2020

Pirelli’s been busy outfitting electric cars with its P Zero tires, but one specific EV model is getting the special treatment from the Italian tire maker. That EV is the long-awaited Aston Martin Rapide E. Not only is the Rapide E the first electric car to come out of Aston Martin, it’s also wearing a set of special P Zero tires that Pirelli created specifically for the Rapide E. The exclusive tires should help Aston Martin’s EV achieve its promised performance numbers when it goes on sale sometime in the fourth quarter of 2019.

After years of rumors, teasers, and concept cars, Mercedes-Benz finally launched the EQ brand. Short for "electric intelligence," EQ made its official debut through the EQC, a compact crossover similar in size to the familiar GLC. It’s Mercedes’ first all-electric crossover and its second EV after the B-Class Electric. The EQC’s introduction is definitely a major event for the German brand, but does it have what it takes to compete against the successful Tesla Model X and the upcoming BMW iX3? It’s still early to say, but we already know what we love and hate about it.

Continue reading for the full story.

Land Rover is already working on a next-generation Discovery Sport, but with the model still a few years away from arriving, a facelifted version of the current Discovery Sport is making test rounds. The prototype is wrapped in heavy camouflage, but the overall shape of the SUV suggests that there could be a lot of changes made to the updated Discovery Sport ahead of the next-generation model’s arrival in a few years.

After 16 years of absence from the sports car world, Toyota returned by reviving the Supra, and now the MR2 or the Celica may get a second lease of life. The Japanese manufacturer voiced interest, through the Supra’s key engineers, of reviving at least one of those two emblematic cars, but the road ahead is tough for that dream to materialize.

We’ve all waited 16 years for a new Supra to emerge and now, with the fifth-gen A90 closer than ever to production, there might be more in store for us from Toyota. Masayuki Kai, the Assistant Chief Engineer on the Supra project, said to Road & Track that "We want to have Celica back, we want to have the MR2 back,” but he was also adamant to point out that “what will come next depends on the market needs."

This is because, as Kai pointed out, creating a sports car is tedious in the year 2018 and highly expensive, pointing to the cooperation with BMW as the only way to bring the Supra back. The GT86 is also the product of a shared project, this time with Subaru. We can assume, as such, that another partner must be found to finance and co-develop an MR2 or Celica follow-up. Otherwise, we won’t see any new sports car from Toyota other than a new GT86 in conjunction with a new BRZ and the production version of the Le Mans-esque Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Prototype.

Finally, we see it again! It’s been almost a year since Mercedes-AMG first unveiled the Project One at the 2017 Frankfurt Auto Show and the German Automaker has been slow on delivering news updates on its most insane creation yet. Now, though, Mercedes has released official spy shots of the car in full-body camo testing in the U.K., confirming our suspicions that prototypes have begun road testing.

The Aston Martin RapidE is an upcoming electric car based on the familiar Rapide sedan. The company’s first electric car, the RapidE will be built in limited numbers in 2019 and feature a brand-new drivetrain consisting of a large battery pack and two electric motors.

Previewed by a concept car shown all the way back in 2015, the RapidE will share most of its exterior and interior design with the gasoline-powered sedan. Power, however, will come from an innovative battery and a couple of electric motors capable of more than 600 horsepower. Aimed at the Tesla Model S, the RapidE will deliver more than 200 miles of range per charge and sports car-like performance. Most details are still under wraps, but we put together a speculative review with what we know so far.

Continue reading to learn more about the Aston Martin RapidE.

Ferrari will build an SUV. I am not joking, the company made an announcement. It will be called the Ferrari Purosangue. That’s the official name of the Ferrari SUV. Ok, Ferrari CEO Louis Camilleri implicitly said that he does not want to hear “that word” in the same sentence with the word Ferrari. “That word” being SUV. Ok, Camilleri, I will not do it. Ever. The new Ferrari... truck… will be the most amazing piece of technology ever attempted with the “that word” layout. Luckily, we do know a thing or two about the new Purosangue.

Digression: Is the word crossover any better? Maybe, but I feel it sounds too soft for the status of a Ferrari. The Honda CR-V is a crossover for crying out loud.

The new Purosangue may take a layout similar to what we have been accustomed to with the onslaught of performance SUVs, yet the Italians promised to make it a proper thoroughbred. Incidentally (not really), Purosangue translated from Italian actually means thoroughbred. Is it just me, or the name Ferrari Thoroughbred (in English) wouldn’t sound bad at all? We have a Superfast and we like it, don’t we? Enough with the strange ideas. Purosangue it is.

Christopher Smith of Motor1 explained how to pronounce it:

“PUR-o-SAN-gue. There are four syllables, with emphasis on PUR and SAN. Phonetically speaking, start with PUR, as in a cat purring. From there just say a soft O as in oh, then SAN with a long A sound like saahn, and finish with GUE, which sounds like way but starting with a g – gway. PURR - oh - SAAHN - gway. See? It’s totally easy.”

OK? OK!

Ferrari has plans to launch no fewer than 15 new models by 2022, and one of those is said to be the brand’s first high-riding SUV, currently referred to as the Purosangue. It will be a front mid-engined vehicle built on a new chassis architecture with a transaxle gearbox that Ferrari is currently developing alongside a new mid-engined platform.

Coming from the rendering bakery of X-Tomi design, the latest 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe looks the business. If I didn’t know better, I would definitely think that this is the real deal - the new GLE Coupe. X-Tomi did a nice job, but it seems, not a comprehensive one. The photography of the new GLE Coupe he chose to retouch needed only a small portion of the rear end of the car transferred into the shape of a coupe. Ok, I say “only,” but I am sure, I would not be able to do it right in a month. So, kudos to X-Tomi. Yet, the GLE Coupe is a prospect in the near future of Mercedes-Benz. Personally, I hope it will not have that shouty nature of its predecessor.

At its Charged Event in Northern California, Audi revealed its first all-electric SUV - the 2020 Audi E-Tron. As the newest electric vehicle on the market, the Audi E-Tron brought a wealth of new equipment, and some of it is truly cutting edge. Among the latest invasion of electric SUVs (the EQ C, the I-Pace, the iX3), the Audi E-Tron, despite its conservative appearance, surprisingly seems to be the most advanced of the lot. I will list here 15 facts and features that make the newest Audi electric SUV the most advanced, and possibly the most appealing, electric SUV on the market.

It’s not often that we get to see a car testing with its top down, and things get much more interesting when the car in question is Porsche’s new 911 Turbo. The 992-generation model is still months away from release but power output is said to be in the 600-horsepower region, and those beefy hips make us enjoy what we see so far.

Porsche’s been racking up the miles on their 992 test mules for well over a year now. We’ve seen them testing out in the Eiffel Mountains, on the Nordschleife to be precise, on the snow, and on the open road. What we hadn’t seen, though, was the new 911 Turbo Cabriolet with the soft top folded. Now that we’ve also ticked that, there’s not much else we would ask for before release aside, maybe, for a spec sheet?

The current 991 Turbo S packs quite a mean punch with its 580 horsepower, so a break into 600-horsepower territory wouldn’t be wishful thinking for the new car. What we’re sure of, in any case, is that we’d love to be in the place of that test driver and enjoy the last warm days of 2018 aboard a 911 Turbo, be it a factory test car.

When you think about Supra, you imagine a car burning rubber on the tarmac, zooming past other fast cars in a bullying manner. Now, if I tell you that a tamed version of the Supra was considered, would you believe me? I heard you scream ‘Shut Up!!’; but, well, that’s the truth. A mid-engine layout was considered for the upcoming Toyota Supra, until Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda threw the idea out of the window. Even though he saved us from the horror, a mid-engine Supra is actually not a bad idea.

Ram has been serving customers with a big appetite and big pockets. Post discontinuation of the Dakota, the smallest pickup truck in its lineup has been the Ram 1500. Given how the market trend has been changing lately, it is essential for Ram to slot a truck at entry-level to compete against the Ford Ranger and Chevy Colorado and, after a 7-year exile, they have exactly done that. On Friday, FCA announced that a new truck will be entering the lineup below the 1500 by 2022.

The electrification process has taken over the world by storm. From smallest of hatches, to the marques, every automaker is electrifying its range. Bentley has been vocal about its electrification ambitions, and plans to offer a hybrid version on all its models. Recently, the Bentley Continental GT was spotted in its Hybrid avatar. Even though it looks just like the regular Continental GT, the additional charging port in the rear left fender was the giveaway.