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world use of the car and how it is actually driven. What is typically advertised in catalogs,
the 0 to 60 time and peak horsepower, is often at odds with what you want to do to make a
car drive well in the real world.
"So we decided to ignore competitive specs and go for what the car is going to do in the real
world. Real world fuel economy rather than EPA label. We decided to focus on the directness
of the throttle response and controllability of the engine rather than peak horsepower."
Consider the risk. Some customers look at the window sticker to see what the fuel
economy numbers are. Some customers look at the ads in Car and Driver to see what the
horsepower ratings are for the vehicle and its competitive set.
Yet this development team decided that the CX-9 is going to be driven by real people in
the real world, not by denizens of Flatland.
The previous generation CX-9 is powered by a 3.7-liter V6 that produces 273 hp. The new
CX-9 is powered by a 2.5-liter, turbocharged I4 that produces 227 hp. Which leads to a bit of
a digression: Coleman points out that the new engine produces 250 hp when it is run on
93-octane—a.k.a., premium—fuel. It produces 227 hp when it is run with 87 octane. Regular.
Coleman maintains that real people are likely to try 93 for a tank or two, then 87. And they'll
discover that in terms of their actual daily driving, there isn't a whole lot of difference so
they'll probably opt for using regular gas. (And save about $0.50 per gallon in the process.)
The reason why people will discover that there isn't a whole lot of difference is because
of what they decided to focus on (in addition to improved fuel economy, and yes,
The Mercedes F 015 concept vehicle is a vision of what
an autonomous vehicle from Stuttgart might look like.
It is as expressive as it is technologically advanced.
"Real aluminum is applied on the IP and
door trim. So we offer the warmth of
leather and the coolness of aluminum.
The wood most manufacturers use is 2D.
Ours—rosewood—is more 3D." Montousse
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AD&P; ∕ SEPTEMBER 2016
MAZDA CX-9