Mid-Size

Audi is arguably the most active brand today when it comes to EVs. The company had announced a bold claim that it will launch 20 new EVs by 2025, and surprisingly, it seems to be on track.

The German automaker has added yet another vehicle to its EV portfolio, the Q4 Sportback e-tron, which happens to be its seventh fully electric vehicle. The company revealed the concept version for now and the real deal is expected to go on sale sometime in 2021.

If you’re from China and you’re in the market for a new four-door sedan, you might want to steer clear of the Volkswagen Passat. The German sedan of Chinese roots was recently subjected to a safety test by China’s C-IASI (that’s the country’s equivalent of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), and to the surprise of many, the Passat recorded one of the worst performances of any car in the crash test.

A video of the C-IASI’s crashworthiness assessment shows the Passat undergoing several crash tests that end in a similar fashion: the sedan gets beaten up pretty badly. The Chinese Passat’s poor performance in the crash tests has bought into question the quality of the model relative to Passat models that aren’t built in China, including Passat models that have received good safety ratings in American crash tests. Is this a case of one Passat being much safer than the other?

Ford has denied us the pleasure of having the Ranger Raptor in the U.S. for a very long time. It reached a point where aftermarket companies started offering customization packages for the standard ranger to fill that void. Numerous rumors have surfaced in the past regarding the Ranger Raptor’s debut here in the States, but none of them came true.

Similar news has surfaced again, but this time with some evidence. Our friends at Carexpert.com.au have informed us that the Ranger Raptor is coming to the States and will be powered by a V-6, turbocharged gasoline engine. Is this good news or what!

When folks like us are obsessed with a car, we draw it on papers, doodle about it, and all of that. But, if you have billions of pounds in your bank account, you just build a fully-functional vehicle from scratch. This is how the Ineos Grenadier came to life.

Ineos is a British petrochemicals group founded by Sir Jim Ratcliffe which now has an automotive division in its portfolio. Such was his love for the classic Defender that he tried to purchase the rights from Land Rover. When denied, he went on to build an SUV from the ground up that takes heavy inspiration from the old Defender. Although it looks the part, is the Ineos Grenadier as tough as the classic Land Rover?

Everything about the Tesla Model Y looks like the car of the future. From its pod shape, to its silent but explosive acceleration, to its all-encompassing infotainment screen with no physical buttons, the electric-car maker’s new entry-level crossover is more about sensibly reducing gasoline usage. It gives you a peek into the decades to come, and it gives you a rollicking good time while you do it. It’s not just an electric car, but a special vehicle that triggers a powerful emotional response. This is one way to electrify an SUV.

Then there’s Mitsubishi’s way: the 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport PHEV. All-electric cars eventually run out of charge, even long-range models like Teslas. So Mitsubishi made a plug-in hybrid whose gasoline engine can help out when you use up the battery or need more power. To keep costs down, the battery isn’t huge and the motors aren’t wildly powerful. And Mitsubishi already makes many gas-powered crossovers, so rather than wasting resources to develop a new one, it retrofitted electric components into its flagship model, the compact Outlander.

The result is a left-brain approach to the segment — the Outlander PHEV makes perfect sense, but it’s an improved present rather than the future. At best, you’ll feel something between mildly impressed and grudgingly accepting. It’s hard to imagine falling in love.

For years, Maserati has been buying engines from Ferrari to power its cars. It wasn’t a bad arrangement at all, really, but that’s also why the recent news that it was building its own all-new engine – known as the Nettuno V-6 – in house was such a big deal. It’s finally starting to look like Maserati is staking its own independence from Maranello, but now, it looks like the Nettuno engine isn’t as all-new as Maserati led us all to believe.

The current-gen Durango has been in the running for a decade now, and it was high time for the fourth-gen to make its debut. However, the company announced that it’ll just be a facelift. But, after seeing the 2021 Durango “facelift”, we are not complaining because this is even better than the next-gen stuff.

Apart from the exterior and cabin upgrades, Dodge has added an SRT trim to the Durango’s lineup that brings with it the Hellcat engine. The Durango equipped with this mill will make a mammoth 710 horses that will allow the heavy family hauler to sprint to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds! Well, this a fourth of July present from FCA that we’ll gleefully accept.

It’s been almost a decade since Kia introduced the 2011 Optima in the U.S. and the time has come for a generation swap. Call it a model swap, actually, as the new 2021 Kia K5 mid-size saloon is here to take over from where the Optima left off.

Kia will assemble the K5 next to the crisp-looking Telluride SUV at its plant in West Point, Georgia. Before the first cars roll off the production line, let’s look at what customers will be getting from the 2021 K5 sedan.

An article on Business Insider has hit the surface suggesting that when Tesla rolled out the Model S from its Fremont factory back in 2012, it knew about a potential design flaw that could lead to battery packs catching fire.

The author hasn’t provided evidence for the same, but if true, this is a serious issue that could bring Tesla under scrutiny and hurt its credibility to a large extent.

The U.S. market is bereft of wagons. In the last few years, most automakers pulled their wagons due to the falling demand. There aren’t a lot of options right now and even though there seems to be a positive response to wagons lately, automakers are still hesitant about getting them back. The latest example of this is the Volkswagen Arteon. The company recently refreshed the model and introduced a Shooting Brake version, but it won’t be reaching the U.S. shores.

To give you an idea of how of what we’re missing, here is a couple of renderings from X-Tomi Design that show how hot a two-door Arteon Shooting Brake would look.

Mercedes-Benz has been offering AMG versions of the C-Class ever since its compact sedan adopted the letter C in 1993. At first it was the C36 AMG, but the modern version goes by the name AMG C63 and it’s also available in a more powerful S version.

It’s pretty obvious that the 2020 AMG C63 S is superior to the original C-Class AMG in every department, but how does it compare to the previous-generation, 2013-model-year variant? The folks over at Throttle House brought these cars together to find out.

We’ve been seeing Rivian for a very long time now. The truck is covered in-depth by many websites and YouTube channels and we know what to expect from it. On paper, the specs seem pretty good, but we hadn’t seen it on the road other than spying it a couple of times during testing and commercial shoots. But, with so much happening in the truck segment in the last couple of days, the 2021 Ford F-150 and Lordstown Endurance’s launch, and Ram confirming the TRX’s arrival, Rivian decided to hop on the train too.

Rivian released a few short clips of the R1T pickup truck that show its off-roading prowess. With the Tank Turn also in its arsenal, the R1T might be the next big thing in the off-roading truck niche. How about that!

Ram has crashed Ford’s party big time. Ford was all set to unveil the fourteenth generation of the F-150, which is arguably the biggest launch of the year when Ram decided to drop a teaser of the upcoming Ram Rebel TRX just hours before the F-150’s debut.

The Rebel TRX goes up against the F-150 Raptor, so this strategic timing was purely evil. What a war this is turning out to be!

The wait is finally over. This is arguably the biggest debut of the year. With the current-gen in the loop for almost five years, Ford has decided to bring in the fourteenth generation of the world’s best-selling pickup truck, the F-150.

The reveal is even more important because the rivals are catching up in terms of sales and Ford might risk losing the crown of being the best-seller which it’s been holding for over four decades now. Unlike the structural changes that were introduced in the last generation change, this time, Ford has doubled down on technology and a lot of new tech features are now available on the truck.

From the initial impressions, does the 2021 Ford F-150 feel better than the model it replaces? It certainly does.

The Tesla Model Y is a pretty good vehicle and slots in perfectly between the Model 3 and the Model X, although it is much closer to the Model 3. Some folks even call it the crossover version of the Model 3, given the amount of part sharing between the two. The Model Y has had positive reviews generally, but it has a few flaws, just like any other vehicle. However, Jay Leno didn’t have anything bad to say about the electric crossover. It looks like the Model Y has impressed the man who generally dislikes crossovers.