interview

The Swedes have never been attention-seekers, but there's no denying that, of all the cars at the Geneva Motor Show 2018 this week, the achingly handsome Polestar 1 hybrid coupe stands out. Partly that's down to its new, matte gray paint job, a finish which proved unexpectedly flattering for the design language the car company has inherited from Volvo. At the same time, though, Polestar 1's charm is about more than just design.

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When the "cutting edge" in automotive is electrification, what do you do if you're Maserati and your brand is wrapped up tight with the appeal of gasoline engines? That's the challenge facing the Italian automaker as it continues to carve out a space in the luxury performance high-end, and the question I posed to Reid Bigland, Head of Maserati and Alfa Romeo, this week at the LA Auto Show 2017. As you might expect, the answer is complicated.

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We’ve definitely seen our fair share of concept car designs, ranging from mundane to the almost improbable. The BMW Z4 Concept, which was teased in renders just a week ago, seemed to dance between those two extremes, with a design that is both ahead of its time yet still completely doable. And when BMW finally revealed the real thing, it took us a few moments to pick up our jaws from the floor. Fortunately for us, we got the chance to sit down with Adrian van Hooydonk, BMW’s head of global design and the man behind the Z4, to pick his mind about the thinking that went into such a breathtaking design.

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This month we had a chat with author Walter Isaacson about his work on humanizing several of histories most influential geniuses. Isaacson is the author of Steve Jobs' most famous biography - you might remember him from this 60 Minutes interview given after Jobs' death. In 2007 he released the book "Einstein: His Life and Universe", and in 2017, National Geographic began releasing the episodic TV series "Genius" using Isaacson's biography.

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Cadillac's Super Cruise may be a practically invisible change on the 2018 CT6, but the semi-autonomous driving system is actually one of the biggest announcements at the New York International Auto Show. It's intended to take control of the luxury sedan on the roads where drivers get most bored, highways and freeways, and though it may only be Level 2 autonomy, it wraps up a number of hands-off technologies that could give drivers the confidence that rival systems lack. I caught up with Barry Walkup, Super Cruise Chief engineer at Cadillac, to find out why.

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Zero Motorcycles may not be the first electric vehicle company that comes to mind when you think of California transportation start-ups, but there's more to the firm than just Tesla on two wheels. Founded back in 2006 in Santa Cruz, CA, the trajectory from passion project to internationally respected bike company has been a rapid one. With a new CEO at the handlebars, and more attention than ever on EVs and the future of transportation, I stopped by to take a tour of the production line and find out more.

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Cuba probably isn't the first place you'd expect to find a million-dollar monster truck, but that only served as encouragement for professional racer BJ Baldwin. For "Recoil 4", the latest in the off-road driver's stunt videos, he took his 6,000 pound truck on a high-speed run around the country, thundering through tight city streets and achieving a record-setting 191 foot residential jump, among other stunts. With "Recoil 4" now released online, I caught up with Baldwin to find out why Cuba, what went wrong, and whether he broke anything other than records along the way.

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Until now, the only way one car could communicate with another was if the driver leaned on the horn or made imaginative hand-signals to their fellow motorists. With the arrival of the 2017 Cadillac CTS, though, all of a sudden the vehicle itself gets chatty. Making V2V, or Vehicle-to-Vehicle, communication a standard feature, it promises not only an increase in on-road safety but to pave the way to new semi-autonomous and self-driving features. The big question is, with Vehicle-to... well, anything still in its infancy, why is Cadillac making the jump now?

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Toyota's Concept-i autonomous car winks at you, remembers the minutiae of your interests, and suggests detours to hang out with your friends: all in the name of getting you to trust its self-driving talents. Revealed at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, CA. this week, on the one hand it's a striking design study intended to explore the new possibilities unlocked when you're liberated from the tyranny of everyday driving. At the same time, though, it addresses a more fundamental issue, around trust in technology and the fear of the expert. I caught up with Ian Cartabiano, lead designer at the Toyota CALTY studio, and William Chergosky, interior lead designer, to find out why Concept-i is so important.

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Ford's seven-strong electrified vehicle announcement at CES 2017 this morning is the Detroit automaker's biggest commitment to EVs to-date, and there are no half-measures. On the cards - and, indeed, on the roads within the next few years - will be hybrid versions of some of the blue oval's biggest nameplates. It's a strategy that's markedly different from that taken by many of Ford's rivals, which have focused on a few halo hybrid and EV products amid the rest of their mainstream range. I caught up with Hau Thai-Tang, Ford group vice president of Purchasing and the automaker's "executive electrified vehicle champion" to find out more.

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Gently I stroke the top of the robot's head and, with a delighted bloop, he comes alive, eyes smiling as he looks up at me. I may be a cynical British tech journalist but I still catch myself grinning in response, and anyway, I can't blame myself too much for anthropomorphizing the latest attempt at a robotic family companion to grace CES. Kuri's creators, Mayfield Robotics, have put personality front and center in their efforts to crack a surprisingly stubborn segment.

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If logging your runs is the current peak of the quantified self, then sleep is the next big frontier, and Hello is pitching its new sleep tracker as the centerpiece of that. Sense with Voice builds on the original no-wearable design with new voice controls, smart home integration, and a growing amount of behind-the-scenes data courtesy of the company's new Chief Scientist, Professor Matthew Walker, who I caught up with ahead of today's launch. Turns out, there's more to bad sleep than just nightmares.

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