Top tech cars of the 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show

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The annual Los Angeles Auto Show continues to dazzle with new car intros and concept cars. As well it should. LA is the car culture capital of the US and the world, more so that Detroit (heresy to live-in-the-past Michiganders), clearly more so that taxi-driven New York City, home to the two biggest US shows. More automakers have their US headquarters in California, there are more design studios and electronics R&D labs in California, and America’s most innovative car company is in California: Tesla.

This was a typical year for LA: plenty of green cars with the BMW i3 wining the Green Car Journal car of the year award, fascinating concept cars, and at least one solid trend. In this case the trend it was the rush of new (Honda, Mazda) and refreshed (Nissan) subcompact SUVs in the low and midprice range.

LA’s one drawback is a modest convention hall split into two segments. Here’s our take on the best cars and SUVs of the 2014 LA auto show, which is completing press days and opening for a week-and-a-half run for the public at the LA Convention Center through Thanksgiving Sunday.

Honda HR-V mini SUV

For urbanites who want a car to own, not a Lyft, Honda made an SUV out of the hatchback Honda Fit, our Editors’ Choice for subcompact cars. The 2016 Honda HR-V (main photo) is 169 inches long (4300 mm), nine inches longer than the Fit, the same as the boxy Honda Element (RIP 2011), and 11 inches shorter than the best-selling Honda CR-V hatchback.

Honda pulled from the Fit, CR-V and Civic parts bins for technology: The LaneWatch right side camera that Honda uses for blind spot detection is on all three. All three  offer continuously variable transmissions. The Display Audio LCD in the center stack looks more Fit than CR-V or Civic but either way the buttons are small. The four-cylinder engine, here generating 138 hp, is based on a Civic engine. The look is more Fit than CR-V; the name suggests a variant on the CR-V packaging. Honda at LA did not mention the high tech Touring package of the CR-V that incorporates adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist. 

The HR-V should be a good fit for Millennials and other urban dwellers dealing with tight parking spaces when returning from Ikea. Boomers living outside the urban core who are downsizing cars may be looking for some of the tech features of their existing midsize or large cars. For them, the CR-V may be as small as they’ll go if they want serious tech. That or they’ll look to the BMW X1 and Mercedes-Benz GLA at $30,000 and up. The closest existing competitor to the CR-V may be the Nissan Juke but it’s a relatively small seller, about 35,000 units this year, vs. 50,000 Fits and more than 300,000 CR-Vs. Others in the category include the Chevrolet Trax, Jeep Renegade, and just-announced Mazda CX-3 (below).

Like the Fit, the HR-V has the Magic Seat feature, meaning they fold low and flat by pull a nylon release tab. That’s possible because the gas tank is under the front not rear seat. The HR-V goes on sale in spring 2015 as a 2016 model.

Toyota Mirai fuel-cell car also powers your home

The coolest tech car of LA is the Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell, a midsize car with a 300-mile range using highly compressed hydrogen, Toyota says. It goes on sale in a year in California. The Golden State has the greatest density of hydrogen refueling stations (not many, as opposed to virtually none in the rest of the country). But the numbers are increasing, and Toyota hopes to follow on with sales in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

The fuel cell generates electricity (and water vapor), so Toyota is pitching the Mirai as an emergency generator for the house during a power failure. Toyota talked about a week or two of energy for an American house running at partial load. (Beware using comparisons based on Japanese homes, which use about half the electricity American houses do.)

The price is $58,000, but thanks to the tax breaks for early adopters, incentives may cut the price to $45,000. One $8,000 tax credit is due to expire at the end of 2014, however. (Japan is offering incentives to the homeland market, too, as much as 30%.) There’s also a $499 lease that includes free hydrogen. Toyota says there might be as many as 3,000 Mirais on the roads by 2017.

Don’t be surprised to see initial inventory going to influencers in Hollywood, politics and the media, since they’ll be happiest to talk up the need for more investment in hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Currently, the California Fuel Cell Partnership shows nine stations open, one for every four million people.

Toyota says it’s taking the long view with fuel cells — a decade or two just as it did with the Prius hybrid, which was initially dismissed as a feel-good for granola-eaters, propped up by tax credits and HOV-lane passes at its 1997 rollout. Last year it sold 250,000 units in the US and was among the top 20 models for sales. Worldwide, Toyota has sold 3.5 million Priuses.

Next page: Audi, Ford, and SUVs

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Top tech cars of the 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show