year deal with Thunderhill to gain access to the facility’s 3.0-mile road course.

Thunderhill is conveniently located just outside of Willows, California, which is about 180 miles north of Volkswagen’s San Francisco-area Electronics Research Lab in Belmont, California.

“Thunderhill provides a perfect setting to safely test the wide range of systems that will make highly automated driving a reality in the new future,” said Ewald Goessmann, Director, Electronics Research Lab.

Audi hopes to launch its version of autonomous technology — known as piloted driving — with the next version of its A8 sedan. The next Audi A8 is scheduled to launch sometime around 2020.