Indholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2024 i MotorTrend

When I began reading car magazines more than 30 years ago as an elementary school kid, I did so for one main reason: to learn and live vicariously through the words of the writers who reviewed and tested what were, in my wide eyes, the world’s most badass vehicles. In the early ’80s, for instance, I read that the V-12-powered Lamborghini Countach accelerated from 0 to 60 mph in about five and a half seconds, and all I could do was try to emit a slow whistle (I didn’t know how to whistle) and imagine what that felt like from inside the car. It wasn’t easy to comprehend for someone who had never driven anything other than a bicycle and whose family’s fleet consisted entirely of full-size vans. It was…

Secretly shuttled to places such as a powerplant turned underground techno club near the Berlin Wall or a generic warehouse in industrial Los Angeles, this is the car that Bugatti Rimac, a 55/45 joint venture between Rimac and Porsche, has built its future around. Named for an intricate wristwatch mechanism that also happens to be the French word for “whirlwind,” the new Bugatti Tourbillon hypercar bridges the gap between the gas-guzzling Bugatti Chirons of yesterday and the electron-eating megacars of tomorrow. Yet following 2016’s Chiron won’t be easy. While its cultural impact never matched the earlier Veyron’s, the Chiron was arguably better in every way. With 1,479 horsepower and 1,180 lb-ft of torque on tap to start, the Chiron was a sharper, better-handling, and more comfortable Veyron. It was still…

When your brand is defined by a single product designed more than 50 years ago, it can be difficult to do something radically different, and what counts as radical is far more permissive. In this context, the 2025 Lamborghini Temerario is a big step for a company whose ethos still revolves around the Countach. It’s OK to be skeptical. At first glance, this is yet another low-slung, wedge-shaped supercar from a marque known for almost nothing but. While there are several individual elements you can tie to the Revuelto hypercar and Urus SUV, the Temerario (Italian for “Daredevil”) charts a new direction for design as it takes over for the discontinued Huracán. What jumps out more than anything are the softer, more organic curves hiding behind the sharp character lines…

This was always the plan. In adapting our long-running Best Driver’s Car program into Performance Vehicle of the Year, we chose the word “vehicle” deliberately. Performance isn’t limited to coupes, sedans, or even SUVs, nor is it restricted to the pavement. Now, with a new venue and expanded parameters, we’ve finally realized the dream of a high-performance competition that doesn’t discriminate. “Performance” has always been a nebulous concept, but we consider it synonymous with speed. Where you’re hauling ass is irrelevant. Big horsepower, specialty suspension, and big brakes are as vital to a supercar on a racetrack as they are to a desert-running pickup. Semantics aside, it’s time competitions like ours catered to all types of factory-built and warrantied performance vehicles, not just those we traditionally think of as sports…

PROS Several Corvette firsts • Z06-level performance • Additional traction CONS Track benefits minimal • Hybrid modes obtuse • Something of a compromise Don’t get it twisted, we still have a whole lotta love for the C8 Corvette. The Stingray was our 2020 Car of the Year, and the Z06 scored our second Performance Vehicle of the Year title last year. So what gives? Why didn’t the E-Ray, a car teeming with several Corvette “first evers,” make this year’s Performance Vehicle finalist round at the very least? Good question. The E-Ray is something of a middle child between the base Stingray and the screaming-wild Z06. Its headline feature is an all-new hybrid powertrain (the biggest of its firsts) combining the Stingray’s 6.2-liter V-8 and an electric motor mounted at the…

PROS Torquey diesel engine • Sumptuous interior • Handles adverse terrain well CONS Lacks high-speed excitement • Smaller, cheaper Canyon AT4X AEV is even more fun • Needs more visual distinctions from normal Sierra trucks Yes, the off-road element of this year’s program opened up our contest to an entirely new category of performance vehicles, including trucks with bona fide dirt credentials. On paper, the Sierra AT4X AEV Edition seems like an all-dominating brute. The AT4X package is burly on its own, adding a front bumper with a standard AEV winch, an AEV front skidplate, a two-speed transfer case with Off-Road and Terrain modes, front and rear e-locking differentials, a 2.0-inch lift with highly capable Multimatic DSSV dampers, and underbody armor. Stepping up to the AEV Edition for another $6,895…

PROS Looney Tunes fast • Shockingly efficient (and not just for a 1,234-hp sedan) • Insanely capable stability control CONS Battery conditioning takes time • Brakes can’t take the heat • Lucid hasn’t figured out how to beat physics Performance Vehicle of the Year is our youngest award, but the field is already littered with greatness. Among this year’s entrants are seven variants of vehicles that won a previous MotorTrend award. By all accounts, the Air Sapphire—the track-ready version of our 2022 Car of the Year—should’ve advanced to the finalist round. But as is often the case, PVOTY reminded us perception doesn’t always match reality. The Air Sapphire is made for blowing minds. It swaps out the powertrains of lesser Lucids for a tri-motor AWD system with one motor up…

PROS Unreal power • Controllability • Sensational looks CONS Fixed-back buckets aren’t for everyone • Merely a better 720S • Ferrari offers more tech at this price It’s rare that a vehicle at one of our award programs garners as many raves from judges as the McLaren 750S yet isn’t voted forward to the finalist round. The awe-inspiring 750S exists in superposition, like Schrödinger’s cat—capable of dropping our jaws to the floor and of being a mere contender for Performance Vehicle of the Year. In another world, the 750S would’ve shrieked straight into our finalist field, but our current world is governed by the Of The Year criteria: Performance of Intended Function, Engineering Excellence, Advancement in Design, Efficiency, Value, and the PVOTY-specific Driver Confidence and Engagement. The McLaren crushes most…

PROS Compliant chassis • Grip for days • Enjoyable low-end power CONS Rather unremarkable overall • Expensive • No real advancements In the current absence of a true STI model, WRX fans will have to make do with the WRX TR (and soon the WRX tS). It’s comfier, more sophisticated, and assembled betterthan any WRX that’s come before it, making today’s WRX more luxurious than ever—even if it’s at the cost of some of its soul. Call it “thrills minimized in favor of everyday competency,” as associate editor Billy Rehbock put it. The good news is the WRX TR will take a thrashing with a grin on its face. That torquey, relatively low-revving turbo engine is quite enjoyable in the middle of its powerband when the boost finally comes on.…

PROS Wow, those brakes • Ample Coyote power • Excellent manual transmission CONS Starting to feel big • Strange rev-limiter behavior • Why is the handling pack optional? While far from the only metric that has made the darkest of Ford’s new Mustangs special, the Dark Horse’s immense stopping power, headlined by a Brembo brake system featuring a set of six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers, was the talk of Chuckwalla Valley during our Performance Vehicle of the Year hot laps. “The brakes are preposterous,” senior features editor Kristen Lee said. (The car we had for testing stopped in 90 feet.) “You feel like you can stop a tsunami with how powerful they are.” And so it went throughout our Dark Horse logbook. There wasn’t a judge who didn’t wax…

PROS Insane downforce • Insane handling • Seemingly limitless capability CONS Needs an experienced driver to extract its maximum • Not a daily driver for most people • Worth the trade-offs over the base GT3? If you’ve followed our previous coverage of the 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, you’ll forgive us for asking: What haven’t we reported by now in terms of how spectacularly this car performs? What haven’t we said that leaves any doubt about the track-focused abilities of the most dynamically capable, road-legal, factory-built, series-production 911 of all time? We raved about it in our first drive story and in our second drive story. We pitted it head to head against a 911 Cup race car at Road America. We ran it through our official testing regimen. It…

Roughly nanoseconds after we pronounced the Hyundai Ioniq 5 our 2023 SUV of the Year, comments poured in. Typically in all caps and lacking punctuation—save for excessive exclamation marks—they shared a similar sentiment: “That’s not a real SUV!” Part of me gets it. Hyundai’s pixel-bedazzled tall hatchback doesn’t really overlap with the traditional rugged SUV archetype. But a perception of off-road capability shouldn’t necessarily define a vehicle’s identity. Few “real” SUVs are built with trail potential in mind, and fewer still venture off pavement. Mere image is a primary selling point. Actual need for rough-terrain ability is often overvalued, but nevertheless it remains a consideration for many SUV buyers. So what would happen if I took Hyundai’s electric not-an-SUV out beyond the bitumen? Preparation was crucial. Having located our 5’s…

In the late 1960s, Ford was seen everywhere in top-level motorsports. From Monaco to Le Mans, Daytona to Pomona, and Baja to Bathurst, scarcely a weekend passed without a Ford-badged race car taking the checkered flag. From road courses to street circuits to ovals and from pavement to dirt, it was all part of a strategy cooked up at the beginning of the decade by Ford Division chief Lee Iacocca’s marketing and PR teams to make the stodgy Blue Oval brand more appealing to baby boomers. They called it Total Performance, and, among other things, it gave birth to the Mustang. Performance is back in fashion at Ford. Ford Performance Motorsports global director Mark Rushbrook heads an operation that develops race cars such as FIA-approved GT3 and GT4 versions of…

The Corvette just blew past the 800- and 900-horsepower barriers on its way to a claimed sub-10-second quarter mile and a top speed exceeding 215 mph. Powered by a flame-shooting 5.5-liter twin-turbo V-8, the 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 makes a towering 1,064 horsepower—a 309-hp mega leap over the last car to wear the ZR1 badge. A lot has changed in the five years since the previous ZR1 landed. Today’s most powerful cars run on batteries, and Corvette engines now push from behind the driver, yet the ZR1 persists as the supercar with a muscle car mindset. Making its four-figure power rating even more outrageous, we expect it to cost at least $100,000 dollars less than the European exotica it’s built to beat. As with the 638-hp C6 ZR1 and the…

A car’s rear diffuser is typically shaped to manage airflow, improve aerodynamics, and—let’s be honest—look bitchin’. The new Tourbillon’s massive piece accomplishes all that, but it also does so much more. It’s a brilliant example of how no-holds-barred engineering can make one part do the job of many—so brilliant that Bugatti design director Frank Heyl holds a patent on it. Bearing a close resemblance to the piece fitted to Bugatti’s $18.9 million La Voiture Noire, it’s about twice as large as the one on the Chiron. It's also structural, a rugged carbon-ceramic component strong enough the Tourbillon doesn’t need a rear crash beam, yielding massive weight savings. The diffuser was designed using F1-inspired crash structuring, and just like an F1 car’s nose cone, it can be easily unbolted and replaced…

Amid the large swaths of desert nothingness between Los Angeles and Phoenix, there’s something for everyone. Coachella for music fans. Joshua Tree for hikers. And Chuckwalla Valley Raceway for those who love going fast. Occupying but a fraction of the facility’s 1,000 or so acres is a 2.7-mile-long road course with 17 turns and 36 feet of elevation change. Designed by motorcycle racer Ed Bargy to be run in either direction on two wheels or four, one section straddles a milelong jet runway that doubles as a dragstrip. Maintaining a racetrack in the desert is to wage a constant war against the elements. Massive environmental swings throughout the year see subzero temperatures in the winter to the mid-120s in the summer. The best way to combat thermal stress is proper…

PROS Entertaining exhaust note • Comfortable ride • Fun to drive in average environments CONS Doesn’t live up to its name off-road • Some direct competitors are better • Maddening shift lever and shift logic Midsize trucks are well in vogue, and in the past few years across our various media platforms, we’ve seen an uptick in interest when it comes to off-road trucks and off-roading in general. That all got us thinking about how to better incorporate trucks like this into our Performance Vehicle of the Year program, so we devised a hybrid road/off-road course to aid our evaluations at Chuckwalla Raceway. The idea was to provide a more appropriate venue to highlight their abilities as their makers intended—not every performance vehicle has to be a track-oriented sports car—and…

PROS Drives like a Huracán in the dirt • The most fun you can have sideways • Oh, that V-10 CONS Not as good on track • Only works on smooth dirt roads • Limited production run Lamborghini doesn’t need any help selling cars, not even its even-pricier special editions. It also already offers the 641-hp Urus SUV for those wanting to live out their off-road rally fantasies, Italian style. There’s no logical or practical reason for the Huracán Sterrato to exist, but the world is a better place because it does. The Sterrato’s greatest pitfall is no fault of its own but one of economics. Few people get to drive any Lamborghini, and far fewer will experience the wail of the world’s last naturally aspirated V-10 while sliding sideways…

PROS Achingly beautiful • Feels special • Monster engine CONS Twitchy handling • Bit of a split personality • Dull engine note For the faithful, the Maserati MC20 coupe and MC20 Cielo convertible mark a long-awaited return to form for a company that made its name in racing. Also part of that legacy: The Italian automaker hasn’t developed a ground-up mid-engine supercar in more than 50 years. In that context, the MC20 is an enormous accomplishment that should be forgiven some imperfections. Maserati certainly got job one right: The MC20 Cielo is stunning, roof up or down. We were bowled over by its commitment to purity of form and willingness to go so far as to put all the necessary aerodynamic aids under the car and out of sight. Deemphasizing…

PROS Still quick • Comfortable • Now has back seats CONS Feels chubby because it is • More capable than stirring • Those back seats are useless When redesigning its GT sports car, Mercedes-AMG faced a conundrum: Customers loved the performance but felt the AMG GT was a bit too uncompromising. Enter this new GT, which is larger, heavier, and more comfort-focused than the lithe and stiff first-generation car. One question the GT’s softening raises: Can a sports car that sacrifices some performance for comfort be considered a step forward for something competing at, ahem, Performance Vehicle of the Year? AMG engineers certainly worked hard to mask the GT’s biggest sin, a 600-ish-pound weight gain from its bigger body, more luxurious interior, new (largely performative) rear seat, and 4Matic+ AWD.…

PROS Wickedly fun to drive everywhere • Usable everywhere, every day • No boy-racer stigma CONS Not a luxury car despite the price • Only four seats • Outdated and underutilized screens To drive the Acura Integra Type S is to love it. To drive it on a track, a back road, and in traffic is to fully understand and truly appreciate it. A driver failing to fully explore the Integra Type S leads to predictable and understandable questions. We’ve asked them ourselves. Isn’t it just a reskinned Honda Civic Type R? What is it about the Acura bodywork that makes it worth $7,105 more than the Honda? The Honda connection is undeniable, but the more you drive the Integra Type S, the more the tangible differences become clear. The…

PROS Fabulous handling • Dazzling acceleration • Impressive high-tech features CONS Compromised range • Easy to get lost in all the available modes • Occasionally reminds you how heavy it is Hyundai didn’t have to go this hard, but it did. That’s our takeaway after spending two days lapping the Ioniq 5 N around Chuckwalla Raceway and another two days driving throughout Southern California. Everyone expected something different from the hottest version of Hyundai’s electric SUV, but judges were unanimous with their overwhelming enthusiasm for the Ioniq 5 N’s whimsical nature and thrilling performance. In part, the joy comes from the theatricality. Buried under two layers of screen menus is an option to enable Hyundai’s N Active Sound+ feature, which plays three synthetic audio tracks accompanying throttle inputs. Ignition simulates…

Car enthusiasts can be a passionate, fickle bunch. Some demand manual transmissions and then don’t buy them, preferring the convenience of an automatic for daily use. Some ask for rear-drive coupes only to moan about a lack of space for passengers. Some want more power, but not if it means bigger gas bills. Some want affordable, stylish sports cars only to debate design cues on Instagram or TikTok. Yes, we enthusiasts are nitpickers. Complainers. Difficult. Passionate. Informed. Excitable. We know what we want out of a performance car, and we’re sure to tell everyone else. Our 2024 Performance Vehicle of the Year should satisfy them all. It has a powerful yet efficient twin-turbo engine, a standard manual transmission or no-cost automatic option, room for four (and their things), and world-beating…

Know your ABCs about driving the Ford F-150 Lightning. That’s ABC as in, always be charging. If there’s an open plug nearby, our Lightning is hooked to it. Also: Speed matters. Seventy mph is the sweet spot between maximum speed and range. Lastly, 20 minutes or so spent route planning via the FordPass app and third-party sources like PlugShare can save at least twice that on a road trip. Unfortunately, the latter went out the window when my wife and I got a call about a family emergency nearly 600 miles away. We grabbed our suitcases and piled into the Lightning—and then things went awry. The trip started innocently enough. Comfortable with a 93 percent charge and 287 miles of range, I tapped our destination into the navigation, and it…

After 13 months and change, MotorTrend’s yearlong test Subaru WRX Limited departed our garage. Over the course of 14,139 miles, the jack-of-all-trades found itself schlepping staffers around town, tackled the best driving roads the American West has to offer, road tripped, and even went overlanding. The car’s new 2.4-liter turbocharged flat-four makes 271 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque, routed through a six-speed manual to all four wheels. The EPA rates it for 19/26/22 mpg in city/highway/combined driving, and our example was bang-on: It averaged 22.6 mpg in our hands, somewhat surprising considering the varying driving styles of the staffers who spent time at its helm. As for maintenance, it underwent an oil change at the 1,000-mile mark, as Subaru suggests. Two more service visits, at 6,000 and 12,000 miles,…

Most environmentally concerned or interested folks in our corner of the mobility space are laser-focused on CO2. Engineers long ago figured out how to eliminate most of the other harmful stuff from combustion vehicles, and our electric ones relocate or eliminate the problem entirely. But our neighbors just outside of town in the farming world face a more daunting climate change challenge: The methane emitted by their livestock is a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than CO2. Sorry, science has yet to devise a cow burp catalytic converter. But it recently devised a way to harness methane from excreta to make legit biofuel. The nugget of this technology is nothing new. Large corporate farms long ago began collecting farm effluents (urine and manure), letting anaerobic bacteria have their way…

The Chiron’s 8.0-liter W-16 engine weighed 961 pounds alone, more than 20 percent of the car’s total mass. The Tourbillon’s V-16 weighs just 555 pounds and the new car is lighter overall. It turns out deleting four turbochargers and their attendant oil coolers and air-to-water intercoolers saves significant weight. Also note the engine’s configuration. W engines are more compact, but they require more metal. Without so much turbo hardware, the new setup is less complex, too, meaning fewer potential points of failure. There’s also a performance benefit to going hybrid. Whereas the Chiron made 1,479 hp from its W-16, the Tourbillon gets 1,775 from its powertrain. The engine makes 986 hp all by itself, impressive considering the original Veyron needed four turbos to get to 1,001 ponies. In addition, with…

JUDGES/TESTERS Erick Ayapana Associate Road Test Editor Matt Chudzinski Senior Technical Editor Scott Evans Features Editor Mike Floyd Head of Editorial Operations Jered Korfhage Technical Writer Kristen Lee Senior Features Editor Mac Morrison Executive Editor Ryan Ono Content Coordinator Billy Rehbock Associate Editor Christian Seabaugh Features Editor Alexander Stoklosa Deputy Editor Eric Tingwall Testing Director Chris Walton Road Test Editor…

PROS Big power • Strong brakes • BMW M engineering CONS OMG, it’s heavy • Did we mention it’s heavy? • Why, M, why? Ridiculous. Outrageous. Massively powerful. Absolutely gargantuan. Roaring good time. Hilarious fun. When it comes to the 2024 BMW XM Label edition, the judges were in full-on histrionic mode after their laps chucking the XM’s 6,000-plus pounds of mass around Chuckwalla’s tight, twisty circuit. The XM deserves all those callouts and then some, as it’s one of the most perplexing and polarizing vehicles BMW has ever produced. Billed as a ground-up effort by the M division, it’s a technological and engineering tour de force in many ways, though with several caveats. Given it’s a plug-in hybrid, it can travel as much as 31 miles on e-power alone,…

PROS Serious off-road hardware • There’s little that gets in its way • Easy, intuitive controls CONS Expensive • Not especially engaging at paved-road speeds • Poor fuel economy The new GMC Canyon AT4X’s off-road chops have been clear to us since the first time we drove it last fall. Obstacle in your way? No problem when your Canyon armory includes a front-view underbody camera, skidplates, trick Multimatic DSSV dampers, front and rear locking differentials, a 3.0-inch factory-installed lift kit, 33-inch Goodyear Wrangler MT rubber, and 10.7 inches of ground clearance. But wait, there can be even more. American Expedition Vehicles (AEV) and GMC (and Chevy with the Colorado Bison ZR2) teamed up to create the Canyon AT4X AEV model tested here. Compared to the standard Canyon AT4X, it includes…

PROS Quick steering • Mid-engine balance • Looks incredible CONSConfounding pedal placement • Absurdly stiff clutch • Poorly executed shifter Girls like me like a good project. We retile bathrooms, grow summer tomatoes, master barre chords. We all secretly believe that if we dated the Joker, we could fix him. This also describes my relationship with the perfectly imperfect Emira. I can fix it. But not just me, as it turned out. The new Emira immediately proved to be the ultimate project for all of us. “This is a sports car that is 95 percent of the way to being great,” associate editor Billy Rehbock said. Deputy editor Alexander Stoklosa noted an incomplete feeling: “All the bits are here, really, they just need finishing. But why can’t that have been…

PROS Still fun and relatively affordable • Slick-shifting manual transmission • Improved steering and chassis CONS Cosmetic changes are hard to spot • Roof won't fold when driving faster than 6 mph • Tough fit for taller folks How do you improve an icon? Mazda faced this question when it came to updating its beloved Miata for 2024. Famous for its cheerful demeanor, approachable pricing, and crisp manual transmission, the current-generation Miata had largely recaptured the magic of the original NA model. But the automaker identified a couple of areas where the ND needed some improvement, most notably its steering and body-roll characteristics. We’ve had a lot of experience driving the pre-refresh Miata, and the effects of the latest update were palpable. Mazda added an asymmetrical limited-slip differential to further…

PROS Better brakes, tires, suspension • Still affordable • Fun! CONS Still the same-ish • Repeat after us: It could use more power • Not enough tS tuning The mere fact the Subaru BRZ still exists in today’s automotive landscape is a borderline miracle. An affordable, purpose-built sports car with rear-wheel drive and an available manual? A naturally aspirated engine? And Subaru just made it even better? To be sure, we’ve loved us some BRZ (and its Toyota GR86, née 86, née Scion FR-S sibling) since it first burst onto the scene, and although it’s changed some over the years (more power was the most notable), the formula has remained largely the same. But like many things you love at first, sometimes that blinding shine wears off over time. Perhaps…

PROS Gobs of power • Sounds incredible • Superb balance CONS Price gets really expensive fast • Hateful haptic controls • Should it really rattle at half a mil? There’s a good reason Ferrari sits as ruler supreme atop most track and road machines. There aren’t many “bad” Ferraris, even when it tries something completely new, like a rear-drive twin-turbo V-6 plug-in hybrid with more than 800 hp. To the haters dismissing the V-6 on principle: Bye! The Ferrari 296 GTB is as righteous as they come. Like with all Maranello stock, the powertrain is the main event. “It’s amazing how Ferrari tunes this electrified V-6 to match the building excitement of its V-12 engines racing toward redline,” deputy editor Alexander Stoklosa said. “The mule-kick boost that lands just before…

PROS Truly does what it says on the tin • Vintage 911 flavor in a modern wrapper • Maybe the ultimate daily-driver 911 CONS Already sold out to wealthy folks who’ll make huge return on investment • Expensive • Suspension doesn’t like high-speed off-roading By all accounts, the Porsche 911 Dakar should be a “worse” 911 Carrera 4 GTS coupe. Featuring the power-to-weight ratio of a Carrera S, knobby tires with less grip, a suspension lift, and a roof rack most of its owners will never take advantage of—save for the extra dough it’ll provide when they flip the car for a big profit—it’s easy to dismiss the Dakar as a cynical cash grab disguised as a tribute to an overshadowed and relatively unsuccessful ’80s rally car. Yet despite all…

Projections and barstool chats about future cars historically focused on the vehicles themselves—what they might look like, how much power they might have, and what new, dazzling features and creature comforts they might offer. Those questions and the answers to them are still top priorities for many car enthusiasts and average consumers, but it’s only part of a much bigger picture when you examine the industry through the lens of 2024 and beyond. With that in mind, we present more than a dozen upcoming models whose arrivals excite us, plus updates on some of the most relevant and most talked-about technologies that may change the everyday automotive landscape far more than any single car likely ever could. 2027 BMW Neue Klasse M EV What It Is We expect BMW’s experimentation…

2022 Kia EV6 Wind AWD We’ve discovered our EV6 doesn’t play nice with Tesla’s “Magic Dock” Superchargers. A software bug causes these charge sessions to peak at low rates. SERVICE LIFE: 6 months/11,946 miles AVERAGE FUEL ECON: 3.4 mi/kWh ENERGY COST PER MILE: $0.11 2022 Toyota Corolla Cross This car isn’t the first to come to mind when we think “off-roader,” but technical writer Jered Korfhage did just that on a camping trip through Utah. SERVICE LIFE: 10 months/11,946 miles AVERAGE FUEL ECON: 28.7 mpg ENERGY COST PER MILE: $0.17 2023 Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance It transitioned from our Detroit office to our L.A. HQ. Thanks to Electrify America, the trip was anything but smooth, but it’s amusing to see the attention the car gets in SoCal. SERVICE LIFE:…

Based on 13 months and 16,898 miles driving our Volkswagen ID4 Pro, I can say without reservation that it’s a fundamentally good car. Not just as an electric SUV but as a solid, reliable, enjoyable, no-frills, basic-transportation car. Consider it the Southwest Airlines of EVs—you need to understand a few things before you set foot on your journey, but otherwise, you’ll be fine. You may even come to recognize the ID4’s inherent goodness. Conversely, the software system sucks. If you find a way to rip it out and throw it in the garbage, that’s our recommended action. The graphics are basic, and the user experience is clunky and slow. If you come from any other modern EV—or a 10-year-old Tesla—you’ll be underwhelmed Just getting into the car is consistently inconsistent.…