Fiat 500e and 500L Trekking

After a long time of concept cars being shown and speculations of all kinds, Fiat takes this big opportunity and uses the Los Angeles Auto Show to reveal their next cars to arrive in North-America. Even in Europe, they’re making a big effort into taking 500 from an only version to a whole car family. The first steps were creating the Abarth sporty versions, then the convertible body called 500C, and now the minivan 500L. Here you will find out about two members of this stylish Italian family that just made their debut in the US.

Fiat has received many efficiency awards for the MultiAir and the TwinAir engines, but they’ve never performed any attempt of developing neither electric or hybrid propulsion for series production until now… which doesn’t mean that they weren’t working on it. But electric cars are a very expensive project to release in cars with low sales volumes, so the Italians needed to make a very good first choice. And which Fiat could be better to debut this new technology than their most charismatic hatchback of the last few years? At least in a first moment, 500e will be sold only in the US, but using lots of technology to compete with cars like the also recently shown Chevrolet Spark EV. The new Fiat comes in new color options and features an aerodynamic kit, with spoilers and wheels with less openings, everything to achieve a 13% better air flow. Those are some of the responsibles for the 108 city MPGe and 122 highway MPGe ratings, not to mention the 87-miles range – Fiat claims this is the best number in 500e’s class. The biggest inside changes are the new touchscreen above the console and the driving mode selector: instead of the gearshift lever there’s a button selector for the driving modes. These two-color external details shown in the pictures can be sy customized by the owners, but here’s the painful part of Fiat’s effort with 500e: in order to offer a reasonable price, they will lose money for each sold car.

On the other hand, the North-Americans now won’t need to give up buying a Fiat due to lack of internal space. Some months after the European release, the Italian minivan arrives at the other side of the ocean with some exclusive items: there are more body-color painted parts, giving 500L the appearance of a bigger car. But it also received slight updates to the headlights, including LED daytime illumination, and a panoramic sun roof: the minivan has arrived still only in the five-seat option, but these passengers will enjoy the 42% bigger space along with all the visibility brought by very big windows. And when the weather becomes unpleasant, they can enjoy the also exclusive entertainment system with the UConnect entertainment system with 5” touchscreen or the available 6,5” option. When it comes to opening the hood, this car takes the family with plenty of power but prefers to focus at a low fuel consumption rather than breaking speed records: this car uses the same 1.4 MultiAir Turbo saw in Dodge Dart, bringing the best of downsizing with its 160 hp using manual or automatic double-clutch transmission. Besides that, Fiat will repeat the big personalization options list offered for the hatchback, including different colors for the roof. But the cherry of this cake is the yellow car of these pictures: the 500L Trekking brings all that package wrapped in a more aggressive design, with exclusive colors, bigger wheels and black-painted external details.

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JAC J2

Este sim é o grand finale do ciclo inicial de novidades da JAC para o Brasil. Depois de estrear entre nós em duas das mais movimentadas categorias com a linha J3, os chineses procuraram seduzir a classe média com a minivan J6 e o sedã J5, e agora formam a base da gama com o J2. Com as obras da fábrica baiana a todo vapor, as próximas medidas da marca terão como base o desempenho que obtiver esta primeira linha de veículos. Então, será que o subcompacto chinês vai conseguir escrever uma história de sucesso por aqui?

Vendido na China desde 2010, este carro precisou passar por algumas mudanças para chegar a nós. Mas além das já conhecidas adaptações para o solo e combustível brasileiros, os chineses quiseram que o J2 não virasse mais um carro popular, e sim algo mais próximo ao conceito europeu de subcompacto. Ou seja, em vez de vendê-lo com o mínimo de equipamentos para custar menos, eles deixaram o preço em segundo plano para focar na jovialidade. Ele não pretende se dedicar às famílias menos abastadas, mas sim aos grupos de amigos. Ser o segundo ou terceiro carro de uma casa de classe média-alta, ou o primeiro veículo de um universitário, além de outros casos similares. Essa proposta se faz com um desenho lúdico, cheio de ideias criativas e proporções um tanto exóticas que, por exemplo, fazem a fama do Fiat Uno até hoje. Porém, o formato do J2 é muito mais parecido ao do Peugeot 107 e ao do conterrâneo Chery Face: está lá o mesmo conceito de cabine recuada com capô curto e alto, mas chamando atenção pela traseira muito curta, com a cabine terminando quase junto com o próprio carro. Falando no modelo da Chery, é de se esperar uma acirrada disputa do modelo da JAC com o trio da rival, formado por QQ, S-18 e Face.

Após esta apresentação inicial, já é possível imaginar que as medidas do hatch também têm prioridades diferentes das de, por exemplo, um Ford Ka ou um VW Gol: duas formas de arriscar a integridade do grupo de amigos mencionado seriam a tentativa de acomodar um quinto passageiro ou a promessa de levar muita bagagem – a imagem que mostra a tampa traseira aberta revela tanto seu tamanho diminuto como os apenas quatro encostos de cabeça. Contudo, quem aceitar tais condições viajará com conforto e segurança garantidos por um farto pacote de itens de série, que traz airbag duplo, alarme, ar-condicionado, direção elétrica, freios com ABS e EBD, sistema de som multimídia, trio elétrico e até sensores de estacionamento traseiros (somados à sua traseira tão curta, errar na baliza com este carro deve ser impossível), tudo por R$ 30.990. As alterações que este carro recebeu para o Brasil incluem um parachoque dianteiro de desenho mais esportivo, apesar de ajudarem o carro a parecer um Picanto de geração anterior. Difícil é gostar das enormes lanternas, cujo desenho faz pensar que cada uma são duas peças diferentes que foram soldadas em uma só. Resta saber se o adesivo preto atrás das janelas traseiras será opcional ou obrigatório; se o J2 quer buscar referências em estilo, digamos que não é bom emprestar soluções como a que se vê no Chevrolet Agile.

Por outro lado, o conjunto de adaptações ao mercado brasileiro fica muito interessante quando se abre o capô: como o modelo chinês usa um 1.0, a JAC não poderia querer evitar que o J2 seja visto como um popular ao oferecer o que se tornou o maior símbolo desta categoria (a categoria dos populares literalmente se formou ao redor do motor 1.0, com o Fiat Uno Mille de 1990). Como a troca de motor era necessária, optaram pelo mesmo 1.4 16v que equipa o irmão maior: é esperável que a manutenção desta parte seja a mesma do J3, mas os 108 cv de potência e o torque de 14,1 kgfm se tornam empolgantes ao levar o baixo peso do J2 (915 kg): a marca anuncia aceleração de 0 a 100 em 9s8 e velocidade máxima de 187 km/h, mas é uma pena que ele ainda se restrinja à gasolina. Conta-se que ele também teve melhorias na vedação dos vidros e no isolamento acústico da cabine, mas a personalização também vale menção. O novo Uno fez tanto sucesso ao instaurar a oferta desses acessórios na categoria popular que ganha mais este seguidor: o chinês oferece vários adesivos externos para teto e capô, e rodas e capas dos retrovisores que podem vir em preto, grafite ou cromados, para os últimos. Além disso, se o Brasil não verá a personalização interior, que no modelo chinês inclui cores fortes para os bancos e o painel circular, nós também fomos poupados do nome que ele usa por lá. Ou você gostaria de dirigir um carro chamado Yueyue?

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Ford Fiesta ST

The hot hatches fans have received one more reason to celebrate. The Los Angeles Auto Show will have the first official appearance of the new sports version of Ford’s most successful compact hatchback, which will feature all the benefits of the modern technology in a new variation whose performance is comparable to many bigger vehicles’, not to mention some of the muscle cars from forty years ago. This version also brings the whole Fiesta family’s 2013 facelift, so how about to start with meeting its urban siblings?

Fiesta has been in the current generation for four years by now, but it became one of those really well-designed cars which age much slower. Until the last decade, Opel Corsa B and VW Golf 4 were very good examples of that, leading to believe that the “secret” for that was using clean, simple lines instead of more sculpted shapes like what was used by the 2000s Peugeot. However, the sixth Fiesta has the merit of being one of the first models to present what today is one of global car design trends. In other words, if in 2008 Fiesta was considered very futuristic, it’ll still up-to-date now and will be it for several more years. That’s why this half-age facelift had nothing but minor style changes, preferring to focus in other areas. Ford didn’t try to adapt Fiesta to anything or to make seem younger because this car actually doesn’t need that. They only gave it a cleaner front design, changing the two air intakes for a bigger-sized one, in order to resemble the latest releases such as the new Kuga and Fusion. As what was first seen in Paris and São Paulo, this phase received improvements such as parental control items and more safety items.

But the North-American version also brings very important news opening the hood. This car will repeat the European success of the 1.0 EcoBoost engine, Ford’s very famous propeller family that generates 125 hp in one of its versions and achieves a 40 mpg fuel consumption – this number gives it the title of less-consuming US car without hybrid or electric propulsion. Besides that, the interior received slight changes to improve the sophistication: the two-colored coating with light tones helps the cabin to seem bigger, while the younger customers will enjoy the items such as the Sync entertainment system: it features multimedia sound connectivity, smartphone interface and Bluetooth, among other functions. This is Ford’s answer in a car category which is receiving increasingly big attention even in the US because of the efficiency appeal, brought both by the reduced size and by the smaller engines. That’s why Chevrolet offers Spark, Fiat debuted with 500 and Hyundai and Nissan sell respectively Accent and Versa, these two also with hatchback and sedan versions, like Fiesta. And if that market is still starting to welcome this size of car, how about the emergent countries, who have always sold millions of them? Brazil, for example, has already confirmed to produce the hatchback Fiesta, adding the three-volumes version later.

Nevertheless, the EcoBoost family shows that its expertise doesn’t restrict itself only to the efficiency area. The bright orange car shown at these pictures deserves the ST badge by the high performance, but deserves an even bigger merit for many others. There are several spoilers and even a rear air diffuser to optimize the aerodynamic drag, but this car impresses also when stopped – there will be lots of other vibrant colors to match those beautiful 17” wheels. The cabin pleases every hot hatch fan with two-colored Recaro seats with excellent body support, while the dark colors used at the rest of the room give the typical sports car sensation. There will be the best trim level available for Fiesta, and the handling was improved with a more rigid suspension, which was also lowered in half an inch. All of that comes to suit what moves this car: the EcoBoost 1.6 comes in the 200-hp version, even more powerful than the European one. Since this engine brings the best of the downsizing technologies, the turbine is only one of the responsibles for all that power, which is controlled by a front-wheel traction and manual six-speed transmission. Not to mention that it also gives to Fiesta the title of most powerful car in its category.

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