Enlarge / The LMDh regulations cap the cars' downforce:drag ratio, so designers don't have to spend as much time worrying about aerodynamics and can use more road car styling cues. Not that you can really make that out on this wrapped prototype. (credit: Porsche)

If there were any doubts about Porsche taking its return to prototype racing seriously, they're now gone.

The company's new car is not due to race in earnest until this time next year; in fact, it's so early in the car's development that it hasn't been officially named. But that hasn't stopped the automaker, together with Penske Racing, from starting the new car's track testing program ahead of competing in two championship series in 2023, beginning with next year's 24-hour race at Daytona in Florida.

"The rollout of the LMDh racing car was also the first track outing for Porsche Penske Motorsport," said Urs Kuratle, project manager for Porsche's LMDh program. "The squad worked well together right from the start. This shows a high level of professionalism in all areas. After all, the operational requirements for the safe running of a hybrid vehicle are very high. In the next outings, we will focus on going deeper into the required processes and procedures. During these first test days at Weissach, the V8-biturbo impressed us in every respect. We're convinced that we’ve chosen precisely the right unit."

Enlarge / Maserati's first mid-engined supercar in nearly two decades strikes a balance between on-track performance and everyday usability. (credit: Cooper Davis for Maserati)

Although the name Maserati is synonymous with exotic performance, the automaker hasn't unleashed a mid-engined supercar on the world in nearly two decades. In the years since the debut of the limited-production MC12 back in 2004, the company shifted its focus toward sedans and sport-utility vehicles like the Levante to reach a wider audience. Lackadaisical development and a liberal pilfering of the Stellantis parts bin, however, had threatened to dilute the brand.

That all changes with the introduction of the MC20. Developed in Modena, Italy, and built from the ground up on an all-new carbon-fiber monocoque chassis designed to accommodate coupe, convertible, and electric configurations, the MC20 shares very little with the rest of the vehicles in the current Maserati lineup. And thanks in part to its "Nettuno" V6, Maserati's new 3,300-pound halo car boasts the best power-to-weight ratio in a segment that includes names like Porsche, Lamborghini, and McLaren.

As with the platform, Maserati engineers took a clean-sheet approach when designing MC20’s power plant to create a dry sump engine that's wholly unique to the brand. The mill uses on-demand twin-combustion technology derived from Formula 1 that places a combustion chamber between the central spark plug and the conventional combustion chamber to improve both performance and efficiency, and the resulting peak output is 621 hp (463 kW) and 538 lb-ft (729 Nm) of torque. Those figures make the engine one of the most power-dense in production today, and that grunt is sent exclusively to the rear wheels through the same Tremec eight-speed dual-clutch transmission used in the C8 Corvette, though it has been dialed in for the requirements of the Maserati V6.

Enlarge / The 2022 Wagoneer. Uncooperative weather forced us to rely on Stellantis media images for this review. (credit: Stellantis)

Even as the automotive industry charts a course into a mostly electrified future, internal combustion engines still rule the roost in most segments. This includes the full-size SUV segment dominated in the US by the Chevy Tahoe and Ford Explorer. Although Jeep parent Stellantis forecasts having 40 percent of its sales come from BEVs by the end of the decade, it needs to challenge GM and Ford with its own three-row SUV: the all-new Wagoneer.

Starting at $71,845 for the base model, this is not your father's Jeep Wagoneer. While the grille screams Jeep, that word doesn't actually appear on this massive SUV. Instead "Wagoneer" appears in numerous spots inside and outside. And it is truly massive—the Grand Wagoneer measures a whopping 215 inches (5,461 mm) from head to tail, a couple of inches longer than the competition from GM and Ford.

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  Smooth sailing on smooth pavement. [credit: Stellantis ]

To propel this beast of an SUV, Jeep has gone with a 5.7-liter V8 with eTorque (a 48 volt battery-powered motor generator designed to help with performance and fuel economy) and an eight-speed automatic transmission. Although it uses the same box-on-frame design as the Ram pickup truck, the rear-wheel drive Wagoneer's independent suspension gives it a much smoother ride than the Ram 1500 with its solid rear axle. The upside is nearly 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) of towing capacity, surprisingly quick acceleration, and smooth rides on the highway. The downside of this combination of power, weight, and size? Disappointing mileage. The EPA estimates 15 mpg in the city, 20 mpg on the highway, and 17 mpg overall. Our week of late fall driving resulted in just 13.5 mpg. (This is a reminder that it's not just EVs that lose range in cold weather.)

Enlarge / Sébastien Loeb (FRA) and Isabelle Galmiche (FRA) of team M-Sport Ford World Rally Team are seen performing during the World Rally Championship Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo, Monaco, on January 20. (credit: Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool)

The 2022 World Rally Championship got underway on Thursday with the first night stages of the Monte Carlo Rally. It's a year of big change in the WRC with the introduction of all-new Rally1 cars—the most powerful vehicles to compete in the sport since the demise of the flame-spitting Group B cars in 1986.

For some time, WRC cars have used turbocharged four-cylinder 1.6 L engines, and that standard continues for Rally1. The engines drive the front and rear wheels via prop shafts and differentials, as you might expect, but there's no center differential between the front and rear axles, just a fixed 50:50 distribution of torque front to rear.

And the engine isn't the only thing that sends power and torque to the rear differential; there's now a hybrid unit behind the fuel tank that has its own shaft to that differential. This is a spec component, supplied to all the teams by Compact Dynamics, a subsidiary of Schaeffler, which worked closely with Audi's Formula E program.

Enlarge / GM's Super Cruise system is tightly geofenced to divided-lane highways and only operates if the system can determine that the human in the driver's seat is paying attention to the road ahead, ready to respond if there's a problem. (credit: General Motors)

On Thursday, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced that it is creating a rating system for hands-free advanced driver-assistance systems like Tesla's Autopilot and General Motors' Super Cruise. Later this year IIHS will issue its first set of ratings, with grading levels of good, acceptable, marginal, or poor. Having a good driver-monitoring system will be vital to getting a good grade.

And the institute is not alone. Also on Thursday, Consumer Reports revealed that it, too, will consider the safety of such tech features, adding points if there's a good driver-monitoring system. CR says that so far, only Super Cruise and Ford's BlueCruise systems are safe enough to get those extra points. Meanwhile, from model year 2024, CR will start subtracting points for cars that offer partial automation without proper driver monitoring.

"Partial automation systems may make long drives seem like less of a burden, but there is no evidence that they make driving safer," says IIHS President David Harkey. "In fact, the opposite may be the case if systems lack adequate safeguards."

Enlarge / Bentley's Flying Spur sedan is now available as a plug-in hybrid. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Over the last few years, I've been fortunate enough to drive many different vehicles, and one thing has become abundantly clear: electric motors make cars better. They're highly efficient, and they can recapture energy that would otherwise be wasted under braking. They make massive amounts of torque almost instantly and respond in a fraction of the time it takes an internal combustion engine to take a deep breath. And they do all that in near-silence, which makes them ideally suited to applications in luxury cars.

And cars don't get much more luxurious than Bentley's new Flying Spur Hybrid.

The Flying Spur Hybrid is a big car, but it's a relatively low-drag one as well. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

This new plug-in hybrid is Bentley's second PHEV and follows the hybrid version of its Bentayga SUV ahead of the introduction of the brand's first battery EV in 2025. As in the SUV, a 2.9L V6 gasoline engine sits under the expansive hood, generating 410 hp (306 kW) and 406 lb-ft (550 Nm).

Enlarge / Two Parallel Systems rail vehicles transport a container down a test track in Southern California. (credit: Parallel Systems)

For the last 200 years, freight trains haven’t changed much; massive locomotives still move relatively dumb freight cars. Certainly, rail fans could argue that plenty has changed—they’re not wrong!—but from a distance, trains work pretty much the same today as they did in the 1800s.

That may change, though, if three former SpaceX engineers have placed their bets properly. Today, their startup, Parallel Systems, has emerged from stealth mode with a prototype vehicle that promises to bring advances in autonomy and battery technology to the relatively staid world of freight railroads. In the process, they hope to not just electrify existing routes but also bring freight rail service to places that don’t have it today.

Whether their bet pays off will hinge on whether freight railroads and their customers will buy into a new way of operating. Parallel Systems isn’t just taking an existing freight train and swapping its diesel-electric locomotive for a battery version. Instead, it’s taking the traction motors and distributing them to every car on the train. It’s how many electric passenger trains operate, but it's a system that has been slow to migrate to the freight world.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Prosecutors in California have charged a Tesla driver with two counts of manslaughter as a result of a fatal crash in December 2019. According to the Associated Press, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed that the Autopilot driver-assistance feature was active at the time of the crash. That makes this case notable in that these are the first felony charges to result from a fatal crash involving a partially automated driving system.

The fatal crash took place in Gardena, California, on December 29, 2019. According to reports, the Tesla Model S owned by Kevin Riad exited I-91, failed to stop at a red light, and then collided with a Honda Civic, killing both of that car's occupants, Gilberto Alcazar Lopez and Maria Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez. Within days, the NHTSA announced it would investigate the incident—one of a growing number of cases involving Tesla Autopilot that the agency is looking into.

The AP reports that no one involved with the case is prepared to talk publicly ahead of a preliminary hearing on February 23, although it notes that Riad pleaded not guilty. The families of both victims are suing Riad and Tesla in separate lawsuits, alleging that Riad was negligent and that Tesla has sold defective vehicles. The cases are expected to reach court in 2023.

Enlarge / Peugeot's 9X8 seen testing at Aragorn in Spain in late December 2021. (credit: Peugeot)

With the introduction of the new Hypercar class, Peugeot will try to do something unheard of for more than 50 years—win the 24 Hours of Le Mans without a rear wing. The French automaker raised a few eyebrows when the first pictures of its wingless race car became public last summer, since big rear wings have been part and parcel of racing for decades. But the 9X8 took to the track last month for its first test, and as you can see, it's still sans aile.

The 9X8 is designed to compete under the new Hypercar rules, which are complicated and unfriendly to the casual fan. Not all Hypercars have to be hybrids, but the 9X8 is. Behind the cockpit and ahead of the rear wheels that it powers is a new 2.6 L Biturbo gasoline V6, good for 500 kW (670hp). Ahead of the driver's feet, you'll find a 200 kW (268 hp) electric motor-generator unit. To keep speeds safe, the total output is capped at 500 kW by the 9X8's electronic brain.

The 908 Hybrid4 should have raced against the Audi R18 e-tron quattro and the Toyota TS030 hybrids in 2012. (credit: Peugeot)

Although the 9X8's powertrain is all new, it's not actually Peugeot's first hybrid endurance racer. That honor goes to the 908 Hybrid4, which was meant to contest Le Mans in 2012. Instead, Peugeot shuttered its racing program early after an economic downturn and layoffs made such side activities untenable.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images/Aurich Lawson)

Back in 2013, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to pass a "right to repair" law that required carmakers to sell their proprietary diagnostic tools and software to third-party repair shops. During the 2020 election, the voters of that state voted, three-to-one, in favor of expanding the law to include the connected aspects of new cars.

From model year 2022, any new car sold in the state that features connected car services or telematics capabilities must have a standardized open data platform as a way of accessing those online services. Now, though, two bills seek to tweak the law in the hopes of getting OEMs to comply.

MY2022 cars have been on sale across the country for some months now. However, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy has held off on enforcing the new provisions of the law due to an ongoing federal lawsuit brought by a coalition of automakers who claim that the current law is incompatible with widely accepted cybersecurity practices (a view shared by a horrified-sounding National Highway Traffic Safety Administration).

Enlarge / The Porsche Taycan is one of the few new cars to exhibit anything we might recognize as steering feel. That wasn't always the case. (credit: Andrew Hedrick)

In almost every regard, new cars are better than they've been at any time in their history. They're safer than they used to be—though that is less true for women. Powertrains, particularly battery electric ones, are more powerful and more efficient, which helps to compensate for the extra weight of that added safety equipment. Vehicles are far more reliable, at least for their first 100,000 miles, and even cheap cars come with standard equipment that would seem like science fiction to drivers from just a few decades ago.

They ride better; they stop better—so everything's great, right? The problem is that modern cars almost invariably feel a bit boring to drive. The issue is more acute the longer you've been driving, as you might expect, since the cause is technological progression—specifically, power steering.

What happened to steering feel?

For much of the car's existence, steering was entirely unassisted. The driver turns the wheel connected to a steering column that, through links and pivots and usually a gear, turns the front wheels in either direction. That setup was marvelous for feedback, but it wasn't great in terms of the effort required to turn the wheel, particularly at lower speeds.

Enlarge / The downside with offering APIs to interact with a car is that someone else's security problem might become your own. (credit: Getty Images)

A young hacker and IT security researcher found a way to remotely interact with more than 25 Tesla electric vehicles in 13 countries, according to a Twitter thread he posted yesterday.

David Colombo explained in the thread that the flaw was "not a vulnerability in Tesla's infrastructure. It's the owner's faults[sic]." He claimed to be able to disable a car's remote camera system, unlock doors and open windows, and even begin keyless driving. He could also determine the car's exact location.

However, Colombo clarified that he could not actually interact with any of the Teslas' steering, throttle, or brakes, so at least we don't have to worry about an army of remote-controlled EVs doing a Fate of the Furious reenactment.

Enlarge / The full Polestar 3 design isn't revealed yet, but Volvo released this camouflaged photo. (credit: Volvo)

Volvo, Qualcomm, Google are teaming up to make car infotainment even more smartphone-like than ever. If Wintel (Windows plus Intel) is the default software+hardware combo of the PC era, then the smartphone equivalent has got to be Android and Qualcomm (Andcom? Qualdroid?). Volvo is bringing this combo to the upcoming Polestar 3 electric SUV, which is due sometime in 2022. We also got a sneak peek at what the new interface would look like.

Volvo's Polestar 2 was the first to ship Google's Android Automotive OS in a car. Unlike Android Auto or Apple's CarPlay, which run on your smartphone, Android Automotive OS has a custom version of Android preinstalled on the car, as the main car infotainment OS. Even if you have an iPhone, your car still runs Android. The Polestar 2 used an x86 chip (an Intel Atom A3900), but now Volvo is pairing a Qualcomm smartphone chip with its Google smartphone OS. The Polestar 3 will ship with Qualcomm's "Snapdragon Cockpit Platform Gen 3," and while that sounds unique, it is really just a repackaged smartphone chip with a few extra features.

The integration of cars with computer technology is always tough. Car development takes around five years, which can seem almost incompatible with the development pace of smartphones and computers. That's still true of the 2022 Polestar 3. Qualcomm's Gen 3 automotive platform was actually announced back in 2019, but design wins for the platform are just now being announced at CES 2022. Qualcomm says the Gen 3 automotive platform is based on the Snapdragon 820 SoC, an ARM flagship smartphone chip from 2016. You may remember this chip from phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Google Pixel 1. The Polestar 2's Intel Atom was also from 2016.

Enlarge / DriveTribe was set up by the trio of former Top Gear hosts Richard Hammond (L), Jeremy Clarkson (M), and James May (R). (credit: DriveTribe)

This week brought sad news for the online car world. DriveTribe, a community platform for automotive enthusiasts, will shut down at the end of January after just five years.

In a post announcing the shutdown, DriveTribe points to the ongoing chip shortage that has caused the new car market to contract, with an associated reduction in marketing budgets at automakers. "This has made for an incredibly difficult operating environment for businesses like ours which are dependent on advertising," it says.

DriveTribe was created in 2016 by a tech entrepreneur named Ernesto Schmitt, together with car TV personalities Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. Hammond sold the concept to Clarkson as "like YouPorn, only with cars."

Enlarge / Formula E's 2023 season will see the introduction of the new gen3 race car. (credit: Sam Bloxham/LAT/Formula E)

The Formula E electric single-seater racing series will see a new manufacturer join its grid next year. The Italian car company Maserati is figuring out its place in an electrified world, with a battery electric coupe, convertible, and SUV on the way—a range within a range called Folgore. And it has decided that an electric racing program would be a perfect accompaniment to that plan.

That's good news for Formula E, which has seen a number of German OEMs leave in recent seasons, including the 2021 championship-winning Mercedes-EQ team. Maserati is not quite Ferrari—Formula E has never made a secret of its desire to get that brand into the series, something rejected by then-Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne—but it's certainly the next-best thing. Now, one of the oldest names in racing is returning to single-seater competition with the introduction of the Gen3 car for the 2023 season.

"We are very proud to be back where we belong as protagonists in the world of racing," said Maserati CEO Davide Grasso. "We have a long history of world-class excellence in competition, and we are ready to drive performance in the future. In the race for more performance, luxury, and innovation, Folgore is irresistible, and it is the purest expression of Maserati. That's why we decided to go back to racing in the FIA Formula E World Championship, meeting our customers in the city centers of the world, taking the Trident forward into the future."

Enlarge / The Model Y still includes a steering wheel for Tesla owners who want to drive for themselves. (credit: Tesla)

Tesla's highly controversial "full self driving" feature is getting yet another price increase. CEO Elon Musk used his Twitter feed last Friday to announce the price hike, telling his millions of followers, "Tesla FSD price rising to $12k on Jan 17."

Price increases have been a fairly constant theme with the driver-assistance system. In the wake of Uber's well-publicized IPO in 2019, Tesla got ridehailing fever, with Musk claiming that a self-driving Tesla could earn $30,000 a year in income, working the streets while its owner is asleep or at work.

"If you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset—not a depreciating asset," Musk said. (Although the company's EVs do command strong prices in the used car market, they are still, in fact, subject to depreciation, according to a search on Autotrader conducted this morning.)

Enlarge / A VW ID Buzz prototype equipped with Argo AI's autonomous driving hardware and software, on the streets of Munich, Germany. (credit: Argo AI)

This week, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess set a date for the launch of what might be the most eagerly anticipated of VW's new battery electric vehicles. The retro-styled ID Buzz concept car blew so many socks off when we first saw it in 2017, and we'll get our first proper look at the production version on March 9, according to Diess' Twitter feed.

The legend returns on 03/09/22! pic.twitter.com/Q4hFyCN5mr

— Herbert Diess (@Herbert_Diess) January 6, 2022

Intentionally or not, Volkswagen's ID Buzz concept might be the most successful aspect of the company's post-Dieselgate charm offensive. VW has had to pivot hard into electrification, applying its proven strategy of building many different styles of vehicles from the same family of parts and designs.

Most of those vehicles have been pretty conventional, like the ID.3 hatchbacks that are starting to get thick on the ground in Europe, or the designed-with-the-US-in-mind ID.4 crossover. Then there's the less conventional concepts—try as they might, the engineers couldn't make a business case for the ID Buggy.

Enlarge / A closer look at the hardware inside the Ultra Cruise computer. (credit: General Motors)

General Motors has partnered with Qualcomm to provide the computing power for its next-generation hands-free driver-assistance system. First announced in October 2021, the new system is called Ultra Cruise, and it one-ups the (already very competent) GM Super Cruise in terms of performance and operational design domain.

Whereas Super Cruise is limited to restricted access, divided-lane highways, Ultra Cruise will at first operate on more than 2 million miles of roads in the US and Canada. An Ultra Cruise-equipped car will sense its environment using a mix of lidar, optical cameras, and radar to generate a sensor-fused 360-degree view of the world around it. It will recognize and react to permanent traffic control devices like stop signs and traffic lights, and it will even handle left-turns, albeit with a little driver input.

Like Super Cruise, Ultra Cruise is a driver-assistance system (it falls under the SAE's level 2), and the human driver is still responsible for providing situational awareness (with a driver-monitoring system making sure that's happening).

Enlarge / Volvo's future SUV will probably resemble something like the Concept Recharge first introduced in June 2021. (credit: Luminar)

Level 3 autonomous driving appears poised to debut in the US as soon as next year.

At the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show yesterday, Volvo announced that it intends to offer its Ride Pilot feature to customers in California, pending regulatory approval. The automaker has been testing the system in Sweden, and it will begin testing in California later this year. It plans to ship the feature with its forthcoming all-electric SUV, due in 2023.

Volvo chose California because “the climate, traffic conditions, and regulatory framework provide a favorable environment for the introduction of autonomous driving,” the company said.

Enlarge / General Motors Chair and CEO Mary Barra confirmed during her 2022 CES keynote address that Chevrolet will launch the Chevrolet Equinox EV in the 2024 model year.

Chevrolet's headline news at CES this year was its forthcoming Silverado EV, a truck that—initially at least—will carry a lot of lithium ion, and a six-figure price tag to reflect that. When seen together with the bombastic Hummer EV, it's easy to get the impression that General Motors' product planners see the first wave of Ultium battery electric vehicles as just for the well-off.

But GM's battery platform is modular, and while it can accommodate huge 200 kWh packs to give bluff-faced pickup trucks a potential 400 miles of range, you can also design a car around a six-module battery with 50 kWh. If I had to guess, I'd say that's the pack we'll find in another new electric Chevrolet—the Equinox EV—which goes on sale in fall 2023.

The Equinox EV got a brief mention in GM's CES keynote, and the company isn't sharing any more details on the crossover right now other than that fall 2023 arrival and the fact that the model will start "around $30,000."