For 2015, Volkswagen is cleaning up the lineup for its popular four-door sedan, the Passat. What they’ve done is take all the good stuff from the mid-range Wolfsburg Edition and SE, cramming them together to make the Passat Limited edition.
The new trim level loads the Passat up with equipment like keyless entry and push button start. It also gets a touch screen, a rear view camera, V-tex leatherette seating surfaces, and an eight-way power adjustable driver’s seat. Heated seats and 17-inch aluminum alloy wheels round out the package. All this amounts to around $2,755 worth of equipment that VW makes available for only $1,555 more than the S base model, making it $23,995; just under the Wolfsburg’s $24,375.
This trim is available with the Passat’s standard 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, which gives the family sedan 170 horsepower to the front wheels by way of a standard six-speed automatic transmission.
Apart from that, its everything the top SE has, except the optional sunroof and touch screen with navigation.
This follows hot on the heels of Volkswagen’s announcement just yesterday, as it introduced a new trim level for the all-electric e-Golf, a package that gave buyers all the trimmings, save for a couple non-essentials, but shaved $2,000 worth off the bottom line. Its important to have a good balance between having available options yet still streamlining a product lineup, so its good to see Vdubs shuffling things around.
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.