Innehållsförteckning för August 2022 från MotorTrend

There was one notably new experience during the otherwise perfectly normal 2023 Genesis GV60 launch (page 17). Instead of using an actual key, the new electric SUV scanned my face and fingerprint to unlock it and allow me to drive off. This was a personal first, but it likely won’t be the last. Genesis’ Face Connect and Fingerprint Reader are just two of many software-enabled functions. The SUV is not only the South Korean luxury automaker’s first EV but arguably also its first modern software-defined vehicle (SDV: page 14). Essentially a euphemism for the internet-connected car, SDVs represent the auto industry’s ongoing silent revolution as the public frets over the comparatively easy transition from internal combustion to electric power. Loosely defined as vehicles whose primary features are enabled through software…

We weren’t thrilled with the new Acura MDX when it launched in January 2021. Acura promised the fourth generation of its hot-selling three-row SUV would offer a “premium performance SUV” experience. Instead, the MDX was neither sporty nor luxurious enough to hit its target. The new MDX Type S, however, manages to fix many of the original’s flaws. Whereas the standard MDX is powered by a carryover 290-hp 3.5-liter V-6 shared with platform mates like the Honda Passport, Pilot, Odyssey, and Ridgeline, this MDX takes advantage of the Type S–exclusive engine also found in the TLX Type S. As is the case in the base MDX, the Type S is fitted with a 10-speed automatic, though torque-vectoring AWD comes standard. The most notable change, though, is the new air suspension…

Former AMG chief Tobias Moers (right), hired by Aston Martin majority shareholder Lawrence Stroll in 2020 to turn around the struggling British marque, has stepped down from his role as Aston CEO. The move comes after the two men reportedly clashed over the company’s direction. Former Ferrari CEO Amedeo Felisa is Aston Martin’s new CEO, with former Ferrari technical director Roberto Fedeli named chief technical officer. Longtime Aston Martin design chief Marek Reichman remains in his role. The installation of senior ex-Ferrari executives hints at the core of the disagreement between Moers and Stroll. The company under Moers’ leadership forged ever-closer links with AMG, the performance vehicle division of Mercedes-Benz he once headed. However, Stroll, the Canadian billionaire who owns 16.7 percent of Aston, appears to prefer an Italian approach…

When I was a kid, my folks bought cars with vinyl or polyester seats because those materials were cheap and easy to clean. Only fancy people sprang for leather, which always smelled amazing. But leather eventually became ubiquitous (and smelling of chemicals), and the sustainability crowd turned on it recently in favor of cruelty-free “vegan” interiors. But most of today’s vegan leather consists of a synthetic fabric with a polyurethane or PVC coating. Sounds like vinyl to me—not to mention somewhat less Earth-friendly than it’s made out to be. The Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX concept (see page 70 for more) explores several new, more sustainable “menu” options for going vegan. Mushroom-Based Mylo “Unleather” Mushrooms you see on a forest floor are produced by a fungus’ mycelium—its fibrous root system that helps…

During our drive, few civilians seemed to realize the Lightning was anything but a regular F-150. Only upon closer inspection, typically when we were parked, would bystanders notice tells like the unique lighting and start asking questions. A surefire way to instantly distinguish the Lightning? Power open its massive front trunk, or frunk. Cue exclamations such as “Where’s the engine?!” and, “How much can you fit in there?!” Here’s how Ford pulled off the largest front trunk available in any pickup, plus the cargo spot’s coolest features: 1. It’s big. Starting with an opening nearly the width of the F-150 Lightning itself, the frunk boasts a total of 14.1 cubic feet of space, similar to that of the average midsize sedan trunk. However, thanks to its yawning opening, the Lightning’s…

By no measure do the new 2022 GMC Hummer EV pickup and the 2022 Rivian R1T feel like they have anything in common. The Rivian is a quiet, sophisticated, and reserved electric pickup. Introverted, even. The Hummer EV is a huge, brash, all-you-can-eat buffet of themes and features. Yet the Rivian and the Hummer—the first and second electric pickups to hit the market—have more in common than you’d think. Ignoring their combined seven motors, 333 kWh of battery storage, and 1,835 horsepower, the GMC and Rivian are among the ultimate on- and off-road do-it-all pickups to ever hit the streets. They are, as it turns out, two sides of the same coin. It’s time to determine which one is the better pickup. Where the Ford F-150 Lightning (page 28) is…

With the launch of its all-electric E-Class equivalent, the 2023 EQE-Class, Mercedes has the Tesla Model S squarely in its sights. The self-proclaimed inventor of the combustion-powered car (see: 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen) felt no compunction to emulate any of the characteristics that helped the Model S popularize electric cars on a global scale—and which led to Tesla outselling Mercedes by 17,147 cars in 2021 to become the No. 3 luxury brand in the U.S. There’s no frunk in the EQE, no Ikea-style minimalist interior, no record-setting acceleration or range figures, no rainbow-road or fart-noise Easter eggs. Rather, the EQE simply aims to be the Mercedes-Benz of premium E-segment electric sedans. The 2023 EQE will launch in 350+ guise; the plus is meant to suggest long range, and indeed, the rear-drive…

The term “software-defined vehicle” has only come into vogue during the past half decade, but the concept’s underpinnings go back half a century to 1970, which could be called a big-bang point for the auto industry. That was the year the first wave of modern safety and emissions regulations started to come into force. Almost simultaneously, a new technology, the microprocessor, was born, and the modern era of automotive engineering was underway. While early efforts to meet those regulations relied heavily on mechanical means, such as vacuum controls and tricks like “lean burn” and Honda’s Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion, those approaches hit their limits quickly. Anyone who has lifted the hood on a vehicle built from the early 1970s to the 1980s will be familiar with the rat’s nest of…

Platform sharing is smart. It allows automakers to amortize the cost of fundamental components across higher production volumes and expand the number of models their individual brands can offer without massive investments. For decades, the Volkswagen Group has been a master of the game, using VW bits underneath Audis and Audi hardware underneath Bentleys. Platform sharing is also the reason Audi now offers U.S. customers no fewer than seven EVs—counting body and powertrain variants—while BMW has just two on sale and Mercedes-Benz one. Four of Audi’s EVs—the E-Tron, E-Tron Sportback, and the more powerful S versions of each—are built on Audi’s own EV platform. The sporty E-Tron GT shares its underpinnings with Porsche’s Taycan. And the new Q4 E-Tron and Q4 E-Tron Sportback use the same MEB architecture as VW’s…

On the March of Progress I was just reading the Editor’s Note in your June issue. Aaron Gold’s comments comparing the government’s actions today on electric vehicles to the actions it took in the ’70s and ’80s to clean up emissions and improve fuel economy were quite thought provoking. I feel the pangs of nostalgia for the vehicles I loved growing up in the ’70s and the ones I drove in the ’80s, but it’s important to acknowledge how they color our memories and lead us to forget their many negatives. I had the opportunity to drive for Mecum Auctions one weekend last October. It was a thrill to get into those classic cars until I really started to pay attention; there were few safety features outside of seat belts,…

The wild popularity of trucks and SUVs in America is easy to understand if you know one simple thing: Americans love do-it-all vehicles. And in the three-row SUV realm it’s hard to go wrong with options like the Jeep Grand Cherokee L, the Kia Telluride, and the Toyota Highlander. These are the kind of vehicles that fit the lifestyles we envision for ourselves. We want something that can haul lots of stuff even if we rarely stuff it full, something that can accommodate many friends even if we spend more time commuting alone, something that can carry lots of kids’ gear even if we only have one kid, something that can tow a boat even if we only do so at the beginning and end of the season, and something…

Behold the most efficient Mercedes ever: the Vision EQXX. On Tuesday, April 5, this experimental concept car drove 626 miles from its birthplace in Stuttgart, Germany, up and over the 6,900-foot Gotthard Pass in Switzerland to the French Riviera on a single 100-kWh battery charge. The car averaged 56 mph by adhering to all speed limits, peaking at 87 mph on a no-limit stretch of autobahn. It made two 15-minute bio-break stops, arriving in Cassis having consumed only 88 percent of the battery with 87 miles of range remaining (certified by German TÜV authorities). We traveled to the Nice design center that penned the exquisite EQXX to learn how this impressive feat was accomplished and to get a sense of how close the forthcoming EQC sedan might come to achieving…

Badge engineering used to carry negative connotations. Automakers churned out near-identical cars, charging more for the “luxury” versions while cutting corners on true quality. The practice was largely abandoned years ago, though, in favor of “brand engineering”—sharing much of what you don’t see and very little of what you do—in order to create myriad vehicles with decidedly different flavors. The Genesis GV60 and its Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 siblings fully embody this strategy. We’ve driven and been impressed by the Ioniq 5 and EV6, and now that we’ve been behind the wheel of the GV60 Performance, it turns out this brand engineering isn’t so bad. Looking over the new GV60’s specs, it’d be easy to dismiss it as a pricier, luxed-up Hyundai or Kia. All three EVs share…

The new Land Rover Range Rover might underwhelm you at first. Watch one pull up to the curb to greet you at the airport, and you find yourself thinking, “New Range Rover? Old Range Rover? Who knows?” You need to walk around back to see its new hidden taillights and Coke bottle hips to be sure. However, over two days of driving the new Range Rover around California’s central coast and wine region, we discovered the latest edition is a remarkably thorough evolution of one of the world’s most famous luxury SUVs. For starters, the Range Rover rides on a new platform. Dubbed MLA-Flex, the architecture allows for more body styles, seating configurations, and powertrain options than have ever been available on Land Rover’s halo product. The new model continues…

There’s a sense of familiarity when you enter the 2023 Subaru Solterra. The start button is where it’s supposed to be, the side-mirror controls are located on the door panel, and the entire interface looks like business as usual. Unlike some other new electric cars, there’s no learning curve, hidden buttons, or leading-edge technology to cause anxiety. The Solterra is as simple as electric cars get. The Solterra is the result of a collaboration between Toyota and Subaru. The automakers jointly developed an EV platform to produce an SUV for each brand, and Toyota is manufacturing both SUVs in Japan. A dual-motor setup provides 218 horsepower and 249 lb-ft of torque. Premium trims get 228 miles of range, while Limited and Touring models see a slight drop (222 miles) because…

Pickup trucks were the longest holdout in the transition to electric vehicles, and for good reason. Their use cases are different, more diverse, and more challenging than anything a car or SUV deals with. They need to tow and haul and off-road as well as they commute, and those all take radically different skill sets. They’re also the bestselling vehicles in America and huge profit and loyalty centers for their makers. Ford absolutely had to get its first-ever electric truck right, and with the 2022 F-150 Lightning, it damn well did. No joke: The Lightning is one of the most important pickup trucks—vehicles, really—in history. Forget early adopters, environmentalists, and technophiles. This truck has to convince construction workers, farmers, ranchers, surveyors, and everyday truck fans that electric pickups aren’t just…

Many of you reading this are likely looking at the F-150 Lightning through the lens of a private purchase, but as much as Ford wants to sell you an electric truck, it also wants to sell them to businesses. To help commercial and government fleets make the leap, the company’s Ford Pro commercial division offers a number of EV-specific services. The big selling point is reduced operating costs, but Ford realizes it might take more than savings to convince a skeptical fleet manager. Still, the financial story is compelling. Citing internal studies, Ford says maintenance costs for a Lightning are about 40 percent lower than those of an F-150 with a 2.7-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V-6 over eight years or 100,000 miles, at $1,344 compared to $2,351. When all factors are…

Blame the pandemic or Instagram: People want outdoor action, and they want sharp-looking vehicles with some off-road capability. That’s why the Honda Passport TrailSport and the Subaru Outback Wilderness are here. Honda and Subaru tired of seeing customers resorting to the aftermarket for suspension lifts and adventure-ready looks, so they created their own versions straight from the factory. The big question: How do the unibody-construction Honda and Subaru perform against body-on-frame SUVs like the Toyota 4Runner TRD Sport, one of the most popular off-roaders on the market? Both use their street-oriented variants as their base, with added equipment to make them look meaner and perform better off-road. The Outback Wilderness has beefier tires and more off-road hardware than the Passport TrailSport, while the Honda has better approach, breakover, and departure…

We recently we rode shotgun in a heavily camouflaged 2023 Mercedes-EQ EQS SUV prototype. Now we’ve clapped our peepers on the production model’s sheetmetal in a studio, crawled around and under this burly beauty, and struggled to digest 62 pages of press bumf. Here are the highlights. The EQS SUV is an 8.4-inch-taller, three-row version of the EQS sedan—an SUV “top hat” perched on the same rolling chassis. Taller seating allows the length to be bobbed by 5.5 inches, but you get the same exact battery pack and essentially the same motors and suspension. You also gain 11 cubic feet more cargo volume with the rear seats down (74 versus 63). It’s not, however, an electric GLS-Class. Mercedes is prioritizing efficiency über alles for its EQ subbrand, which it sees…

The future has a habit of sneaking up on you. It seems only yesterday I was testing cars with carburetors and overhead valves and live rear axles and three-speed transmissions. Only hand-built Italian exotics had anything more than 350 hp. You approached a 245-hp Buick Grand National with equal parts fear and fascination. Yet here I was behind the wheel of a 516-hp electric-powered Mercedes limousine as it wafted silently along in heavy traffic on the autobahn outside Berlin. And, truth is, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the traffic. Instead, was watching a video on the screen at the center of the dash. The Mercedes was driving itself. Now available as an option on EQS and S-Class models sold in Germany, Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot is the world’s first…