DON’T TOUCH THAT BUTTON Audi’s next-gen cockpit

THE NEW THINKING

ENTHUSIASTS TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT CHEVROLET VERSUS THE COMPETITION

Earlier this year, we invited four Road & Track readers to get up close and personal with the Chevrolet lineup, and we picked Stewart Graham to be our expert on the Chevy Equinox. Stewart experienced the quality and versatility of the Chevy through a challenge that left the competition sagging. In both perception and real-world performance, we showed Stewart why the Equinox is a great choice for enthusiasts like you—or the people who ask you for car-buying advice.

OUR ENTHUSIAST STEWART GRAHAM

CROTON-ON-HUDSON, NY

CHALLENGE GROUND CLEARANCE AND CARGO

People love crossovers like the Equinox for its fl exible interior and a go-anywhere minimum ground clearance of 6.9 inches. But they might not realize that ground clearance and cargo are related. More weight in the vehicle lowers that clearance. To show that the Equinox’s capabilities raise the bar versus the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, we loaded up each crossover with bags of play sand and had Stewart and our other readers drive over a pile of bricks at a height just over 6 inches. After each pass we added more weight until the ground clearance was too low. Once the Equinox made it with 700 pounds of sand, we gave up—it already beat the Toyota RAV4 by 200 pounds and the Honda CR-V by 150.

TRUE STORY

My favorite road is a scenic ribbon of asphalt adjacent to the Hudson River Valley in Westchester County, NY, where I now live. I absolutely love fi nding new lines and trying to perfect every corner.”

HAULING ADVICE

TO DETERMINE YOUR VEHICLE’S MAX WEIGHT CAPACITY, LOOK FOR THE TIRE AND LOADING INFORMATION LABEL—IT’S USUALLY ON THE PILLAR NEAR THE DRIVER’S SIDE DOOR LATCH. ON

There were plenty of things that impressed Stewart about the Equinox, but one feature in particular was the Multi-Flex® sliding rear seat, which moves 8 inches back and forth for quick adjustment to passenger space or cargo room without the need to fold the seats.

Lamborghini originally claimed the Huracán’s single-screen system was Tegra 3-based, but it was actually built on the old Audi system. We hear a couple of Audi engineers had to come in at the last minute to save Lambo’s less sophisticated one-screen setup.

HITS: The first thing you notice is the stunning clarity of the 12.3-inch, thin-film-transistor liquid crystal display. It’s driven by a pair of Tegra 30 quadcore chips from Nvidia’s Tegra 3* series, and all that processing power means ultrasmooth operation; there’s no stuttering when you zoom, scroll, or transition to a different display, even when the screen is mostly occupied by a detailed Digital Revolution map in “infotainment” view. “Classic” view gives more real estate to the digital gauges, rendered at 60 frames per second, and both the AUDI’S DIGITAL INFOTAINMENT/GAUGE-CLUSTER MASH-UP IS REALISTIC tach and speedo have a Fresnel-lens effect to give them AND GORGEOUS, BUT DRIVER-FOCUSED TO A FAULT. a realistic, glassed-in feel. Unlike most digital gauge systems, Virtual Cockpit doesn’t offer an unnecessary level of customization. The intuitive controls are a vast improvement over Audi’s current quadrant system, which requires a glance at the screen to determine which of the car’s four soft buttons you want. In Virtual Cockpit, two contextual buttons—left to choose basic functions, right to dive deeper into what’s on-screen—surround the steering wheel’s left-spoke thumbwheel and the center console’s touch-sensitive knob. MISSES: Console controls are there for a front passenger to play with, but there’s no center screen. This is a problem for the right-seater, who can’t see everything on the instrument cluster, and for the driver, who will be distracted by his companion’s presses and twirls. While other Audis will keep their center screens when they get this system, the “sporty” TT (see our first drive on page 54) and the R8 use the single-screen layout. A so-called Audi’s Virtual Cockpit, which will debut in driver-focused setup that messes with driver focus makes little sense. the 2016 TT, combines both infotainment and gauge WHAT COMES NEXT: Virtual Cockpit’s underlying hardware will soon power the rest info in a single, sumptuous screen. While future gauge of the VW Group’s high-end nav systems. Audi handles the programming for VW’s 12 pods are almost certainly going to be CPU-based, the marques, applying brand-specific interfaces to the finished product. Porsche and Bentblazingly fast and streamlined Virtual Cockpit gives ley, both of which have been using the same basic systems for nearly a decade, are next us hope that the loss of analog won’t suck. This is all- to get Tegra 3-based setups. As for Audi, its next big thing will be vehicle-to-vehicle and digital done (mostly) right. —DAVID GLUCKMAN vehicle-to-infrastructure connected-car communication.

THE CONTRARIAN

Back to the Land

I CANNOT OVERSTATE MY LOVE FOR SATELLITE RADIO, one of the few meaningful updates to a simple but powerful medium. But terrestrial radio still has advantages. Specifically, during one of those flat-out-across-eight-state-lines road trips. Sometimes, major miles have to be covered in a hurry, and that’s the best time to tune in to the boots on the ground—local voices, with tastes and viewpoints that spring from a specific place and time. As the view out the window trades eastern white pine for Texas mock-orange, why insist on the same aural landscape you know from your daily commute? Right now, sun-cured preachers are thundering sharp and flat into the California desert; a pair of overcaffeinated, middle-aged men are bashing on about chemtrails; and deep in bluegrass country, a program about Motown history wafts across the Smoky Mountains. Technology recommends “new” entertainment to us based on the entertainment we already like—which means it’s not new at all. That makes odd, surprising, dissenting, and possibly uncomfortable ideas all the more rare. And good for the soul. —JOSH CONDON