Archive for June, 2018
Game Changing Kia Cerato Updates For 2019
Today’s car sales figures feature SUVs and working utes as the leaders. Sedans are still available and Kia’s Cerato sedan has just been given a solid freshen up, inside and out. These updates have given the small mid-sizer more than enough appeal to bring back those perhaps tempted by SUVs or forgetting that there are still SUV alternatives. It’s an important car to Kia, the Cerato, with a third of Australian sales from this range.
In relative terms, the updates bring even more value to the Cerato. The range starts with the Cerato S at a current listed driveaway price of $19,990 for the manual six cogger. A six speed conventional (non CVT or dual clutch) auto is a $1500 premium. Engine choice is Kia’s free spinning 2.0L petrol powerplant with 192 torques and 112kW of peak power. The Si and SLi nameplates have been benched, replaced with the $23,690 Sport and $26,190 Sport+.
Standard trim across the range is, to say the least, extensive. Kia says:”Autonomous Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Warning, Lane Keep Assist, Rear View Camera with dynamic guidelines, Driver Attention Alert Warning, front and rear parking sensors, 16-inch steel wheels, Drive Mode Select, six airbags, tyre pressure monitor, speed limiter, 6-way driver seat adjustment, cruise control, 8-inch touchscreen infotainment display, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with voice recognition, 6-speaker DAB digital radio with Bluetooth connectivity, manual air-conditioning and power windows with driver auto-down.”
Move up to the Sport and there’s alloys at 17 inch diameter, SUNA satnav with a ten year fee update cycle, higher level trim feel to the selector knob and steering wheel, aero-style wiper blade housings and sports patterned cloth seats. The Sports+ one-ups these with advanced smart cruise control, a pedestrian and cycle recognition system called AEB Fusion 11, dual zone climate control with rear seat vents, leather style trim and LED DRLs.
The interior has been given more than a facelift as well. Higher grade plastics, a dash console mounted screen, a redesigned look overall bring a strengthened interior presence to the updated exterior packaging. Shoulder and leg room has increased, with the rear seat going to 906mm. There’s been a reshaping of the armrests whilst the boot gets an increase to 502L thanks to the extension of the tail. There is an extended body length, a steeper rake to the windscreen, a five millimetre increase in height, and a revamp of the Cerato’s front end. A re-emphasised “tiger grille”, redesigned air intakes, and for the Sports+ a Stinger related design cue for the DRLs. There are also enhancements to the shoulder line and tail lights.
A $1000 Option Pack 1 will add Fusion II AEB, Smart Cruise Control (not available on S Manual), Blind Spot Detection, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, Folding Mirrors and leather steering wheel to S and Sport models. Option Pack 2 will add Blind Spot Detection and Rear Cross Traffic Alert to Sport+ for $500 (the other features are standard on Sport+).
Ride and handling have been fettled and done in conjunction with Kia Australia’s engineering team. A sixteen percent stiffer body contributes and a modified electric motor assistance system reduces the artificial feeling previously reported. Suspension settings have also been re-rated for a better ride.
Kia will be supplying the new Cerato range for review from the end of July.
Hybrid Subarus Are On The Way.
Subaru’s popular small SUV style cars, the Forester and XV, are coming to Australia in hybrid vehicle versions. The downside to this is that there’s currently no firm date in mind, however Aussie Subaru boss Colin Christie said: “We don’t have exact dates and times, and also not sure which tech will go into the cars, but Subaru has made it clear that they are moving down the hybridisation path and moving down the electric path. They have been talking about having fully electric vehicles in the early 2020s. I think it’s an absolute move in terms of environmental, fuel efficiency and economy but hybrids are still quite a small volume in the Australian market, but we see them as supplemental to our sales so we will have our 2.5-litre direct injection in case of the Forester, and then the hybrid will be an incremental model.”
The expected growth in EV and hybrid vehicles appears largely to do with the forthcoming emissions laws changes in Europe, to Euro 7, and the Californian government changes.
What this means for Australian importers is dealing with the choice of cars that would suit the Australian market. Subaru’s technology liason with Toyota will certainly help its cause, but, as always, there are questions as to who wears the costs of incentivising customers; is it the manufacturer or should it be the government?
Christie says: “There are customers out there looking for hybrid vehicles more and more, still relatively small numbers but that will grow and we are seeing more demand increasing in some areas, but at the end of the day it’s a future tech story and a step towards electrification, and a natural step in the journey for the brand.”
What are your thoughts? When it comes to getting more hybrid/EV cars on the roads of Australia, who should assist in off-setting costs?
The Electric Highway.
One of the appeals of the Australian landscape is its huge gaps between the cities, allowing an almost uninterrupted view of the beautiful world we live on. That also means that using a car not powered by diesel or petrol may be limited in its ability to traverse the distances between them.
Come the Electric Highway. Founded by the Tesla Owners Club of Australia, TOCA, they took up a joint initiative with the Australian Electric Vehicle Association to literally fill in the gaps. With a smattering of Tesla supercharger and destination charger points mainly spread along points of the east coast and largely between Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, a driver can now drive no more than 200 to 300 kilometres before seeing another charging point. The network is made up of 32 amp three-phase chargers which are about 200km apart on average, with the furthest distance between charge points being 400km. Most are capable of adding 110km of range in 30 minutes.
Tesla itself is looking at another eighteen superchargers around Australia by the end of 2019 which is complemented by the Australian Capital Territory’s decision to install fifty dual Electric Vehicle charging points at government sites in order to reach its zero emissions goal by 2022 for government cars.
Although most states have so far effectively failed to get on the electric car wagon, Queensland has bucked that trend by investing heavily in charger points.In that state, EV drivers can travel from Coolangatta to Cairns, and west from Brisbane to Toowoomba, using the government’s fast charger network, which is also vehicle agnostic. This means that the charger points are able to deal with the various car charging point designs, which does beg the question of why a global standard appears to not have been settled on. The rollout was completed in January of 2018.
It’s also worth noting that the Western Australian government owned power company, Synergy, did assist the TOCA initiative. In WA alone, more than 70 charge points were installed in towns and roadhouses on all major roads in the south and east of the state, as well as some remote locations in the north.
The initiative, a team effort by Synergy and the WA branch of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association, is installing three-phase charge points in towns and roadhouses on all major roads in the south and east of the state, as well as some remote locations in the north.
WA’s regional utility, Horizon Power, also contributed to the roll-out, with installations of 3 phase outlets in the Kimberley area.
“We’re endeavouring to show that there is ‘people power’ behind the drive to EV’s, and hopefully governments can follow,” said Richard McNeall, a TOCA member and coordinator of the Round Australia Project.
Currently most charger points are free, however there is a mooted change to this, but not at a huge impost. With pricing yet to be settled upon it’ll be worth looking out for press releases on this matter.
UK car maker Jaguar Land Rover has also announced plans to add a charging network in Australia, ahead of the release of its first EV, the I-PACE all-electric SUV, later this year. JLR Australia says the up to $4 million network would include 150 changing stations, using 100kW DC chargers provided by Jet Charge.
Plug Share is the site to go to to find out where the charge points are located.
BMW's EV Wireless Charging
BMW’s Wireless Charging
The new BMW 5-Series iPerformance models boast some very cool ‘world-first’ technology. Available factory-fitted with a fully integrated inductive charging facility means that you can arrive home, park over a ground pad (the inductive charging facility/station) and hey-presto your car charges up, ready for your next trip away.
BMW’s Wireless Charging consists of the GroundPad (an inductive charging station), that can be installed either in a garage or outdoors, and the CarPad, which is fixed to the underside of the vehicle will connect to the GroundPad once parked appropriately. This technology is available as an option on the new BMW 530e iPerformance model. The GroundPad generates a magnetic field that induces an electric current in the CarPad, which then charges the battery in the car.
BMW’s 530e iPerformance model has the parking systems that help the driver to manoeuvre into the correct parking position over the GroundPad using a WiFi connection between the charging station and the vehicle. Once the connection has been made, an overhead view of the car and its surroundings then appears in the car’s display screen with coloured lines that help guide the driver into position. An icon shows up on the screen when the correct parking position is reached for the process of inductive charging. BMW say the position for parking over the top of the GroundPad isn’t difficult to locate as the position can deviate by up to 7 cm longitudinally and up to 14 cm laterally – so it has plenty of buffering for getting a good connection. To easy!
We already are becoming familiar with the wireless charging systems inside many new cars from different manufacturers where mobile phones and electric toothbrushes can be wirelessly charged inside the car. BMW says its wireless charging uses the same inductive charging technology already widely used for supplying power to devices such as these.
BMW has unveiled a wireless charging system that will be available in Germany, followed shortly by the UK, the US, Japan and China. It’s nice to be able to boast this technology and do away with cords and manual contraptions for charging your hybrid. Germany and Europe seem to be leading the way with cutting edge EV technology, and this inductive charging system, created by BMW, will set the ball rolling for other manufacturers to follow suit.
I can imagine, like BMW, a world where you just pull up to your car park in the city, and the wireless inductive charging facility that’s set in place, in the road, underneath your EV will charge up your car while you duck into the café for a coffee or buy the necessary office equipment for your business. This is all pretty cool technology!
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