New Vehicle Reviews (Page 40)

Without question Pilot, Ridgeline, CRV and HRV can venture off road. But none of them are what I’d consider to be off road rugged. Honda claims 2019 Passport is off road tough, is it? Torque News ventures off to western Oregon to find some answers.

The 2019 Hyundai Kona checks all of the boxes that shoppers want in this type of vehicle.

It’s a lot sportier than you think a plug-in hybrid should be.

Whether you are driving the 2020 Toyota Supra on the road or the track, it is a smooth, comfortable and confident sports car that is worth every bit of the hype.

You don’t need to enter the luxury market to get plug-in hybrid technology.

The 2019 Toyota Highlander handles poor road conditions beautifully, covering my area’s roughest unpaved roads with ease.

ANALYSIS AND OPINION: It hasn’t been a week since the Tesla Y unveil at the Design Studio and the Tesla Fan Base and media alike are now speculating what the already iconic pickup truck will shape out to be. So over Model Y and it’s ho hum, the excitement energy is already now building for Model U.

ANALYSIS AND OPINION: The Eve of the Ides of March like the Model Y unveil at the Tesla Design Studio came like the new car itself and went like any other event without much fanfare. Both are no frills or gimmicks, the most practical you can get in a car and an event, neither didn’t take much money to make, and in the car’s case it has the potential to outsell it’s siblings combined.

ANALYSIS AND OPINION: I continue the miniseries of stories of “Life after Leaf” in this beginning of the post-hybrid age when we are now getting over PHEVs and short range BEVs like Nissan Leaf, and taking a more serious look at new BEVs now that they’re more car and charging choices, better battery ranges, and cheaper prices. One option coming soon is a BEV CUV that’ll compete with the Hyundai/Kia SUV electrics. Here’s the unveiling of the smaller Model Y.

This is our 3rd year behind the wheel of Mazda CX-5, this time turbocharged and fully optioned. Priced at close to $40K, what sets this Signature Edition AWD above the competition? Read what we do and do not like about this near premium sport crossover.

I start another mini-series of stories, this time “Life After Leaf,” of several things that can happen when you trade in your Nissan Leaf car, if not the tiny battery from a PHEV or from a smaller ranged BEV, to be repurposed or recycled into something else. In my quest to find electric campers for my social media base, I find this great caravan that uses juice from old Leaf batteries.

Sometime next year BMW will be introducing their first real non-compliant full production all electric car. It won’t look as funky as i3 does. It’ll actually look like a real normal car. And it’ll be based off the 4 series. So with my BMW in the shop AGAIN, and the dealer giving me a 430 coupe as a loaner, I decided to take this opportunity to give you a dynamic of what to expect from a 4 series electric by looking at the gas one and my car, a 3 Series, first.

I recently spent a week driving a 2018 Ford Mustang GT fastback with the optional Performance Pack 1 and I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the track-focused pony car, but rather than just another review talking about the features of America’s bestselling sporty car, I will talk about the key aspects from the perspective of someone who daily drives a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat.

For the first week of February 2019 we find ourselves dancing in the rain behind the wheel of 2019 Acura RDX A-Spec SH-AWD. Read why I’d buy one.

ANALYSIS AND OPINION: It’s not looking too good in the public relations arena for Cadillac and GM when the national, now world conversation nows turns toward questioning the existence of luxury car brands after the Cadillac XT6-Gate GM Debacle. Aston Martin’s CEO weighed in with the XT6-Gate to establish six ultra brands, and none of the ones below it like Cadillac will surpass them. But let’s be clear: XT6-Gate is an American problem, not a European one.

ANALYSIS AND OPINION: GM President Mark Reuss’ recent announcement of putting Cadillac as the lead brand against Tesla helped everything else but Cadillac. Cadillac just put their third gas CUV into their portfolio right after this announcement! A real all electric car company doesn’t do that! To be taken seriously by anyone you have to be reliable and believable, and that means having honesty, and to be honest, starting with yourself, you have to believe in yourself. Who’s fooling who?

ANALYSIS AND OPINION: Until recently no one in the car industry ever had an experience of what it was like to end production of a car product due to obsolescence, they and other peer brands have produced since its invention in the mid-nineteenth century. Shutting down gas while ramping up electric is a double money losing proposition into the tens to hundreds of billions. Only the wealthiest and most powerful car companies on earth can survive this conversion process, and I look into how this is so.

The 2019 Chevrolet Suburban RST Performance Edition is an incredible machine, combining the 6.2-liter LT1, the new 10-speed automatic transmission, Brembo brakes and the newest version of GM’s Magnetic Ride Control suspension system into a huge sport utility vehicle – essentially introducing the performance components of the Camaro SS into the massive, hard-working SUV.

For those who think that the Indias, Brazils, Southeast Asias, Western Chinas, Central and South Americas, and Western and Southern Africas will go decades still buzzing around in coal rakers while we 30 second mega supercharge with our brand new 2035 Teslas, I have news for you: the Electric Car Revolution is already coming to those parts, and the ORA R1 mini electric car is the kind of vehicle that’ll proliferate like hotcakes there NOW, like the Model 3 is already doing here.

OPINION AND ANALYSIS: Nobody is taking these Russians seriously about the specs and their one year warranty to their recently proposed Russian Mustang BEV, but I tell you one thing: at least they got a spec sheet. They got renders. They got ideas. They even got a warranty for a car they haven’t built yet. They’re eager for publicity and/or to build. I say, where’s the people who invented the damn car to begin with? Do they even know what electricity is beyond a cigarette plug in the dash?

Mitsubishi turned their corporate focus to SUVs well before the American automakers and in spending a week driving the 2018 Outlander LE S-AWC, I found that the tiny Japanese company has made the right move – offering a mid-sized, three-row SUV that comes nicely-appointed with all-wheel-drive for under $30,000.

For decades Chinese car companies have all tried to enter the US car market to meet some kind of failure. Learning from the lessons of Chinese car companies past, one car maker known as Qiantu Motors (Dragonfly logo, means “freedom”), is teaming up with a California based electric car and energy startup to make its first foray into the US market with a battery electric sports car to take on Tesla’s portfolio. Qiantu starts the competition against the Roadster II, with the 2020 Qiantu K50.

OPINION AND ANALYSIS: Inasmuch as we are fooling ourselves into believing that gasoline new car purchases will be a viable option even in some parts of the world past 2030, we are also fooling ourselves into believing that we’ll be able to drive our present and near future classic cars around twenty plus years from now. This is a tail pipe dream. Well, like Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin has also found a solution to anticipate this issue.

OPINION AND ANALYSIS: With VW Group’s accelerated plans to cease gas car production sooner, Bentley needs to ask itself what kind of car company does it want to be? If Aston Martin stuffed battery packs inside the seats and boot spare tire wells and fenders of a Rapide, why there isn’t something similar done inside a Spur or a Mulsanne? Bentley isn’t doing that; they’re running counterculture to their heritage, and risk losing what they worked hard to get after leaving Rolls Royce: not becoming another Cadillac.

OPINION ANALYSIS: Rivian Automotive, the once Clandestine now Maverick Electric Pickup Truck Maker added another BEV to its portfolio, a full sized three rower SUV called R1S. I’m so glad they made it nice and boxy and conservative and all BEV. All they need to do now is stretch that battery tray and back seat room, bespoke it out, make it LWB, send it upmarket past Bentley and Rolls, and let it sit next to Rover SVAutobiography, to let their brand take off, and let the doe roll in.

Check out the 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander SE 2.4 S-AWC. It offers a good bang for your buck.

Check out the new 2019 Acura MDX AWD A-Spec. It gets sportier for active families.

Unveil Review: Rivian Automotive, the Michigan based startup that for ten years carefully, but secretly planned to find the right vehicle, at the right time, and at the right moment, to launch an all BEV the world hasn’t seen, seemed to find the right recipe to unveil that vehicle NOW, as they launched something that Tesla had expectations of doing first: to launch the first all electric pickup truck in the world. And Rivian did it. Not Ford. Not Tesla. This is a game changer . . .

It was around this time twenty years ago that the now legendary Cadillac Escalade started hauling the ruling class and celebritydom on the streets of the big American cities as if they were elegant stage coaches of the Victorian or Edwardian Eras over 100 years ago. So after reading a story about the disastrous 2009 hybrid I decided to do a flashback ode to the iconic 20th century truck that lives on today.

I recently spent a week behind the wheel of the 2018 Chevrolet Traverse RS and I was pleased to find that it offers a far sportier feel on the road than expected while also providing a smoother ride than the sportier SUVs on the 3-row segment.