Autos

The Hyundai Kona Electric has been with us for a while now, and it’s a pleasing electron-powered alternative to the standard Kona. For 2022, all of Hyundai’s Konas are getting a new face, and now we know at least the European-market version of the Kona Electric will, too, among other changes. Outside, the Kona EV adopts the gas-fed model’s slimmer headlights and sleeker face. The wheel arch cladding is body colored instead of bare plastic, while the rear of the car gets slimmer tail lights, new turn signal elements, reversing light unit, and a new rear bumper. All in all, the changes to the exterior have turned the entire Kona range from a somewhat awkward looking machine into something relatively handsome. <!– –> Underneath that massaged sheetmetal lies...

We drove the electric Jaguar I-Pace from London to Berlin in mid-2018, before scooting through the deserts of Abu Dhabi Audi’s electric powered e-tron just before Christmas that same year. We flew to Norway to sample the electric-powered Mercedes-Benz EQC in May 2019. With luck, we’ll get to drive a production version of BMW’s electric-powered rival to all three, the iX, in late in 2021. Which begs the question: What took BMW so long to enter its challenger to a wave of European luxury EV SUVs? You don’t have to wander far into the iX’s 23-page press kit to find a clue: The new SUV, it says, is BMW Group’s new technology flagship. The I-Pace, e-tron, and EQC are much more tentative vehicles, both in terms of their hardware and the way they’re positioned within the Jaguar, Audi and Mercedes...

If you look closely at the ultra-pricey custom truck industry, you’ll notice a few trends. For one, money doesn’t always buy taste, and two, bespoke truck builders just can’t stop making six-wheeled monster pickups with obscene amounts of power. Southern California-based Rezvani has jumped on the dual rear-axle bandwagon with the apocalypse-ready Hercules 6×6. Picking up where the almost-as-bonkers Rezvani Tank SUV left off, the Hercules 6×6 adds a truck bed, a 1,300-hp supercharged 7.0-liter V-8 based on the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon crate engine, and, most importantly, another pair of wheels and on-demand six-wheel drive. Since the Rezvani Tank is a custom-bodied, highly modified Jeep Wrangler, it’s probably a safe guess that the Hercules starts life as a Jeep Gladiator pickup...

As a flagship luxury sedan, the Lexus LS should impress us more than any other passenger car in the brand’s lineup. But in some ways, it’s the more mainstream midsize ES and sometimes the even smaller IS sedan that commands more of our attention. With a mid-cycle update for the LS, Lexus aims to shove its full-size four-door to the front of your mind and remedy the key issues we have with the large luxury sedan, including its ride quality and interior usability. These changes were previewed earlier this year for Japan, but Lexus has finally released U.S.-specific information and confirmed that the 2021 Lexus LS hits dealerships in late November, with hybrid models arriving early next year. 2021 Lexus LS: Suspension Updates We’ve long complained that the LS sedan’s ride is rougher than it s...

A few months ago, we heard that Mazda was readying an inline-six engine for use in upcoming larger vehicles, including large sedans and crossover SUVs that could incorporate hybrid technology. We even found some patent filings that showed the inline-six’s notably compact design. Mounted longitudinally—so, pointed north and south in the car, front to back—this increased the potential for dynamically interesting, rear-drive (or rear-drive-based all-wheel drive) models in the BMW mold. A Mazda investor presentation provides some more details about what those vehicles will look like, and how this new large vehicle platform could spawn a hybrid SUV for America. The report was first spotted by the Japanese publication Car Watch and can be found here in PDF form. The good stuff is in the part of ...

Porsche’s original Boxster sports car was presaged by the silver 1993 Boxster concept car that carried a strong whiff of the original 1955–56 550 Spyder. You know, the car that actor and cool-guy James Dean nicknamed the “Little Bastard” before meeting his early demise in it? Porsche wasn’t finished flirting with a 550 revival, however; after the Boxster came out in 1997, the German automaker rolled out a Boxster 550 Anniversary Edition celebrating the original sports car’s 50th birthday. Later, the Boxster Spyder models kept the 550’s idea of a stripped-down, lightweight mid-engine sports car alive. And just last year, there was this: The Vision Spyder concept. You probably didn’t see it, because it’s one of a trove of concept cars and desig...

Peter Salzmann is an Austrian daredevil. As a base jumper, he takes his life into his own hands on a regular basis, but apparently, the rush of falling from a helicopter and soaring downward through clouds and beautiful landscapes wasn’t cutting it anymore. Salzmann wanted a way to prolong his jumps. In essence, he wanted to fly. That’s where BMW came in. Salzmann worked with BMW’s i division to create a set of impellers for his wingsuit. The theory was that if the impellers create enough thrust, they would allow him to prolong his jumps. Think of Salzmann as sort of a human kite. It took three years for the electrified wingsuit to go from concept to completion. During that time, the suit was tested in a number of wind tunnels specifically designed to work out t...

The 2021 Porsche Panamera Turbo S‘s reign as the fastest executive car around the Nürburgring is over, as Mercedes-AMG reclaims the crown with its 2021 GT 63 S 4-Door. While the three-pointed star’s slinky sedan continues to rely on the same 630-hp twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 as before, the top-of-the-line trim benefits from a handful of chassis and suspension tweaks for the new model year, the combination of which helped the mighty Mercedes achieve a lap time of seven minutes and 27.8 seconds around the nearly 13-mile long track. That’s approximately two seconds quicker than the time logged by the 620-hp Panamera Turbo S, which knocked the GT 63 S 4-Door from the podium position earlier in the year. See all 7 photos In order to achieve this time, the GT 63 S 4-D...