From a supercharged 6.2L V8 engine, to race-worthy Brembo brakes, to a magnetic ride suspension, the CTS-V proves that Cadillac can compete in the luxury-performance segment. But, what advancements are they making inside their cars? Cadillac hopes their forthcoming CUE (Cadillac User Experience) interface will revolutionize the way we interact with our vehicles.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Welcome to TRANSLOGIC. I'm Bradley Hasemeyer. When you think Cadillac, you probably don't think performance and industry leader of technology, but, with a 556-horsepower CTSV and a new infotainment system called Q, they're trying to change some perceptions.
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So when you're in a car like a Cadillac CTS-V coupe, you got to wonder, where do I take this? Where do I take a car with 556 horses just screaming to get to 60 in 4.2 seconds? Somewhere you can let it stretch its legs, the highway.
This car specifically is loaded with tech, loaded with performance numbers. It's really all about value. Going from 0-60 in 4.2 seconds, that puts you in league with like a 911 or a Jaguar XKR. And those kind of vehicles don't ride this smooth, and they don't cost around $60,000 like this car does.
It's got a magnetic ride system. What they've used is a liquid with metallic particles. Magnets charge the particles, which thickens the liquid and gives the suspension a stiffer or less stiff ability in no time at all. GM originally innovated this magnetic ride suspension with the Corvette. They moved it over here to the CTS-V coupe, and then Ferrari was all like, ding dong. Yo Cadillac, check it out. We want to borrow some of that technology. Cadillac's like, OK. That's cool.
So now a car like the 599, to use either the same or a derivative of this magnetic ride suspension. Stopping from 60 miles an hour in around 100 feet is phenomenal, and that's achieved through the Brembo brakes on this thing. Six pistons in the front and four in the rear. What that means is that each brake pad has three pistons on each side squeezing against the rotor. Of course, just like parties, the more the merrier.
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So now we're here to talk about Cadillac Q, Cadillac user experience. With me is Stuart. Stuart, thanks for meeting with us.
STUART NORRIS: Yeah, nice to meet you.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: So tell me a little bit about how this infotainment system is different than the myriad of other ones on the market right now.
STUART NORRIS: Well, I think what we've really done here is-- is created just the next level of user experience inside the vehicle. We've developed this fantastic integrated cockpit experience between the center stack the steering wheel controls, and the cluster. We're the first in the market to be offering a fully capacitive face plate. Both the display and the lower portion are all capacitive. We really tried to take-- they've got all these great consumer electronics products. We wanted to bring that experience into the vehicle.
We've got all of our applications laid out on the home page. It's a multiple pages. Right now, I'm on my XM station, so I've got my list here, and I can just drag my-- my finger up and down.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: And you can also feel the haptics coming through as well.
STUART NORRIS: Yeah, it comes right back at you.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: All right, so what I'm looking at here on the screen look like apps.
STUART NORRIS: Yep .
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Is there a thought that you guys would open this up to a third party app creators?
STUART NORRIS: We're in negotiations with third parties to develop apps for the system.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: That's so cool.
STUART NORRIS: Yeah, we've got Pandora available, and it's a two-way communication. So yeah, I'm able to actually replicate the Pandora interface on the screen. You got the thumbs up, thumbs down.
Another feature of q is really about the fact that we've got this ability to tailor the layout of the information for customer tastes. Maybe on the kind of customer that wants just a really minimalist amount of information on the screen. Using the five-way controller on the steering wheel, I can go into a that layout. And there I go to my simple layout.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: And it just reloads.
STUART NORRIS: Yeah right. The great thing about the reconfigureable display is, I can control information within these windows. So I can have my tire pressure monitor in there. Maybe I've got trip information.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Right, right. What's interesting to me about infotainment systems right now in cars is they seem cool for the time being, but in three years it's going to seem antiquated. And you guys have the ability to really update the whole thing.
STUART NORRIS: So what we did was you know we've only got four buttons on the face plate right? So there's no real hardware involved with this system. I can get my USB stick, and I can update the software. And we can grow upon the basic hardware of what we've done there by software updates and we can bring more functionality and more features to the customer based on what we're giving them in the first place. We've enabled upgrade ability in the hardware and we can deliver that over the lifetime of the vehicle
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: So from Magnetic Ride Control suspension to leading the way in Next Gen Infotainment it's obvious that this isn't your dad's Cadillac anymore. All right. For TRANSLOGIC I'm Bradley Hasemeyer. See you next week.
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