2020 Hyundai Venue crossover revealed: Stage is set and the crowd is only getting bigger

 

Small crossovers like the 2020 Hyundai Venue are cheap cars for a new generation.

The tiny Hyundai hatchback that made its debut Wednesday at the 2019 New York International Auto Show has a smaller footprint than the Accent sedan and slots below the compact Kona in the automaker’s menu of crossovers.

Offered in SE and SEL trims, the Venue goes long on features that likely will appeal to younger buyers, even though the space doesn’t go long itself. Every Venue is equipped with an 8.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility, 15-inch wheels, automatic emergency braking, a split-folding rear seat, active lane control, and a USB port. Two USB chargers, 17-inch wheels, heated seats, navigation, and automatic climate control are on the options list.

 

 

Hyundai didn’t say how much the Venue would cost when it goes on sale later this year, but it’s a safe bet to cost around $18,000 to start like the Nissan Kicks, Hyundai’s chief competitor.

DON’T MISS: Read our 2020 Hyundai Venue preview

Like the Kicks, the Venue doesn’t offer all-wheel drive on any model and relies on a 121-horsepower, 1.6-liter inline-4 solely for motivation. The Venue is equipped with a 6-speed manual as standard equipment, but more versions are likely to mated to a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) when they leave the factory in Ulsan, South Korea.

The Venue’s wheelbase measures shorter than 100 inches, about 3 inches shorter than the Kona. Behind the second row, the Venue offers 18.7 cubic feet of cargo room that expands to 31.9 cubic feet with the seats folded forward.

 

 

Black or gray cloth upholstery is standard although, when paired with denim blue paint outside, denim upholstery with synthetic leather is optional.

Hyundai hasn’t yet said how efficient the Venue will be but a similar engine found in the Accent returns up to 32 mpg combined, according to the EPA. Low power and high efficiency are par for the course: None of the crossovers in the Venue’s class—Ford EcoSport, Toyota C-HR, Chevy Trax, and Kicks—are screamers.

Geared toward city-dwellers and first-time buyers, the Venue’s affordability and unique looks will be its tune. And budget shoppers will be listening.

For more from the 2019 New York auto show, head over to our dedicated hub.

 

 

Source: thecarconnection.com

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Scientists Reveal the First Picture of a Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope has captured a photo of a supermassive black hole at the center of M87, a galaxy 54 million light years away.

Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al.

 

In the century since Einstein predicted the existence of black holes in his theory of gravity, astrophysicists have turned up overwhelming evidence for the things. They’ve observed the push and pull of black holes on the orbits of nearby stars and planets. They’ve heard the vibrations, or gravitational waves, resonating from black holes colliding. But they’d never glimpsed a black hole face to face—until now. On Wednesday, astrophysicists announced they had captured the first-ever image of a black hole.

The picture, taken over five days of observations in April 2017 using eight telescopes around the world by a collaboration known as the Event Horizon Telescope, depicts luminous gas swirling around a supermassive black hole at the center of M87, a galaxy 54 million light-years away. Past the bright lights, though, is the black hole’s telltale feature: its event horizon. The event horizon is the edge of the spacetime abyss, where gravity is so strong that no light can escape from it. “It’s the point of no return,” says Feryal Özel of the University of Arizona, who is a member of the EHT collaboration. In the image, it manifests itself as the “sudden absence of light,” she says.

Previously, researchers had captured a blobby jet of light emerging from where the M87 black hole was predicted to be—but they couldn’t definitively see the black hole because their instruments were nowhere near as sharp as EHT’s. “It’s like going from a cheap smartphone camera to a high definition IMAX cinema,” says astrophysicist Andrew Strominger of Harvard University, who was not involved in the work.

 

The South Pole Telescope, one of eight telescopes used to capture the first black hole image. Dan Marrone/

This black hole is about 6.5 billion times the mass of the sun. Still, it’s tiny from a vantage point on Earth, just 50 microarcseconds wide in the sky, which makes it about as hard to see as a donut placed on the moon. It took eight different telescopes to image it. The telescopes collected observational data that was synced with the precision of a billionth of a second.

To see the black hole’s boundary between light and dark, the astrophysicists captured radio waves—light 1.3 millimeters in wavelength, invisible to the human eye—emitted by the gas swirling around the black hole. The gas emits light of all different wavelengths, including visible light, but the researchers chose this particular wavelength because it can sail through entire galaxies and even Earth’s own atmosphere without being absorbed. But they still needed good weather at all eight of their telescope sites to see the black hole. Before switching on their telescopes, they had to monitor the moisture in the air, says Özel—too much humidity would ruin their images. To minimize the chance of rain, they built the telescopes in dry regions, including the South Pole and the Atacama Desert in Chile.

M87’s black hole is relatively close to Earth, as the light coming from it was only emitted 54 million years ago—so we’re seeing it at a more mature moment in its existence. “At this point in the age of the universe, black holes have calmed down,” says Özel. “They’re basically eating gas trickling in from nearby stars.” M87’s black hole does emit bright jets of gas, but it’s still pretty dim compared to younger black holes that are further away. These younger black holes accumulate larger amounts of matter, so their swirls of luminous gas shine brighter.

 

Source: wired.com

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2019 Smart Fortwo

The 2019 Smart Fortwo delivers on its promises: two people, electric powertrain, and a city car. It doesn’t promise much else, though.

 

 

Car research isn’t as easy as it should be. Reading reviews, sorting through them, and deciding on the best vehicle to buy can be complex, frustrating and time consuming.

Our goal is to make your car research experience easier. The Car Connection provides car ratings, reviews, and shopping tools that simplify the car buying process. We empower you to make car buying decisions more quickly and with more confidence—from any device.

For 2019, we’ve changed how we rate new models here at The Car Connection. We constantly update our methodology to better equip readers and buyers with information about more than 300 new cars and SUVs. This year, it means an even stronger emphasis on fuel economy and safety.

 

Source: thecarconnection.com

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FACET (Future Air Traffic Management Concepts Evaluation Tool)

 

FACET – short for Future Air Traffic Management Concepts Evaluation Tool –was such a hit when it was introduced a decade ago that NASA named it the agency’s Software of the Year for 2006. As a research tool, FACET quickly analyzes thousands of aircraft paths and displays them on a map. One of FACET’s new features is to display global flight trajectories between the continents. NASA receives data from the Official Airline Guide, which provides the departure and arrival cities, and the expected departure and arrival times.

FACET then draws a Great Circle route between the city pairs and calculates where the aircraft would be at any given time. NASA has used this capability to study the impact of global aviation emissions on the environment.

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2019 Hyundai Tucson

 

The 2019 Hyundai Tucson Night Edition crossover SUV will be dressed for the evening when it is revealed later this year. We don’t know exactly what it’ll look like, but we can guess.

Source: https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1121596_2019-hyundai-tucson-night-edition-adds-upscale-bbs-wheels

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Hyundai’s new airbag system aims to protect in secondary collisions

 

Hyundai on Monday revealed its new multi-collision airbag system, which aims to keep drivers and passengers safe in the event of a secondary impact.

Secondary crashes are collisions that occur after the initial impact. For instance, if a driver sideswipes another vehicle and the impact is not great enough to deploy the airbags, the multi-collision system remains active in the case of a second impact. Say, if the driver’s vehicle then slides and collides with another vehicle, tree, or light post. The airbags will deploy in these cases and the system takes into account the driver and passengers’ positions. More often than not, occupants are not sitting in standard positions.

CHECK OUT: Hyundai Mobis introduces world’s first panorama sunroof airbags

Hyundai said it recalibrated the collision intensity required for deployment, which keeps the airbags on guard for a secondary impact. They will deploy quicker than standard systems with initial impact airbags, according to the automaker, and the system provides an added safety buffer when occupants are most vulnerable to injuries following the first impact.

The airbags will deploy even after an initial impact if it was not a great enough force to deploy them originally.

According to data from The National Automotive Sampling System and Crashworthiness Data System, three in ten car crashes involve a secondary impact. 

Secondary impacts are more common than most think, and we’re often trained to highlight the effects of a single impact. However, the type of crash is no stranger to public roads. The NASS showed the leading-type of multi-collision crash is when a vehicle crosses over the center line. Other instances where drivers are involved in these types of crashes include sudden stops at toll booths, wrecks on a highway median, and swiping a poll or tree.

 

Source: thecarconnection.com

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2019 INFINITI Q60

 

The 2019 Infiniti Q60 is a beautiful luxury coupe that’s an alternative to staid competitors.

The 2019 Infiniti Q60 is focused more now on its mission as a luxury sport coupe.

This year, the coupe cleaved its turbo-4 engine from the lineup in favor of a twin-turbo V-6 only menu, offered in two tunes.

 

 

We give the 2019 Q60 a 6.2 overall thanks to its good looks and sharper performance this year. (Read more about how we rate cars.)

 

 

Full report: 2019 INFINITI Q60 Review

Web: thecarconnection.com

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