Great things have come from engineers or enthusiasts asking themselves the right question at the right time. Hey, what if someone made a Ferrari that didn’t break down? Answer: The original Acura NSX. What if you took a 3-series racing? Answer: The BMW M3. Now, what if you stuffed a supercharged Hellcat V-8 engine under the mid-size Jeep Gladiator pickup’s hood? You’d get this big baddy currently for sale at Wilde Cars in Florida.
Look, the question of putting V-8 engines in Jeeps isnt’ a new one. Back in the day, Jeep CJs and the like came with V-8s from the factory, and these days, you can convert Wranglers to accept Hemi V-8s (lookin’ at you, AEV!). But the Gladiator is new for 2020, and we’re sure plenty of aftermarket companies are asking themselves how to install V-8s in the Jeep pickup truck. Oddly, we don’t know who specifically put the Hellcat V-8 in this [...]
Honda has axed the Clarity Electric after introducing it to select states in the U.S. less than three years ago. Although its departure leaves Honda without any pure electric vehicles in the U.S., we can’t say we’re surprised. It was a low-volume model, and more importantly, it delivered a very uncompetitive 89 miles of range.
That’s piddling compared to a growing number of mainstream electric cars that can travel more than 200 miles on a single charge. These long-range EVs include the Chevrolet Bolt, Hyundai Kona Electric, Kia Soul Electric, Kia Niro Electric, and Nissan Leaf Plus. Even the regular Nissan Leaf (150 miles) and Hyundai Ioniq Electric (170 miles) blew the Clarity Electric away, as did the recently discontinued VW e-Golf (125 miles).
Honda confirmed to MotorTrend that Clarity Electric production ended late last year, and it’s no longer available on the automaker’s website. Moving forward, the company is focusing on its next generation [...]
A few days ago, we learned about Tesla’s most recent over-the-air (OTA) update to its handling-enhancing Track Mode, called Track Mode V2. But bundled with it were five less-celebrated improvements meant to enhance the driving experience of certain Model 3s, Ss, and Xs when you’re not driving at the limit. Here’s what else you can expect from Tesla’s latest firmware update, known as 2020.8.1.
Full Self-Driving Preview available for new regionsToward the end of 2019, Tesla released what it called “Full Self-Driving Visualization Preview,” which was sent to cars purchased with the Full Self-Driving (FSD) option and equipped with hardware version 3. What this does is populate the center display with additional objects that it recognizes on the road ahead, such as road markings, stop lights, stop signs, and cones. It gives owners a sense of what FSD (once it appears) is going to be able to see in the real world. The preview [...]
The Toyota Land Cruiser–based Lexus LX luxury SUV has been with us for a while now, and it is nearing the end of its current life cycle. That’s too bad, because the big brute is a throwback to 4x4s of yore—it has actual off-road capability, for example—but the LX isn’t done quite yet. In fact, Lexus just built a new one, a pretty nifty kid’s version of its largest SUV that happens to be a one-off convertible.
Okay, you got us, the roofless, purple LX Lexus made is a bespoke children’s ride-on toy to support a partnership between Lexus and the Cerebral Palsy Foundation. March is unofficially Cerebral Palsy awareness month, and the special drop-top SUV was delivered this week to its new owner, Finley Smallwood. She is only six years old, and the special Lexus will help her get around in a very unique way. How?
Because it can be hard for Smallwood to [...]
It’s amazing sometimes how two cars with shared underpinnings can have such radically different executions. Unlike its Smart Forfour platform-mate, the Renault Twingo Z.E. doesn’t look like a robotic boxfish. Nor was it conspicuously canceled recently in a major market. It’s instead a charming, newly-electrified variant of a typically French minicar. And while it’ll never be sold here in a million years, it looks like it’d be a lot of fun to zip around in.
Let’s cut right to the chase, because with the shared running gear there’s not a lot we haven’t covered. The Twingo Z.E.’s battery is much larger than its Smart counterpart—22.0 kWh compared to the Smart’s 17.6 kWh unit. That’s enough to bump up range considerably, with the Renault managing to go up to 143 miles on the European testing cycle—compared to just under 100 miles for the Smart variant.
The Z.E. version gets some minor styling tweaks (some badges, some [...]
