For large families, three-row SUVs are a godsend. Having seven available seats (or a boatload of cargo volume when they’re folded) is vital when you’re ferrying almost a whole soccer team around town, but those seats can be a pain to adjust manually. You’ll often find yourself squeezing and bending in ways you never thought possible to reach the proper lever or switch. Thankfully, Land Rover has a solution.
The automaker will present a new Discovery at the 2016 Paris Motor Show, and the vehicle will equip a world-first feature called Intelligent Seat Fold. Using Land Rover’s InControl Remote smartphone app, drivers will be able to adjust their interior layout from anywhere in the world, a claim the brand tested recently by throwing Bear Grylls out of a plane.
What, did you have a better idea?
Read more: Land Rover’s revamped, restyled Discovery is coming to the 2016 Paris Motor Show
As shown in the short video above, Grylls was able to raise a Discovery’s second and third row seats while slicing through the air at 125 mph, which means it should be no sweat while strolling through a parking lot. According to the brand, the seats can be fully reconfigured in just 14 seconds on any iOS or Android operating system.
As for the Discovery itself, a revamp has been a long time coming. The iconic SUV has effectively worn the same design since 1998, so the new model is expected to look and behave quite differently than the old. Land Rover dropped a front-facing teaser image of the car on Monday, and if the camouflaged model shown above is any indication, the updated Disco should adopt a sleeker, rounder shape to expand its appeal. The lightweight aluminum platform that underpins the current Range Rover is also a good bet.
The wraps come off the new Discovery on September 28.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.