Top Gear's top five from the CES

By topgear ,

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Renovo's chippy electric supercar
It's a little known fact that most of Silicon Valley's heavy hitters are committed classic car nuts, and Palo Alto-based Renovo are chasing down some of those bonus dollars. Yes, its Coupe is a clear homage to Carroll Shelby's epic Sixties Daytona endurance racer, and the steel spaceframe chassis and fibreglass body aren't what you'd call cutting edge.

But the real fireworks lie beneath. This is an electric car, its 30kWh battery pack modules split into three locations around the car, and good for 1000lb ft of torque and a 500bhp-plus power output. It has a 100-mile range, assuming you don't spend too much time exploring its sub-four seconds 0-60mph capability.

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Dallara is helping finesse the chassis, and Brembo is developing bespoke carbon ceramic brakes, but the CES presence was down to Renovo's hook-up with chip kings Nvidia - the brains behind the Audi TT's remarkable virtual cockpit - whose new X1 chip gives the Renovo more processing firepower than a NASA shuttle mission and far-out interior telematics.

"It's as much a data centre as it is car," CEO Chris Heiser tells TG.com. "There are 1000 sensors operating on five integrated CANs, and 80 microprocessors. But we still want owners to take it to a track and thrash it."

The Coupe costs $529,000, and Heiser hopes to manufacture one a month, with the first car due to be delivered later this year, once testing is complete. He admits that bigger batteries would obviously boost range, but they'd also blunt the car's weight: at 1470kg, it's lighter than a Ferrari 458. Renovo's technical boss, Jason Stinson, has 18 years at Intel under his belt, while Heiser's background is in robotics and software design. Aussie racing legend Peter Brock is an adviser.

We're sold.

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Harman's Individual Sound Zones
You know the score: the driver wants clear nav instructions, the passenger wants to listen to Throbbing Gristle, the kids in the back want the Frozen soundtrack or One sodding Direction. Audio titan Harman has the answer: Individual Sound Zones. Basically, a pair of speakers in each headrest and above the seats helps localise the sound.

Less basically, a combination of unfathomably clever algorithms, 12 transducers, and digital sound processors helps modify the frequencies and concentrate the different outputs into each corner of the car, with impressively little spillage. TG.com tried it and liked it. "It's not intended to be the primary audio experience," chief engineer Chris Ludwig assures us. "But it gives the occupants greater flexibility." Expect this audio version of family guidance counselling to land in 2018.

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Giving you the finger: Golf R Touch and BMW
"The high performance of its computers, the brilliance of today's displays, and the recognition of precise human gestures are merging into a new interface generation," says VW.

The Golf R Touch previews next-gen VW cabins, and features three displays: a 12.8in hi-res infotainment touchscreen, an 8in screen with haptic feedback, for vehicle systems and climate control, and the main info display ahead of the driver similar to the latest Audi TT's virtual cockpit.

The Touch also previews gesture control - another big CES buzz - with one, two and three-finger gestures for volume, sat nav and phone functions. "A generation has grown up accustomed to swiping their smartphones and tablets," VW's technical boss Dr Heinz-Jacob Neusser tells TG.com, "and they expect the same functionality in their cars." When? "Before the end of the decade," according to Neusser.

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BMW, meanwhile, will almost certainly introduce gesture control in the all-new 7 series, due a lot sooner than 2020 - it's on sale in the UK this summer. Like the VW system, it works by using a roof-mounted 'time of light' 3D camera to detect and measure hand and finger movements.

BMW's system recognises four main gestures - point and draw an imaginary circle to adjust the volume, for example - but also adds proximity control. An incoming phone call can be accepted with a finger point, or dismissed with a hand swipe, and a numerical touchpad magically appears as your hand hovers into view. More will surely follow, as consumers get the hang of the tech.

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Audi, BMW and Mercedes go AI
Along with gesture control, fully autonomous cars are coming, whether we like it or not. Audi piloted an A7 all the way from San Jose to Las Vegas (550 miles) in self-drive mode, Mercedes' F015 suggests that the S-class will basically be a sumptuous boutique hotel on wheels by 2030 (full story here), and BMW had us scooting about a car park in autonomous i3s fitted with its new ActiveAssist technology.

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It uses four laser scanners - one on the front bumper, one on either side on the front wings, and the last one on the rear bumper - delivering almost 360 degrees of vision. Collision avoidance is one application: experts encouraged us to crash the i3, but we couldn't. The system works up to 15mph.

The other application is an app-based automatic parking facility, operated via a smartwatch. Arrive at a big car park, push the requisite button on the watch, and the i3 heads off by itself in search of a space. You can summon it back, too.

Farewell, then, to suspicious-smelling concrete car park stairwells. But what of the ultimate driving machine? "Our philosophy is that this is always an add-on feature," BMW's computer boffin Georg Tanzmeister tells us. "We're not interested in taking control away from the driver."

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Toyota saves the world
Forget the giant TVs and 'the internet of things', Toyota's announcement that it's placing 5,680 patents on its hydrogen fuel cell tech into the public domain and awarding royalty-free licences to interested parties was the big car story of CES.

Toyota had physicist and futurist Dr Michio Kaku on hand to add the appropriate sci-fi gloss to the news. "We're leaving the age of hydrocarbons and entering the age of hydrogen," he said.

Toyota's US VP Bob Carter added that "today's announcement has less to do with hydrogen cars, and more to do with promoting a hydrogen society. Today marks a turning point in automotive history."

Hopefully, the end products will be easier on the eye than Toyota's Mirai (pictured above). Tesla, of course, did something similar to drive take-up of EVs, and its mercurial boss Elon Musk isn't a fan of hydrogen power. Battle is joined.

Words: Jason Barlow