Indholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2025 i MotorTrend

2025 MOTORTREND POWER LIST The auto industry has been in a state of flux considering electric, self-driving, and software-defined vehicles against a backdrop of geopolitical tension and changing consumer appetites. For automakers undertaking decisions for cars that will launch years from now, reading that crystal ball has always been incredibly difficult. Doing so is even trickier in 2025. 2024 had no shortage of drama. Henrik Fisker’s second automotive startup filed for bankruptcy. Stellantis imploded, culminating in the resignation of CEO Carlos Tavares and an executive shuffe to win back the trust of dealers, suppliers, employees, and customers. The UAW organized the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee but failed at the Mercedes plant in Alabama. A cyberattack virtually shuttered dealerships across the U.S. for weeks. GM folded Cruise, its self-driving division. Automakers’…

Aston Martins have often been a triumph of style over substance. Yes, they’ve been fast and charismatic, but rarely did an Aston represent the cutting edge of performance technology. Until now. The 2026 Valhalla is a state-of-the-moment mid-engine supercar that will have folks at Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren checking their rearview mirrors. The Chevy guys, too, because the all-wheel-drive Valhalla has the same power as the bonkers new Corvette ZR1 but will be about 150 pounds lighter. This is a substantially different car to the AM-RB 003 concept that portended it back in 2019. The AM-RB 003, developed with the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team and its now-ex design genius, Adrian Newey (now the managing technical partner of the Aston Martin F1 team), was intended to be powered by…

What precisely is a muscle car? Depends on who you ask. Younger readers will likely point to modern iron like the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, and Dodge Challenger coupe and Charger sedan—any American car with rear drive and an optional V-8. Our esteemed older readers likely have different ideas—dismissing the aforementioned as pony cars and pointing to intermediate-bodied coupes with V-8s as prime examples—your Chevelles, Fairlanes, or original Chargers. No doubt most if not all agree, however, about what a muscle car does. It announces you’ve begun your day and when you’ve arrived. It encourages you to look over at the driver next to you at the light and think, “Yeah, I got ’em.” It inspires you to tell your buddies, “Watch this!” as you roast your rear tires and…

We traveled to Wuhan, China, recently to drive some of the latest and greatest Chinese EVs and to see if American trepidation over Chinese cars is justified. We also made a point to embrace the country’s car culture and to get a sense of what things were like on the ground for both Chinese automakers and consumers. That insight, we figured, just might help us analyze how American shoppers and automakers would fare if Chinese-branded EVs ever hit American roads. China has more than 200 electric vehicle brands competing against one another in a saturated market that, demographically, is already in decline. It’s an unsustainable situation, yet China’s big carmakers (and Western ones competing in China) keep launching new brands. Geely alone had four of its 13 brands represented among…

After the longest run in the model line’s history (the fifth-generation, N280 Toyota 4Runner was around for 16 years), the sixth-generation SUV is all new. It’s another vehicle spun from the brand’s TNGA-F platform, the eighth such example when you count the Land Cruiser and Lexus GX as separate vehicles, which we do. The biggest news is the elimination of six-cylinder power in favor of either a turbocharged I-4 or a hybridized version of it. With the TRD Pro being the top trim—or at least tied for it with the Trailhunter, which carries the same high starting price of $68,350—it is available only with the hybrid powertrain option. The i-Force Max Turbo Hybrid here is good for 326 hp and an impressive 465 lb-ft of torque. Toyota also dropped the…

The first Volvo arrived on U.S. shores in 1955, and the safety-obsessed Swedish marque has since weaved itself into the American automotive culture’s fabric. We believe the best way to explore an automaker’s rich history is to drive its cars, and Volvo happily opened the key box to its extensive collection of historic vehicles. Just how has Volvo evolved over all these years? Time spent behind the wheels of some of its most intriguing offerings revealed much. 1957 Volvo PV444 By the time the PV444 arrived stateside in 1955, it was already an eight-year-old design with prewar roots. You can tell; witness its two-piece windshield, floor-mounted pedals, and giant art deco steering wheel. Even the gauges’ font makes the 444 feel more like a 1940 Ford De Luxe than the…

It’s easy to say the 2025 Porsche 911 GT3’s changes are too minor to matter. From the outside, without a 992.1 GT3 parked next to a 992.2 (that’s Porschespeak for pre- and post-refresh), it’s basically impossible to tell the difference between them. Even the cars’ spec sheets are essentially the same, with the 992.2’s slight reductions in torque and top speed being the most obvious tells. But then you drive the new one and ask yourself: How the hell did Porsche do it again? How did it take a car we already thought was perfect—a machine we named our 2022 Performance Vehicle of the Year—and make it even better? Short answer: by making it easier to live with, without diluting its character or capabilities. Persnickety global emissions and noise regulations…

ARRIVAL 2024 Toyota Prius Prime XSE Why It’s Here The final part of our Of The Year testing doesn’t occur at a proving ground but instead in the real world for a year of intensive evaluation. So we welcome a 2024 Toyota Prius Prime, part of the 2024 Car of the Year–winning Prius lineup, to our fleet. What We Got The Prius Prime plug-in hybrid, the spiritual successor to the Chevy Volt. The base Prius PHEV sports 44 miles of electric-only range, but we traded 5 miles in favor of more stylish wheels, a sunroof, and Toyota’s latest infotainment and safety software tech for our midgrade XSE. *EPA blended PHEV (charge-depleting) mode testing, with vehicles set to their default drive and brake regeneration modes.' 2024 Toyota Prius Prime XSE (Premium)…

”Racing improves the breed.” “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” There was a time when these axioms indeed rang true throughout the car business, but the linkage between performance on racetracks and performance on the roads most of the global population is limited to driving on has become increasingly tenuous over the years. Case in point: Denny Hamlin’s V-8-powered, rear-drive Toyota Camry NASCAR Cup Series racer, as just one example, has absolutely nothing in common with the Camry on sale at Toyota dealers around America. You might think the technologies deployed in Formula 1—a racing series wherein the teams spend more than $100 million per year even in this cost-cap era in the pursuit of performance improvements measured in hundredths of a second—would be removed even further from the cars…

Fast, curvaceous cars and British Racing Green? The warm glow of wood, the rich tang of leather, the bright splashes of chrome? Grace, pace, and space? Forget everything you know about Jaguar. The storied British carmaker is undergoing the most profound transformation in its 89-year history. The new Jaguar is nothing like the old. Everything, including the creation of a new typeface for the company logo, is different. Necessary Upheaval Jaguar Land Rover already shocked Jaguar enthusiasts and dealers when it announced it would end the production of all gas-powered Jaguars in 2024 and stop selling them worldwide until the first of the brand’s all-new electric models, a car described as a four-door GT, launches in 2026. Halting production of today’s Jaguar lineup and effectively withdrawing the brand from the…

Stop us if you’ve heard this before: Lincoln is in the middle of reinventing itse … —oh, you have heard it? Well, maybe you haven’t heard this: This time, it’s working. If you haven’t noticed, there’s excellence up and down today’s Lincoln lineup, from the compact Corsair to the extra-large Navigator, with each new model even more impressive than the former. It’s quite a redemption arc, one that also includes the Nautilus taking home our 2025 SUV of the Year award (Winter 2025). The Aviator, another cornerstone, has been thoroughly refreshed for 2025. Does this three-row midsize SUV still fit the narrative? The good news is the new Aviator builds on good bones. The prior version was already ranked third in its segment in our Ultimate Car Rankings (visit MotorTrend.com…

The world has changed in since we first reported on Chinese automakers’ inroads into Mexico (December 2023) and their intentions to enter the American market via the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement free trade treaty. American and Canadian politicians have responded with 100 percent tariffs on cars, parts, and software to protect their automotive industries from what they perceive to be a global threat, while Western automakers themselves have sounded the alarm about the cheap prices and growing quality of Chinese cars. How good are Chinese EVs really? We found out firsthand as part of our excursion to Wuhan, the heart-land of China’s automotive industry. It’s effectively impossible for foreign visitors to legally drive in China (thus making sourcing cars to test a problem), so we relied on our partners in this endeavor,…

Call us old-fashioned, but we still believe a $100,000 vehicle should look and feel luxurious. It’s almost a radical idea in 2025, especially when it comes to electric pickups, where spending six figures can buy what appears to be a $70,000 truck with $30,000 of batteries. The pickups in this comparison test are as close as it gets to a $100,000 truck that actually looks the part. The $99,495 GMC Sierra EV Denali Edition 1 and the $101,700 Rivian R1T Tri don’t need to apologize for their prices. Upscale cabins and high-tech hardware in the Sierra and R1T mean you never need to explain to your neighbors that lithium-ion batteries are incredibly expensive. Like so many gas Sierras before it, the electric GMC is a mechanical twin of the Chevrolet…

To say the Lucid Gravity must outdo the Air sedan is an understatement. This new luxury electric SUV needs to advance from its excellent yet idiosyncratic forebear. More important, it must sell well enough to support its struggling maker. Lucid has long needed an SUV but didn’t cobble one together just to get something to market. Our first sample indicates the wait will be worth it for drivers—but for Lucid? Lucid’s top brass told us the Gravity was a more difficult undertaking than the Air, as if making what might be the world’s best electric sedan wasn’t hard enough. We respect the team’s challenge in creating a vehicle that shows a lineage to its predecessor while expanding its approaches to design, technology, and engineering. The more Lucid informed us about…

What’s the point? The new Pagani Utopia begins life at $3.4 million, and the company will build only 99 coupes, followed by 130 roadsters and however many subsequent special editions. If the entire run isn’t already sold out, it will be by the time you finish this sentence. Relatable? Not at all. The 300 or so dudes (it’s mostly dudes) who buy Paganis will buy the Utopia and park it next to their Huayras—and if they’re true ballers, a gray-market show-and-display Zonda hypercar. Or two. Should we care? Yes, we should, because the Utopia is simply wonderful. The true point of a supercar is to take your breath away, and the Pagani Utopia certainly does so. First shown in an odd creamed-white bone color, the photos didn’t do it any…

Blackened trees fill the valley ahead, stubborn Douglas fir refusing to give in to the previous season’s wildfire. Snow still caps distant peaks, but here the early summer sun shines through wispy clouds, and a cool breeze rustling the undergrowth is all I hear. Just off the path, wild raspberries grew next to a fallen log, a perfect place for a hungry bear or weary hiker to rest and have a snack. I close my eyes and slowly inhale the mountain air. It took nine months and 10,000 miles, but our Crosstrek had finally found, well, wilderness. Or at least it got a nibble of nature. In truth, we were mere footsteps past the end of a gravel road in North Cascades National Park, spreading my grandfather’s ashes. But gazing…

Well, that worked, didn’t it? From the moment Jaguar revealed its colorful brandscape video, the social media landscape went ablaze with commentary and conjecture. Even Twitterer (Xer?)-in-chief Elon Musk took time out from shipping Cybertrucks and catching rockets and schmoozing Donald Trump to ask, “Do you sell cars?” Yes, everyone was talking about a faintly fusty British automaker that a few months prior seemed destined to slip into quiet oblivion. And here’s what all the fuss is really all about: the Jaguar Type 00. The most important concept car in Jaguar’s 90-year history, the brave and uncompromisingly provocative Type 00 kicks off Jaguar’s bold new strategy designed to reinvent itself as a 21st-century modernist, relatively exclusive, and pricey luxury brand. “It is our first physical manifestation and the foundation stone…

Swapping a stick shift for shift paddles doesn’t ruin the Toyota GR Corolla, the hot hatchback that initially only offered a manual transmission. If you aren’t used to slinging gears yourself, the GR Corolla’s new-for-2025 automatic gearbox option makes the impressively comfortable and quick superhatch even more approachable, without disturbing much of its underlying greatness. Still, for drivers proficient with three pedals, rev-matching downshifts, and fiddling around with a car’s balance using engine braking, the GR auto will from time to time leave you feeling like you’re missing out. In terms of outright speed, you don’t miss a thing by opting for the new eight-speed automatic. Dubbed DAT, for Direct Automatic Transmission, this is a torque-converter setup, not a dual-clutch unit more common among high-performance small cars these days. Toyota…

Sedans once dominated America’s new vehicle market, but trends change, and SUV sales have long since surpassed those of sedans. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean there are no good four-doors to buy. Although now relegated to a much smaller corner of the market, the 2025 Toyota Camry, Kia K5, Hyundai Sonata, and Honda Accord are four excellent midsize sedans still sticking around, still offering buyers an incredible amount of car for their money. But which one executes this brief the best? The good news for this test is all the cars here are either completely new generations or newly refreshed, so there’s a lot to look forward to. Toyota introduced the all-new Camry earlier this year, and while it adopts the spirit of the new Prius’ sharp looks, its appearance remains…

The Kia EV9 concept and its sibling rival, then simply called the Hyundai Seven concept, both made their debut at the 2021 Los Angeles Auto Show. But unlike their gas-engine alter egos—the simultaneously released Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade—Hyundai held back its three-row electric SUV, now dubbed Ioniq 9, to make time for some important differentiation and revisions. And although their gas-swilling siblings’ dimensions and specifications vary by mere gnats’ whiskers, the Ioniq 9 and EV9 are differentiated more meaningfully, both on and beneath their highly individual and attractive skins. Outside, the Ioniq 9 measures 1.8 inches longer on a 1.2-inch-stretched wheelbase; it’s also 1.6 inches taller and 0.1 inch wider. Inside are 2.1 inches of added middle-row headroom and 0.7 inch more third-row legroom. Squaring off the concept’s roofline…

Red lights march across the top of the steering wheel rim in lockstep with the ever more intense howl from the big V-12 and an endless surge of acceleration. Then it’s one-two blues and a quick snap of the right-hand paddle to avoid kissing the 9,500-rpm rev limiter. There’s a crack from the exhaust as the dual-clutch transmission engages the next gear, and the V-12’s howl momentarily changes pitch. But that seemingly endless surge of acceleration continues unabated. We flash past the braking marker at 180 mph. Yeah, the Ferrari 12 Cilindri is awful fast in a straight line. The speed is hardly surprising, perhaps, given the new 12 Cilindri packs the most powerful V-12 ever installed in a factory-built front-engine Ferrari, a febrile naturally aspirated rev monster that displaces…

The number of cars on the market that represent the Old World Order of pure internal combustion shrinks week by week. If you’ve felt the desire for things to go back to the way they once were, you’re not alone. Toyota has been a major player in this global revolution, but it still offers vehicles that are comfortingly familiar, such as our humble 2022 Corolla Cross LE, which left us after a year and 16,900 miles. Above all, we loved the Corolla Cross’ practicality. Almost literally a box on wheels, Toyota’s subcompact SUV features cavernous cargo capacity. The enormous trunk is right-sized for camping trips or hauling small furniture, and we appreciated thoughtful storage solutions for phones and other trinkets. We were also happy to spend minimal money at the…

Gas-powered vehicles are usually our favorite longtermers to road-trip, but our electric EV6 bucked that trend as it racked up 24,180 miles in 13 months. The biggest test of its road-trip worthiness was a journey from L.A. to Telluride, Colorado, and back. A look at the logbook reveals no major issues or long wait times when it came to charging, a small miracle because we mostly relied on Electrify America’s network. The EV6’s ability to recharge quickly is a huge asset on long journeys, reducing stationary time. On a 350-kW charger our Kia can charge from 5 to 80 percent in 20 minutes, and it consistently went a long way between those charging breaks, as proved by its 70-mph Road-Trip Range of 260 miles. We also appreciated the Kia’s ample…