Considered by many to be one of the most important automotive events, the New York International Auto Show always brings us a bevy of new models, concepts and general information from world’s most popular car brands.

The 2015 New York International Auto Show kicked off earlier this week, where we had one of our friends, a highly talented automotive photographer Cristian Guamanzara, visiting the NYIAS and taking a couple of interesting shots from the event itself.

Plenty more from the 2015 New York International Auto Show is coming up later today, with detailed information about several new models and concepts being released, all covered on our site in detail.  Take a look at the media gallery below the jump and feast your eyes on some rather exciting vehicles from one of the important annual events from the automotive industry.

2015 New York International Auto Show gallery

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After the announcement a few weeks earlier, Bugatti has released the the Bugatti Grand Sport Vitesse “La Finale” — The final Bugatti Veyron to be produced — at the Geneva Motor Show.

Few words that best put the notion of the importance of this vehicle into anyone introduced to the automotive world. On the other hand, this also means that the technologically advanced vehicle will soon (probably naturally) see a successor. A car that we, as anybody else interested in highly developed technical things that go fast, will definitely be eagerly awaiting.

“The Bugatti Veyron has shown that our engineers are capable of achieving a previously unimagined level of technical excellence, thereby opening up whole new dimensions in the automotive sector,” said Wolfgang Dürheimer, President of Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S, in a press release. “The Veyron is justifiably at the head of the field.”

“As the most powerful and fastest production supercar in the world, the Veyron is a true benchmark,” continued Dürheimer. “With a world record speed of 431.072 km/h, it has become an icon of longitudinal dynamics.”

When announced, the Bugatti Veyron stunned the world. It represented one of the greatest technical and engineering challenges ever overcome in the automotive history. At the time, Bugatti developers were faced with four key specifications: the car had to transfer more than 1,000 horsepower onto the road, achieve a top speed in excess of 400 km/h, accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in less than three seconds and – the biggest challenge of all – still be suitable for ‘driving to the opera’ in comfort and style. The perfect gentleman’s supercar, if we might add there. Generally, the car was a huge success – even though the company lost money on each sold unit. Nontheless, it was a perfect opportunity to bring back a brand that was once notable for luxury, speed and attraction.

The last Bugatti Veyron marks the end of an era by all means. The future model will probably see some sort of a hybrid coming up. With the timeframe for the release of its successor still a bit blurry, we can only guess on the matter for the time being. On the other hand, we will be able to admire this piece of technological marvel for years to come, thanks to many owners who decided to put their money into owning one of the world’s best fashion and technology statements, providing us petrolheads with something to cherish entirely.

“Alongside the certainty of owning the world’s fastest production sports car with a high degree of individual exclusivity, Bugatti customers appreciate that, by purchasing a Veyron, they become part of the history of an automobile brand that is steeped in tradition,” said the Bugatti President. “Many vehicles therefore find their way into private collections and are purchased as an investment by automotive connoisseurs.”

When it came to equipping the 450 Veyron sports cars, Bugatti did everything to fulfil customers’ wishes. For example, the body finish featuring clear-lacquered exposed carbon fibre was particularly popular. Bugatti currently supplies this finish in eight colours – more than any other manufacturer and in a quality that no other company can achieve. In addition, the French luxury brand offers over 100 different colours for the painted finishes on the carbon fibre bodies. The vehicles also feature a wide range of luxurious materials that were uncommon in the automotive field, such as porcelain, crystal, special types of leather and wood, gold and platinum. Each Bugatti configured by a customer is unique. Including options, the average price of the vehicles recently sold is $2.43 million (€2.3 million).

It goes without saying that Bugatti is already working on the sequel to its recent success story, with development of its next model well underway. “With the next Bugatti model, we are aiming to consolidate and expand the market-leading position we have established with the Veyron,” the Bugatti President explained. “Our challenge is to make the best even better.”

We can only hope it doesn’t mean SUV’s, people carriers and other, somewhat silly ways and paths taken by other high-performance premium manufacturers – ensuring that Bugatti sticks with making statements. Not just cars alltogether.

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The 2015 Consumer Electronics Show wrapped up Friday in Las Vegas, giving consumers a glimpse of what’s to come from the consumer electronics sector over the next year.

For as much as some like to lament how CES isn’t as relevant as it once was, or even how it’s “dead”, it still is the biggest electronics trade show in the world’s largest economy. That by itself makes it important. It’s not just where the public, via the press, gets to see new products, it’s where industry alliances are formed and where merchants decide what will be on store shelves next year.

CES is also where the world is given a glimpse of what to come in the long-term, not just in the near future. This matters because ecosystems need to be built around this technology, the process of which starts during closed-door meetings during the show.

Without further ado, here are three things that mattered the most from this year’s CES.

Broadwell on the market

At this year’s CES we got our first glimpse at the next-generation of ultrathin notebooks powered by Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) Broadwell processor.

Broadwell promises a substantially reduced power draw, allowing for thinner, lighter and fanless designs.

To of the most exciting Broadwell-powered notebooks that made an appearance on the show floor were the LaVie Z from Lenovo (HKG: 0992) and the refreshed XPS 13 from Dell.

Exact specs of the LaVie Z have yet to be finalized, but it’s said to have a 13-inch screen with a 2,560×1,440 resolution, a 128GB SSD and either a 44Whr or a 29.9 Whr battery depending on the model. Exact pricing and a release date have yet to be determined.

Dell’s refreshed XPS 13 features a variety of display sizes, an incredibly low battery life and an aggressive starting price of $799. For display options, Dell is offering a non-touch 1080p display (which comes with a longer battery life) as well as a touch-enabled QHD+ (3200×1800) model. These come with a  Broadwell 15W Core i3, i5, and i7 processor options and the option of either 4GB or 8GB of memory.

Unfortunately, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Broadwell was absent from Intel’s keynote at CES. The chip itself is quite the achievement for the company, and it was rather remiss to leave this product out of the big spotlight.

Quantum dots: The road to 8K starts today

One could call this year’s CES the year that 4K reached maturity. Prototypes of 4K displays have been on the showfloor of CES since 2012, and now they are relatively mainstream. But while 4K is just starting to get off the show floor and into the homes of consumers, a far more impressive technology made an appearance at this year’s CES: 8K.

As its name implies, 8K provides a substantial jump in resolution when compared to 4K or 1080p. On a large screen, the amount of detail one can pick out is beyond remarkable. Of course, 8K is suffering from a content problem — there isn’t much of it available — but what was demonstrated on the show floor proves the potential of the resolution.

For a resolution that large, standard LCD technology won’t cut it. Cinephiles and imaging professionals have long complained that standard LED backlit LCD sets don’t provide the rich blacks and colors of OLED or plasma based screens. This is a tradeoff of LED’s; image quality is sacrificed for power efficiency and thinness.

A diagram of how a quantum dot layer works

Quantum dots are the solution to this problem. Quantum dots are an extremely thin layer of nanometer sized crystals applied to an LCD. Depending on their size — between 2 to 10 nanometers — they emit light at a different wavelength thus glowing green, red, or blue depending on their size. On an LCD, they augment the display’s capability to reproduce the full color gamut: on paper they will allow an LCD to display proper blacks, whites and remove the blueish tint that plagues some displays. All this is done at nearly a third of the cost of producing an OLED.

Quantum dots were in many of the 4K LCD-based displays on the CES show floor. In order for LCDs to mature and jump into the 8K era, quantum dots are a must. Without the color accuracy that they provide, the benefits of the enhanced resolution of 8K would be lost.

Automotive is the next big thing

In the technology world, sometimes rivalries fade. One year two companies might slug it out at the show, and other years there could be nothing.Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) have found themselves more and more becoming rivals as Nvidia shifts focus from its traditional markets to mobile with Tegra.

CES 2015 was an example of this new rivalry between the two companies. The keynotes from both Nvidia and Qualcomm focused heavily on automotive. On stage Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang promised that the self-driving cars of the future would be powered by his company’s Tegra X1 SoC, showcasing its ability to power collision detection and other sensing systems.

Nvidia has struggled to build enthusiasm amongst mobile vendors for its Tegra platform, and it’s now up to its sales team to see if it can score some hardware wins in automotive. The biggest complaint amongst vendors was that previous iterations of Tegra draw too much power, but this complaint is a moot point in automotive.

However, Nvidia has to act fast to make inroads in this market. While Nvidia has yet to announce any hardware wins for automotive Tegra, at its keynote Qualcomm was able to announce two.

Automotive will prove to be a interesting and competitive market for these chipmakers, and future CES expos — especially CES Asia in Shanghai — will no doubt have more from this field.

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Known for its versatility, the Honda Jazz (Fit in some markets) has established itself as a class on its own. While essentially a subcompact hatchback given its body type, the Jazz is actually more of a small utility vehicle, because of the flexibility that it affords in terms of the seating and cargo configuration. Honda has proven the usability of its “Magic Seat” ULTR (utility, long and tall cargo and rest) modes in hauling different kinds of loads. Not that you’d want the Jazz to be your every day hauler for your construction business. But when the necessity arises, it’s sure good to have the added cargo capacity with the flick of a few levers.

The Honda Jazz retains the same utility configurations in the 2014 model,and this generation adds the R to ULT, which stands for “rest”. The third generation since the Jazz’s launch in 2001, this particular model is based on an all new platform shared with the new HR-V, and debuted in Japan in late 2013 and in the US mid-2014. The new Jazz uses a mix of monocoque and spaceframe construction, which helps in maximizing interior space and minimizing weight whilst retaining rigidity. This particular Jazz currently sells in the US as the 2015 Fit model.

VR World had the chance to take the 1.5 V CVT variant of the All New Jazz for a weekend spin around town, climbing mountain routes and cruising through highways. Plus, we were also able to put the car’s cargo utiltiy to the test with a chance trip to the hardware store.

Specifications

The All New Jazz has a slightly longer body and wheelbase, and having re-designed the rear suspension without an anti-sway bar, the ride characteristic should differ slightly from the second-generation Jazz, but this means added rear cargo width capacity. The new model comes in various engine and transmission configurations, including a 1.5 liter and 1.3 liter Earth Dreams i-DTEC engines for the North American and Japan markets. The Philippine market unit we reviewed came with a 1.5 liter i-VTEC, which comes standard across the entire new Jazz line. Some markets will also get a turbocharged 1.0 liter three-cylinder engine currently under development.

A few key specs:

• Engine: Chain Drive SOHC i-VTEC 16 valve
• Fuel supply system: Programmed Fuel Injection (PGM-FI)
• Max power: 120 PS @ 6600 RPM
• Max torque: 14.8 kg-m @ 4800 RPM
• Transmission: CVT
• Fuel capacity: 40 liters
• Suspension: Independent MacPherson Strut with Stabilizer (front) / H-shaped torsion beam with Stabilizer (rear)
• Brakes: Ventilated disc (front) / Drum (rear)
• Turning radius: 5.1 m

The 2014 Jazz is actually shorter by about 7.6 mm, although wheelbase has been stretched by 30.5 mm, which means a marginally more comfortable ride, and some advantages in interior seating space.

Higher-spec units come with additional amenities and safety features, such as foglamps, side mirror-mounted turn signals, smart key, side curtain airbags, touch-screen stereo controls and rear-view camera. All models, except for the base MT come with a cargo tonneau cover, which is useful for keeping stored items from prying eyes and for added air conditioning efficiency.

Design, comfort and amenities

The Jazz retains the same basic design elements of the previous generations, including a cab-forward design with sloping hood, as well as small and sloped C-pillar windows. The general look echoes that of Honda’s other new launches, including the All New City, which VR World reviewed a few months ago. This includes the bold “H” grille design, and the character creases that extend from the front fender through the door handles, finally extending through the rear headlamps.

One big design discrepancy from previous Jazz models is in the headlamp. This generation eschews the bug-eyed triangular-shaped design of the old Jazz, with designers opting instead for a flatter and more wedged look that echoes the latest City and Civic models.

Being a subcompact hatch, the Jazz is designed more for utility and space rather than cruising comfort. Front and rear legroom is generous although not excessive. Compared with the outgoing Jazz, this generation increases rear legroom by about 12 cm.  Seats are quite firm, however, which can lead to driver and passenger fatigue in long drives. Our review model comes with one 12 volt power socket, a USB port and nine cupholders.

Notably absent in our review variant is a touch-screen interface, which Honda introduced in the new City. The integrated audio system does support USB MP3 playback, Bluetooth audio, as well as mobile phones. The two-line LCD screen is quite limited, however, and folks who are used to touchscreens in smartphones and tablets would be disappointed. The VX and VX+ models do come with touchscreen audio interface.

Compared with the City, however, utility is where the Jazz wins. Its 350 liters cargo capacity in normal seating mode is a 13 liter increase from the previous generation. And while the City does have a 510 liter trunk space (already class-leading for a subcompact), the Jazz’s rear seats can be folded down flat to increase cargo capacity to 906 liters. With front seats also folded flat, storage capacity goes up to 1,492 liters. The car also offers a “tall” mode, in which the rear bench can be folded up to haul taller items. The rear seat bench and backrest split is 60:40, which means the car can still accommodate passengers in various modes.

It helps that the Jazz’s fuel tank is located below the front seats. This means items can also be stowed under the rear bench, and this gives way to the “tall” mode, which enables cargo from floor to ceiling height. And one clear advantage over the competitors: the Jazz’s rear seats fold full flat, unlike other hatchbacks with seats that only fold forward with a big slope.

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The choice of whether to buy an SUV, family sedan or ultra-compact may not be entirely a simple choice, as it is one that is dictated by your context. Different markets have different approaches to automobiles, and factors like fuel prices, road conditions and family income come into play. In the US, for instance, where petrol is cheap, big-displacement engines are still popular. In Europe, with exorbitant petrol costs, car owners prefer diesel-powered cars or small-displacement subompacts.

The same trends can also be observed in Asia. Take for example the very high cost of owning and maintaining cars in Singapore, where the Certificate of Entitlement costs much more than the car’s sticker price. Or how about the big disparity in petrol and diesel prices in the Philippines? There are also varying road conditions across the globe, which necessitates different suspension and engine tuning needs.

In this review, we focus on the 2014 Nissan Altima — or the L33 — which has just been brought to Philippine shores as an update or replacement to the Teana line. In this country, even midsize sedans like the Altima, Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata, Mazda6 and the like, are already considered “big” cars. And thus, they are oft patronized by the more discerning crowd and as executive-movers, even if such midsize cars are standard fare for middle-income motorists in more developed economies. Let’s keep this in mind for purposes of this review.

I had the chance to review two variants of the J32 Nissan Teana (the 250XL and 350XV) a few years back. Aimed at the luxury midsize market, the Teana did not fail to impress, in terms of performance and comfort. Nissan has converged the Altima and Teana into one platform for this generation. Nissan’s replacing its local upscale sedan with the Altima comes with some pros and cons, however, which we shall discuss later.

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Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) reported fairly mixed numbers across the board for its fiscal Q3 2015 quarter, which is represented mostly by the calendar third quarter of the year.

In the third quarter, Nvidia reported a record $1.23 billion in revenues and profit of $173 million, which translates to an EPS of $0.31. This is compared to the previous quarter, where Nvidia saw $1.103 billion in revenue and $128 million in profit or an EPS of $0.22. Nvidia also improved over the same quarter a year ago even more significantly where that quarter only had $1.054 billion in revenue and $119 million in revenue  or an EPS of $0.20. Nvidia saw both revenue and profitability increase double digits for both quarter over quarter and year over year, which should make any investor in Nvidia very happy. The margins did slip almost a whole percentage point, but they also significantly improved revenue and profitability.

Nvidia’s revenue increase to $1.23 billion can be attributed to growth across the board for the company in multiple business segments. Revenue for its GPU business grew 13% from the previous quarter and notebooks grew 36%, fueled by the release of its new Maxwell GTX GeForce consumer cards and mobile gaming GPUs. Nvidia states that mobile gaming notebooks more than doubled from a year ago, indicating much stronger PC gaming growth than analysts had been dooming and glooming.

Tesla GPU sales increased strongly, representing another record quarter for revenue driven mostly by large project wins in GPU compute with cloud providers and government customers. The company also saw Quadro revenue continue to be strong, also helped along by its launch of the new Quadro line, including the K5200, which is squarely aimed at Adobe users. As a result, the whole business unit saw a 13% increase in revenue due to the Maxwell release and seasonal increase in consumer PCs, which is going to only continue into the next quarter.

Tegra processors grew 51 percent from a year ago, mostly led by automotive infotainment systems, mobile devices, embedded systems and SHIELD tablet sales. Automotive infotainment revenue alone nearly doubled year over year, which can strongly be attributed to Tegra’s renewed strength compared to last year. As a whole the business unit saw revenue go up 11% sequentially. Nvidia has won some seriously significant automotive design wins, including Honda and will create a very good baseline of sales for Nvidia in the Tegra business unit regardless of mobile device seasonality.

Nvidia also saw a $66 million license payment from Intel from their settlement and licensing agreement.

Nvidia guided its revenue to be about $1.2 billion, essentially flat with the last quarter. They also expect margins to stay about the same if not increase a bit from the last quarter and operating expenditures to increase slightly. Overall, next quarter should really be a fantastic one for Nvidia as it is traditionally the strongest quarter for most of their consumer products and they are currently putting the hurting on AMD in consumer GPU sales, they are also in the newly announced HTC Nexus 9, which means that Tegra shipments should be very good in the fourth quarter and should drive up its profitability in the business segment. Overall, Nvidia’s expectations for Q4 are very conservative and there’s a very good chance they will outperform significantly.

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It is said that rising automotive sales is a sign of a booming economy, especially if it involves luxury and novelty cars. In China, Tesla has already made a foothold, launching online retail stores for 38 cities across the country. However, while Tesla has traditionally only sold its vehicles through its own website, it will start selling the Model S through Alibaba’s (NYSE:BABA) Tmall e-commerce service starting November 11th.

That particular date is called Singles Day in the country or “Guanggun Jie,” which celebrates singlehood. Businesses have joined in on the festivities, however, and with sales and promotions, Singles Day also marks a time for discounts and promotions.

Buyers can pay CNY 50,000 ($8,200) as reservation via tesla.tmall.com, after which the fund is held in escrow under the user’s Yuebao interest-bearing mutual fund account. The Model S starts at CNY 734,000 ($121,000) — significantly lower than comparable sports cars sold in China. Tesla says buyers can then pay the balance upon pick up, which can be in as short as five days. Dealerships in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, or Shenzhen, serve as pick up points.

Tesla’s Tmall online store also offers other items, like clothing, caps, mugs, toolboxes and blankets. It can be noted that the partnership between Tesla and Alibaba actually started in April this year, when Tesla started accepting payments through Alipay for Chinese buyers. Other automotive brands have also offered similar deals and arrangements through Tmall, including Volkswagen (OTCMKTS:VLKAY) and General Motors (NYSE:GM).

Tesla’s direct marketing and selling method has been in the news lately, with Michigan effectively blocking sales within its jurisdiction, citing the need to “ensure that all automotive manufacturers follow the same rules to operate in the State of Michigan.” As Michigan law will now require Tesla to sell through dealerships (if it wishes to), that will require significant investment, which will result in price increases for buyers in that state.

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Today in Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed a bill into law that effectively stop Tesla from selling in the state with its direct buying business model.  This is a blow to consumers in Michigan who should have the right to choose how they purchase their vehicles.

The bill has language that will stop Tesla from using its direct sales to customers in Michigan.  This amendment was added by Repbulican State Senator Joe Hune, who used the loophole to add it to the bill, without being able to be up for debate or inquiry.  This was backed by GM, who said today ““We believe that House Bill 5606 will help ensure that all automotive manufacturers follow the same rules to operate in the State of Michigan; therefore, we encourage Governor Snyder to sign it.”.  Since the start of Tesla they have only sold .625% of GM’s first nine months of 2014  sales figures of 4,000,000 vehicles.

It may come with little surprise that Joe Hune has the Michigan Auto Dealers Association as one of his largest backers, to the tune of $14,400.  The wife’s firm also lobbies for the dealers, making things look even worse. In the gubernatorial race Governor Snyder is only leading by a very slim margin.  Likely if Governer Snyder did not pass the bill he would no doubt have been the target of attack ads that could place his lead in jeopardy.

This is bad for consumers, who should have a choice in how they buy a vehicle.  Buying from Tesla means that people could get what they want and pay the price for the car, not dealer mark ups or added equipment.  Some of the new D model Teslas running past $100,000 and  are in limited supply.  This would mean that dealers could possibly mark up the vehicle more than $10,000, which would not be a stretch of the imagination by any means.  This is money that dealers want to get their hands on and are trying to force on Tesla around the country.

Tesla released a statement saying: “By striking a single, but critical, word from MCLA 445.1574(14)(1)(i), the law governing franchise relations in Michigan, the dealers seek to force Tesla, a company that has never had a franchise dealership, into a body of law solely intended to govern the relationship between a manufacturer and its associated dealers. In so doing, they create an effective prohibition against Tesla opening a store in Michigan.  This amendment goes even further. It also seeks to prevent Tesla from operating a gallery in Michigan that simply provides information without conducting sales. We could even be barred from telling people about our car.”

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Even amid the rising concern for eco-friendliness and reduction of carbon footprints, cars seem to be outgrowing their respective classes in the recent years. Take for instance sub-compact sedans, which have started to overtake autos a class above in terms of space, trim and even price. The same goes for the sixth generation Honda City, which we have had the chance to review upon its launch in the Philippines domestic market. The City has certainly grown bigger in size and space, and the equipment easily outclasses even bigger sedans in the market.

Launched in November 2013, the sixth-generation Honda City had its ASEAN debut in January of this year, reaching markets like the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and the like starting second half of the year. Based on the third-generation Honda Jazz (Honda Fit in Japan) platform, the City now sports the company’s new “Exciting H” design language, which is evident in almost everything, from the front grille, front profile, dashboard and more. Whereas the previous arrow-like design evoked maturity, this particular generation’s styling evokes excitement.

The Philippines market variant of the City comes in the base E, mid-range VX and top-spec VX+ trims. Philippine-spec models come with L15Z1 1.5 liter SOHC i-VTEC engines outputting 117 horsepower, although some international variants ship with a more advanced 99 hp 1.5L Earth Dreams engine. Manual transmission cars have been the norm in this country for so many years, although Honda has decided to go with the current trend of releasing most of its City variants with automatic transmission. Only one model in the E spec comes with stick-shift. The automatic variant E spec comes with 5-speed traditional (torque converter) AT, while VX and VX+ variants come with 7-speed continuously variable transmission (CVT), ensuring optimal power output and fuel economy throughout the rev range.

Even with the rising obsession for lower-displacement engines, Honda chucked the 1.3-liter engine in the City retaining 1.5L configurations throughout all models, perhaps opting for the bigger engine configuration to ensure the car is not underpowered.

I got to take the VX variant for a spin through city, suburbs and mountain routes for a week, courtesy of Honda. I can say that, compared with the fifth-generation City which I reviewed a couple years back, this particular model has matured enough, in terms of features, driveability and comfort.

Design and First Looks

The previous generation City was a world apart over its predecessor in terms of design language, but the same may not necessarily be said for this current iteration, as the sixth-gen Honda City does retain the wedged form of the model it replaces. However, it does get the benefit of character creases that extend from the front doors toward the rear fender and which continue through the brake lamps, perhaps geared toward improving aerodynamics. Also, instead of the usual mesh- or honeycomb-type front grille, the City’s front has more chrome wrapped around the “H” Honda logo, extending toward the headlamps.

The interior is where one would be surprised at a car in this class. Whereas the fifth-generation City came with plasticky interiors that evoke “cheap”, this generation City has more refinement in its interiors. Silver-trimmed soft-touch plastics wrap around the dashboard. The steering wheel has also been upgraded to a design similar to that found on the City’s bigger brethren, the Accord and CR-V.

“Touch Tomorrow” is the focus of this generation City, and the dashboard does certainly conform to this standard. Replacing the usual 2-DIN stereo system is an integrated touch-screen that controls the car’s audio and accessories via a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen. The screen also converts to the rear-view camera when reversing. The same capacitive touch interface is also employed by the climate control below the main touchscreen, which reduces the visual and tactile clutter that traditional rotary dials or levers will usually result in. The touch-heavy interface comes standard in the VX and VX+ trims, which gives the City a more premium feel than even cars bigger than B segment.

The VX and VX+ also offer push-to-start, paddle shifters and bigger, 16-inch alloy wheels, compared with the base E class. Honda also offers Modulo utility and Mugen sports packages and body kits, for those inclined towards the after-market look without having to settle for non-Honda parts.

Comfort and Amenities

Size-wise, the City has, indeed grown in terms of length and height. At 4,440 mm length and 1,497 mm in height, it is 25 mm longer and 7 mm higher, respectively. The wheelbase has also grown by 50 mm to 2,600 mm, which should improve ride quality in bumpy roads. Width remains the same at 1,695 mm. The City comes with class-leading trunk storage space at 510 liters — bigger than most cars in the B- and even some in the C-segment. At this size, the City is the biggest subcompact by far, relative to its class competitors like the Toyota Vios, Nissan Almera, Kia Rio, Hyundai Accent, Ford Fiesta and Mazda 2, among others.

Ride is comfortable with adequate NVH reduction. Cabin is comfortable enough for four adults, and is spacious enough for five. You get two cupholders, four bottle holders and a bevy of outlets for gadgets, including three (three!) 12V power sockets, a USB outlet and even an HDMI outlet. Still, if you’re coming from a bigger car (like an SUV, midsize sedan or minivan), you will still feel it’s a subcompact sedan, though.

The touchscreen interface also comes with smartphone connectivity. You can interface your iPhone or Android device via Bluetooth. The car’s steering wheel has mobile phone controls for voice dial, “call” and “end”, as well as audio controls for the car stereo.

Performance and Driveability

When it was originally launched in ASEAN, the City was meant as a city car, and the sixth-generation City certainly feels at home in the stop-and-go traffic of the city. The car has spacious interiors, but is still compact and maneuverable enough to  go about in city traffic and fit tight parking spots. The 1.5-liter engine is driveable in stop-and-go traffic, and you won’t find yourself lagging behind at the green light.

On a weekend, my family and I took the City for a spin via the South Luzon Expressway-Sta-Rosa-Tagaytay route, and found the city to handle well in the highway. On winding mountain passes, the suspension handles well — Honda tunes its suspension with adequate stiffness, after all, at least compared with other popular local subcompacts from Toyota and Nissan.

The only trouble is that with its smooth CVT acceleration and comfortable seats (for a compact sedan) is you might find yourself fighting sleep while cruising. Not that there is no excitement that comes with this zippy car, of course. You can do some spirited driving via the steering column-mounted paddle shifters. Pull the left lever to downshift, and the right to upshift. You can manually select “gears” in drive, but you can also switch to the “S” sport mode in the tranny selector to go manu-matic full-time.

Fuel consumption is 9-10 Km per liter in the city, 19-20 Kpl highway and about 14 Kpl mixed. And yes, it comes with the usual “ECON” mode found on the Civic, Accord and CR-V. Activate it and you will feel a little drag in accelerating, but it might be worth the fuel savings whilst in stop-and-go traffic.

Verdict

The all-new 2014 City is more high-tech than the latest-generation Toyota Vios, which it competes squarely against. The City’s VX and VX+ variants come standard with a touch-screen interface, reverse camera, push-to-start, touch-sensitive door handles, CVT and paddle shifters — features that are commonly found in higher-spec and higher-priced cars. Those used to Honda’s sportier/firmer ride will not be disappointed, as the City can tackle curves and corners with ease. The 1.5 liter engine is adequate in city and highway driving, although CVT sometimes struggles in uphill drives — you might find yourself down-“shifting” using the paddle shifters during these instances.

At least in the Philippines, the City comes with a premium in terms of price and financing. Toyota, for example, has come up with ultra-low down payment schemes for its Vios (starting at PhP 19,000), likewise with attractive lease-to-own packages. To address the popularity of the ultra-compact sedan, even Honda has launched its A-segment Brio and Brio Amaze, which is smaller and cheaper than the City.

Even with this price and financing premium, the Honda City is great for a daily driver for commuting to work. Its size is adequate for city driving and will be a good first car for singles, young couples or starting families.

Prices and Specs (Philippine / ASEAN market)

• City 1.5 E PhP 756,000 (MT) / PhP 796,000 (5 speed AT)
• City 1.5 E Modulo Utility PhP 821,000 (5 speed AT)
• City 1.5 VX PhP 880,000 (CVT)
• City 1.5 VX Aero Sports PhP 935,000 (CVT)
• City 1.5 VX+ PhP 970,000 (CVT)

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This year’s Google IO opening keynote was by far one of the longest keynotes I have ever watched by a single company, let alone a single presenter (2 1/2 hours long). This year’s announcement was squarely focused on the Android operating system and barely on any hardware at all. In fact, almost all of the hardware mentioned today at Google IO has already been announced in one way or another. So, unlike many were expecting, Google did not announce a new Nexus 6, Nexus 9 or any other Nexus devices. They talked about the Moto 360 and the LG G Watch but that was about it.

Most of Google’s focus at Google IO was around Android L and the surrounding design principals it brings to Android. Many people were expecting Google to give Android L a candy-themed nickname like Lollipop or Lemon Pie, but they’ve continually made it clear that they currently intend to call it the L-release. Perhaps Google is waiting for someone like Laffy Taffy or Lindor Truffles to cross-promote the next version of Android like they did with Kit Kat.

In addition to the stats about selfies and how often we check our phones, and Google’s Android tablet market share (not counting Kindle Fire and other Android forks) Google talked about their new version of Android called Android L Release (for lack of a better name). The L developer preview will have a lot of design and UI improvements as well as developer-focused improvements that will improve the ability to improve performance and battery life.

They are doing this through their Material Design principals that operate on the premise that you are interacting with real materials inside of the phone to make the overall experience feel more realistic. They are accomplishing this with multiple layers of the UI as well as shadows and animations that help simulate a more material UI.

Google is also working on making Android more seamless between features like Google Now, Apps and Chrome so they’re employing the switching ability between different applications to make it more seamless and natural so that each part of the Android OS feels less isolated. You will also notice from the screen shots below and above that Google has decided to change the icons for the soft menu buttons to an arrow, circle and square. Simplifying the overall look of these buttons.

Google also made some pretty significant improvements to the phone’s dialer which includes making the buttons bigger again (one of the biggest complaints about the Kit Kat dialer) and they now have little droplets that animate when you press certain buttons so that you can see where you pressed and get a more ‘material’ feel.

In addition to the UI changes and improvements Google wanted to talk about the major performance improvements in Android L which will come with switching from Dalvik to ART. As you can see from the benchmarks below, a simple switch from Dalvik to ART already renders some impressive performance improvements in certain benchmarks that the Nexus 5 immediately realizes with no other changes. These performance improvements will obviously get realized in Android L and should be available to anyone running certain versions of Kit Kat, especially on Nexus devices.

Also, as we had stated, Google is making Android L a 64-bit compatible and optimized operating system. By adding all of the 64-bit features like larger number registers and newer instruction sets they make 64-bit Android a much more standardized platform rather than one that has to be worked on by Google and their partners. Now that Nvidia and Intel already have 64-bit hardware it seems logical that Google would be pushing 64-bit now, especially since Apple already has the lead on them. The increased addressable memory space won’t likely see much of an improvement in memory capacities for most Android devices, but now if you want to build an Android desktop device you could absolutely do so with 8GB of RAM without worrying about OS limitations.

In fact, they even showed a demo on-stage running on Nvidia’s latest Tegra K1 SoC with Android L and 64-bit, meaning that it is Nvidia’s 64-bit Tegra K1 chip with their own custom ARM cores. Something that their biggest competitor, Qualcomm still has yet to do as their Snapdragon 808 and 810 chips won’t be out until 2015. There’s a very good chance we could see 64-bit Tegra K1 devices by the end of the year, but that is completely unsubstantiated by anything other than the prevalence of Nvidia’s 64-bit K1 being mentioned so many times by companies that are not Nvidia.

There are also some major improvements to the battery monitoring so that you can get a better idea of exactly what’s affecting your battery the most and developers can properly analyze power consumption.

Following that, Google talked a lot about Android Wear and all of the awesome features that it helps bring to Android devices. Those include being able to control content that’s located on the phone, like say recipes or the ability to walk up to the phone and unlock it because the phone knows that the watch you’re wearing is within proximity and that you’re you.  Once you leave your phone it will immediately lock the phone with a password and make it unavailable for anyone to unlock without the password or watch being present. It also has a ton of features that other smart watches already have like music control, health activity, phone calls, text messages and the like. However, they do not appear to have a voice texting system established quite yet like the Toq.

Here at Google IO they announced the new Samsung Galaxy Gear Live, which appears to essentially be a Gear 2 without the camera and running Android wear instead of running Tizen. As you can see from the crowd’s reaction below, it didn’t really get much of a reaction from the crowd. Although, they did show the LG G Watch and Moto 360 later on and eventually ended up giving all attendees a Moto 360 (once it becomes available).

Then, Google announced Android TV, an update to their Android for TV’s platform and essentially showed and entirely revamped UI and search system and improved hardware. They overall improved the operating system’s ability to do exactly what people want it to do, easily organize and search for exactly what they want.

The improved hardware will include Qualcomm, Nvidia, Mediatek, Intel, Marvell, Broadcom and STMicro as SoC partners with Android TV to enable TVs to become smarter and more powerful. That includes TVs from Sharp, Sony and TPVision who will have Android TV in all of their smart TVs in the future and some of which will be available by the end of the year.

Following Android TV, Google also announced Android Auto which is effectively their way to enable Android users to plug their phones into their cars and to ‘cast their device’s display into the dash of the vehicle and to mostly control the applications on the phone over voice control. Google has tons of hardware and automotive companies onboard and will be shipping in some cars by the end of the year, keeping competitive with Apple.

Last but not least, Google also announced the Google Fit platform which is designed to help unify the data between the different fitness apps and hardware that users are currently using with their Android devices to help them stay fit and get better data, which ultimately gets shared with Google since it crosses between apps using Google’s platform. So, once again, Google is looking for ways to figure out more about you and unsurprisingly capitalize on that data by selling you ads more effectively. Sure, its an opt-in system, but you basically surrender all rights once you opt-in for such a platform.

At the end, Google announced that they would be giving everyone cardboard notebooks to write down their thoughts (teasing that there would be a tablet, but not actually giving away one) and then announcing that everyone in the audience would be getting a Moto 360. I’m actually a bit glad that Google didn’t give away a ton of hardware this year because maybe it will make it easier for others to attend in the future that aren’t going for the free hardware like in past years.

Overall, Google made a ton of huge announcements and frankly it was very hard for anyone to follow everything over the course of the 2 1/2 hour keynote, but there were almost no hardware announcements that people were expecting which means we will probably get a Google Nexus 5-like launch for that hardware and people will be scrambling to get it.

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