Family Car guides

The latest segment to be hit by the electrification bug is pickup trucks. Although some electric firms - Tesla and Rivian - have been into electrification for years, mainstream automakers have also decided to jump in before it gets too late. The Tesla and Rivian war has been on since the two decided to enter the electric pickup truck foray. The two have been approaching the segment differently and have kind of eased into their spaces. Now that Ford is developing an electric powertrain of its own for the F-150, things could get even more exciting. I’ve listed out five possible scenarios that may or may not be hypothetical.

Tesla is about to take the pickup world by storm with an all-electric truck that will most likely be revealed this year. The vehicle that’s set to be shown this year won’t be the final production-spec model, though, as we’ve come to expect from Tesla, but it will be a very close preview of that model.

November 17, 2019 will forever be remembered as the day Ford unveiled the controversial Mustang Mach-E electric crossover. We’ve looked at, gone through, and peeled off just about every conceivable layer of the Mustang Mach-E, and now it’s time to look at each of the Mach-E’s trims from affordable to most expensive. Here’s the breakdown.

The Volkswagen Golf is arguably one of the most recognizable models in Volkswagen’s lineup. That stature comes with the pressure of standing out in a sea of hatchbacks looking to take some shine away from the famous nameplate. Now that the eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf (Mk8) is here, it looks like the competition will have its hands full trying to catch up with the Golf Mk8. See, there are a lot of things to like about the Golf Mk8, but arguably the most important of these things is the incredible amount of new technologies Volkswagen was able to pack into the hatchback. Believe me when I tell you, the eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf is so tricked out in new technology, it’s hard to imagine how Volkswagen managed to fit all of them into the hatchback.

After years of promises, teasers, and concept cars, Porsche finally unveiled the Taycan. A major turning point in the company’s history, the Taycan is the first Porsche with an all-electric drivetrain. What’s more, the Taycan is an EV of the high performance variety, so it goes against one of the most popular electric vehicles on the market, the Tesla Model S. A strong seller in the United States and a market leader in some European countries, the Model S is tough to beat. The big question is whether the Taycan has what it takes to give the Model S a run for its money and that’s exactly what we will find out in the comparison below.

It’s no secret that with the copious amounts of torque they carry, electric vehicles are considered some of the fastest-accelerating cars in the world, faster even than most of their non-EV counterparts. The eight cars on this list are proof of that. These are some of the fastest electric cars on the road today, so if you happen to see one on the road, try not to look at them the wrong way, unless you want to see first-hand just how fast they can go.

It has recently been confirmed that Jeep will unveil a pickup truck version of the JL Wrangler at the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show. Called the Gladiator, according to leaked documents, it will be Jeep’s first pickup truck since 1992. And, needless to say, fans have been clamoring for a Jeep with a bed ever since the Cherokee-based Comanche was discontinued.

The Gladiator name will also make a comeback after no fewer than 47 years, but Jeep built more than two pickups throughout its history. It actually made six of them, and even though they were built under different ownership and names, they’re all iconic in their own right. With Jeep’s first truck in more than two decades underway, we decided it’s the perfect time to look through the company’s history as a pickup manufacturer.

I am in love with the new Land Rover Defender. But at first, I was not. I was disappointed with its move towards an unibody chassis, and I have resented all the "soft-touches" Land Rover prepped for it. But I have changed my mind.

True, it is a mommy automobile, and a kids-to-school mover, but it is the best mommy automobile and kids transportation device I have ever seen. It’s tough, robust, well-engineered, rugged, and seriously capable. Plus, Land Rover offers it with 170 accessories, like roof racks, tow hitches, steel wheels, a rinse system, an armrest cooler, and a front bench-style seat. Find me another car that offers all of that. There’s no way you can. But!

There is a big "but" here. The 2020 Land Rover Defender is seriously expensive. It starts at $50,925 (plus destination charges) in the U.S. That’s huge. That is the price of the base BMW X4 xDrive30i. Take a deep dive in the configurator and you can spec it out at more than 100 grand. That is absurd.

In 2012, the Land Rover Defender started at $22,000 in Australia. Then again, the only thing that’s left from the old Defender on the new one is the name. Nothing else. This is a wholly new car. I only hope that Land Rover invested heavily in quality control. If it manages to ace reliability and dependability surveys with the new Defender, I’d say that the price may even be justified.

Here are several cool quirks and features that set this Defender apart from any other car in the world.

A lot of stress is being given to safety features in vehicles today. Although cars and SUVs use this as a selling point, trucks never really came loaded with a lot of safety tech. However, things are changing now for good, and automakers have upped their game. The 2020 Ram 1500 bagged the Top Safety Pick + award, something unheard of in the truck segment. There’s no doubt that the larger trucks are a lot more equipped than the compact trucks, but what is the benchmark in this segment, and which trucks have scored the best and the worst?

Small luxury SUVs haven’t been around that long. In a way, they represent a niche within a niche (the broader pool of SUVs and crossovers), created by carmakers such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW, in their hunt for more income. The purpose of a small luxury SUV is to offer the plush comfort and technological bells and whistles of their larger peers, in a package that’s less expensive yet doesn’t compromise too much on the overall driving experience, assembly, and the quality of the materials used inside the cabin.

Pickup trucks these are days are not only about their hauling and towing capacities; they are fast, they often come with a luxurious cabin, and are loaded to the gill with high-tech features. So, why should they lag behind in terms of safety? People use trucks today as their daily driver, and family haulers, and they are concerned about safety. Automakers have started offering safety features, but which one tops the list and which truck scrapes the bottom of the barrel?

The Ford Explorer has been around for almost 30 years. In that time, the SUV segment has evolved in ways no one could’ve dreamed of. Through it all, the Explorer has remained one of the segment’s backbones, a pillar from which the SUV world has stood on for close to three decades. The Explorer’s life reads like a Hollywood script, too. It started off with a bang, establishing itself as one of the most popular SUVs on the market. That success lasted for more than a decade before the Explorer lost its way as other SUVs arrived. Sales eventually cratered, leaving Ford desperate to recapture the magic the Explorer had when it became the breakout hit of the early ’90s. The return to form eventually took place as the SUV segment in the U.S. exploded. With the Explorer now entrenched as one of the most popular SUVs in the market, Ford’s banking on the sixth-generation model to keep that momentum. Whether it does so or not remains to be seen, but the all-new Explorer appears fully equipped to take on that challenge.

Once upon a time, the term “luxury SUV” described models that you could barely count on one hand. Today, the term “luxury SUV” describes a thriving ecosystem of some of the finest and most premium sport utility vehicles in the market. The growing popularity of SUVs has ignited interest in these models, resulting in the kind of demand that many thought was impossible as recently as a decade ago. And as more exotic brands — hello, Aston Martin, and Ferrari — enter the ring, the luxury SUV market is only going to get bigger and far more diverse than it already is today. But that’s a story for another time. For now, these are the seven most luxurious SUVs you can buy in the market today.

We’ve all heard by now that Aston Martin will build an SUV. In fact, the upcoming DBX - that’s the name Gaydon chose for its first-ever high-riding vehicle - has revealed some of its intricacies, but even so, there’s still more of what we don’t know than what we actually know about it.

The DBX comes as a surprise move from Aston Martin and although you might not see it like that since every carmaker is churning out high-riding vehicles these days, the company’s CEO was very adamant that the company won’t build such a car because SUVs are boxes and boxes aren’t beautiful. The statement dates back to 2015 when Andy Palmer seemed to wage a war on SUVs, saying that “our [Aston Martin’s] DNA doesn’t allow us to go there” and “you cannot make a beautiful SUV, it’s impossible.” Oh, well, little did we know.

Is there a performance car that doubles as a family car, and vice versa? It’s a tricky question to ask given that it’s usually one or the other. A performance car doesn’t make for a good family car. On the flip side, family cars aren’t exactly brimming with performance capabilities. Thinking along those lines has become a popular narrative over the years, but it’s also the wrong narrative.

There are performance cars that make for good family cars, and you might be surprised that there are certain family-centric models that can flash a mean streak every so often. These eight models fit the bill of a different sort of hybrid vehicle that not a lot of people pay much attention to. No, they’re not hybrids in the traditional sense that we know about in the business. They’re hybrids by personality. They can fit the bill of a car enthusiast’s dream performance car and they can double as vehicles that you can use to buy groceries and take your kids to soccer practice.

The problem with small craft beer companies isn’t about the quality of their products or the innovation behind it. It is about the scale. When the demand picks up, they cannot deliver - the quality goes down, and waiting time goes up. That is why not many alcohol drink representatives want to work with small scale craft beer producers. I am telling you this because we have something similar in the car world as well. When the demand picked up for the Tesla-produced cars, the company could not meet the expectations. No matter what it did. So, when a car like the Porsche Taycan comes to the market, it is a whole different story. It has Porsche and the entire Volkswagen Group behind it. These people do meet expectations, and these are all the quirks and features you need to know about the Taycan to believe it.

Let’s be honest here; the Tesla Model 3’s interior isn’t exactly rich and well defined. It is sparsely equipped with one massive screen that hosts virtual buttons for all functions. In higher grade trims, Tesla did manage to offer nice upholstery on the seats and more expensive materials on the doors. It does give a bit of style and pizzazz to the Tesla Model 3, but nowhere near enough to match the lavish of the Lexus IS, 3 Series, or, the Mercedes-Benz C-class. The problem is that even the most expensive Model 3’s interior cannot hold a candle to the interiors of even less expensive cars. And now, we have a stripped-down Model 3. What could Tesla possibly delete from the Model 3 to lower its price to $35,000? Well, here’s a list of everything you don’t get with the entry-level Tesla Model 3.

Electric cars represent the future of the auto industry. It’s not a question of “if” anymore. But, just because there’s a surge of momentum in desire for electric cars, that doesn’t mean that electric cars will always be better than gas cars. On the contrary, gas-powered cars will remain relevant even as the EV revolution comes in full swing. Automakers can make proclamations about the robust future of EVs as much as they want, but there are more than 100 years of history behind gas-powered cars that nobody, not even the biggest auto brands in the world, can just sweep under the rug. Electric cars offer advantages in a handful of ways, but they still have a long way to go to prove to the people that they’re better than gas-powered cars.

I read a lot of Bronco stuff in my research for this article and let me tell you right away that we are in for the ride of our lives. Ford has some balls and, if we are lucky, it will probably give us just what we wanted - a retro looking 2020 Ford Bronco with live axles, three doors, a cool “no-roof” mechanism, a modern engine, and a freaking spare tire slapped at the back. A gazillion rumors have surfaced over the past few years about the new Bronco, but the last teaser picture revealed a lot.

The Bronco always was a cool vehicle. All the way from 1966, but it wasn’t until that OJ Simpson situation that it reached the status of an automotive icon like no other. Interestingly enough, we’ve had to wait a quarter of a century for Ford to reveal an all-new Bronco, a vehicle that will be a staple of American off-roading culture and the first one in a long time to attack the likes of the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited.

This is what we know about the 2020 Ford Bronco.

With their unibody construction, technology sourced from compact cars, and small engines, the crossovers, or compact SUVs, have become the most popular choice for the car buyers of today. They offer exceptional convenience thanks to the sizeable cabin, ample luggage space, and a cabin moved to the front. Unlike body-on-frame trucks, the crossovers have far less weight to full, feature comprehensive active safety equipment, and represent a novel interpretation of cheap, but practical means of personal transportation. Thanks to their raised body, raised suspension, and, in some instances, a tricked out all-wheel-drive, the crossovers also evoke a particularly adventurous spirit, now fully adapted for average families and average drivers. Considering the successful marriage of off-road truck technologies, and nature with the classic unibody construction, compact SUVs/crossovers are the best "all-in-one" vehicles the car industry ever gave us.