Table of contents for September 2022 in Car and Driver

A TO Z Your cover read “Nissan’s Amazing Comeback” in reference to your article on the Nissan Z [“Red-Letter Day,” June 2022]. Really? Where did they come back from, and what is so amazing about it? Take an old structure, add in an old engine (yes, a great engine, but still old), tack on a new skin (yes, it looks pretty good), and, wait, that really is an amazing comeback. Guess you were swayed by the manual transmission (also old). Keep up the great work.—Mitch NydishNorth Bethesda, MD The new Z is spot on. About 10 years late, but it is great to see that Nissan has moved on from its Hello Kitty phase, with the Cube and the Juke/Joke.—Steven CrawfordBuckeye, AZ Don’t forget the Murano CrossCabriolet—Ed. Sorry, Nissan, but…

We’ve driven a car while sitting on a milk crate, but that doesn’t mean we like it, especially when modern driver’s seats offer luxuries such as heating and ventilation, active support in corners, and much greater crash protection than the crate. Mercedes-Benz has a long history of comfort, as even the Benz Patent-Motorwagen had a bench well cushioned enough for Bertha Benz to make a 65-mile road trip in 1888. It was roomy, too—her two teen-age boys went with. Considering that the Patent-Motorwagen marked the birth of the modern automobile, Mercedes can lay claim to having the first automotive seat. Inventing the car is all well and good, but the German brand was one of the first to put massaging elements inside car seats (the S-class in 2000). Now that’s…

A few years ago, I made a $1000 reservation for a Tesla Model 3. I eventually canceled it, because I wanted the most basic, $35,000 iteration of the car and Tesla took so long getting around to making those that I gave up. But I like Tesla’s products. The Model X is goofy futuristic, the Model 3 is great fun, and the Model S can still smoke exotics in a drag race. I’ve never driven the Model Y, because that one came out after Tesla launched its PR department into orbit on a SpaceX rocket, but I bet it’s good too. So don’t take this the wrong way, Tesla super-fans, when I say that there could be trouble ahead for your favorite company. Tesla enjoyed more than a few years with…

Electric Commentary The Porsche DNA comes through the Taycan in the poised handling and communicative steering.—Rich Ceppos Like a 911 Turbo, this Taycan 4S feels like you could dust 99.9 percent of the other cars on any given road without barely trying.—Ezra Dyer This i4 is an electric M3, albeit a rather heavy one that might actually ride better.—Mike Sutton The Mach-E GT is far more fun than it has any right to be.—Greg Fink There’s more sizzle from the Mach-E’s tires than a Waffle House at rush hour.—Dan Edmunds Given the right circumstances, one could convince a Taycan 4S Cross Turismo passenger that the car isn’t an EV. It drives like a good car should: crisp controls, taut body motions, and the ability to wow with 60 mph never…

Tough Love for the Sub-$40K The Bolt EUV is really boring, and I want those 15 minutes of my life back.—Elana Scherr There is lots of value in the Bolt EV at the lower 2023 price.—Greg Fink The Kona feels far more spry than the Bolt EUV and looks less dorky, but the interior feels cheap and the rear seat is more cramped.—Drew Dorian Perhaps rising interest in electrics means the time has now come for the little Chevy Bolt, widely ignored upon its introduction.—Joe Lorio The Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV—a new-for-2022 SUV-like variant—are the sensible shoes of the EV world. Neither will blow your socks off with face-melting acceleration, and they don’t draw attention with flashy styling or gimmicky tech. While the Bolt duo’s appearance may get…

THE NUMBERS Base: $103,895 As Tested: $121,690 Combined Power: 522 hp Combined Torque: 472 lb-ft Battery: 85.0 kWh Onboard Charger: 11.0 kW Transmissions, F/R: direct-drive/2-speed automatic Curb Weight: 5148 lb C/D Test Results 60 mph: 3.6 sec 1/4-Mile: 11.9 sec @119 mph Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.2 sec. Top Speed (gov ltd): 150 mph Braking, 70–0 mph: 159 ft Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.90 g EPA Fuel Economy • Combined: 82 mpGe • Range: 238 mi Audi’s approach for the e-tron GT sedan follows the same path as the e-tron mid-size SUV. The four-ring brand set out to make this EV look and feel just like the Audi sports sedans we know and love, much as the e-tron apes Audi’s conventional gas-powered crossovers. But a sports sedan is a whole…

Whoosh goes the Cadillac. And then it glides. Drive the all-electric Lyriq and you’re reminded of the quiet grace of Cadillacs past. Electrification appears to be returning the 120-year-old brand to its smooth, silent, and comfortable roots. In reaching for the future—Cadillac promises an all-EV lineup by 2030—the luxury carmaker is reintroducing a few long-dismissed attributes. The Lyriq’s demeanor is in keeping with the virtues of its powertrain. An electric motor, such as the permanent-magnet spinner in the Lyriq (340 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque), never does much more than hum. The 102.0-kWh battery pack in the floor—sort of like sitting atop a giant slice of Texas toast—suppresses nearly all road noise. A wind-cheating and range-extending shape helps keep the air’s howl to a low whisper at highway speed.…

Comments Electrified An EV for people who don’t care whether anyone else knows they have an EV.—Ezra Dyer This car looks stately from the outside and is plush and rich on the inside.—Elana Scherr The iX’s interior feels like a million bucks and looks like the future.—Greg Fink The move to electrification granted designers a hall pass to get wild with exterior styling. But if a low-slung hood or a spaceship profile isn’t your thing, look no further than the Genesis Electrified G80. Perhaps the greatest appeal of the Genesis brand’s latest electric offering is that unlike so many other new EVs, it isn’t a utility vehicle. It comes in a single trim level with plenty of creature comforts, including a rich leather interior. Aside from the one-piece crest grille…

What happens to dead batteries? Are they really recyclable? When the batteries of a hybrid or an eV go bad, they go to specialized recyclers that disassemble the packs down to individual cells. the process is tricky because cells remain hot and ready to discharge; there is no off switch. the cells are tested for viability, and the useful ones can go into another battery, one potentially for a nonautomotive application. the spent ones go through a smelting process that recovers the individual metals—cobalt, manganese, nickel, and lithium—which are recovered using an energy-intensive chemical process. About 70 percent of a battery’s weight can be effectively recovered. Charging is complicated, and automakers are part of the problem, making various claims about peak charging rates, time to charge between two states of…

One notable entry described itself as “The Watt Family Poodle Farm and Insane Asylum.” The Watt place (yes, really) stands out on the PlugShare list, one of several unexpected private residences among the app’s location and status reviews of public EV chargers. To find out who is inviting total strangers to their garage and why, photographer Michael Simari and I nabbed the key fob to an electric car we figured wouldn’t be too unwelcome in any driveway, a BMW i4 M50, and charted a course along the west coast of Michigan, marking our stops based on PlugShare’s little blue house icons. Our first destination was a complex of tiny homes a few miles from the beach in South Haven, where, with no answers to our in-app texts, we pulled up…

Highs: Nearly unstoppable off-road, ride suppleness, quick for a Bronco. Lows: Fuel thirst, could use more power. Ford first applied the Raptor treatment to the F-150 pickup in 2009, and the overwhelming response proved that suspension upgrades can be glamorous. Now it’s applied Raptor-grade high-speed desert capability and frame-scraping rock-crawling talents to the Bronco, to which we say: Take our money. Starting at $70,095, the four-door-only Bronco Raptor isn’t cheap. But what you get goes much further than the Bronco’s existing Sasquatch package. To create the Raptor, Ford began with massive 37-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain K02 tires, rollers large enough to serve as flotation devices. Nearly every suspension component has been forti-fied, and the Fox Live Valve 3.1 dampers offer three settings of adjustability and external reservoirs on the rear units.…

To know the Car and Driver reader—to really understand the people who get this magazine in the mail, seek it out at the Paradies news-stand at Palm Beach International, or search for it at the library—all you have to do is read their letters. Collectively, y’all are a witty, insightful, and sharp-tongued monolith of sass and knowledge. We respect you more than you know, and not just because you write the funniest part of the magazine. You direct us, you correct us, and you threaten to walk out the door. We get it. Like you, we all once sat on the receiving end of C/D, ready to set pen to paper to tell the editors that the 1997 Volkswagen Jetta III GLX should’ve finished higher in its comparison test because…

Early in June, Blake Lemoine, an engineer at Google working on artificial intelligence, made headlines for claiming that the company’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) chat program is self-aware. Lemoine shared transcripts of his conversation with LaMDA that he says prove it has a soul and should be treated as a co-worker rather than a tool. Fellow engineers were unconvinced, as am I. I read the transcripts; the AI talks like an annoying stoner at a college party, and I’m positive those guys lacked any self-awareness. All the same, Lemoine’s interpretation is understandable. If something is talking about its hopes and dreams, then to say it doesn’t have any seems heartless. At the moment, our cars don’t care whether you’re nice to them. Even if it feels wrong to…

After the Festival of Weirdness that we know as the BMW i3, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the i4, an all-electric 4-series Gran Coupe, would somehow fall flat, and the electrified future would leave BMW enthusiasts behind. You’d also be flat wrong. When we first tested the dual-motor BMW i4 M50, we were shocked (pun fully intended) by how quick it was—M3 Competition quick, in fact. We pushed it hard on challenging roads, and its suspension, steering, and brakes were not just fully up to the task; the low center of gravity and ungodly power delivery of the dual-motor electric powertrain made it even more rewarding to drive. Several staffers quietly remarked that they’d rank it above any of the 2-/3-/4-series gassers coming out of Bavaria. The rear-drive i4…

Think of the Porsche 911 GT3 variants as wild geese, breathing free and flying high while the rest of the flock grows fat on the ground, dependent on a diet of forced induction. Wild and free GT3s may be, but there’s a limit to how much air an engine can move on its own. That means the 2023 911 GT3 RS can’t lean on a meaningful power increase to rise above its turbocharged competition. With 518 horsepower on tap, the newest GT3 RS is the most powerful naturally aspirated 911—but only by a modest bump over the 503 found in the GT3. Raw power, then, is not the focus here. Instead Porsche engineers were much more interested in manipulating the airflow outside of the engine. The result is a flagship…

Maybe you’ve only schussed there, but the mountains and cities of the Denver area are full of automotive delights. From scenic drives that will test your bravery and your brakes to all kinds of transportation museums, here are the best roads and places to visit. BIGS AND LITTLES: Shrink it down and enter a remote-control race at MHOR R/C Raceway in Aurora. Or go big and scope out the collection of trains (including a Union Pacific Big Boy), planes, cars, and bikes at Denver’s Forney Museum of Transportation. GET DIRTY: Rent a Jeep, an ATV, or even a scooter and enjoy some of the scenic off-road trails just outside Denver. Check out Yankee Hill and Estes Park. VISTA CRUISING: Colorado is justly famous for winding byways with fabulous views. Mount…

THIS IS HAPPENING. Just a few years ago, you’d find a desultory Tesla or Chevy Bolt at our 10Best testing, usually plugged in while the rest of the vehicles cycled in and out of the lot. Now there are enough EVs to warrant their own showdown. And that happened quickly. The EV shopper can choose from pickups, SUVs, and sedans, some courtesy of entirely new companies. Charging is getting faster and easier to find, if not easier to get working. At least two new models, the Rivian R1S and Cadillac Lyriq, were launched the same week as our event. Many more are on the way. Eventually, whether in 10 years or 20, all cars will be electrified, and staging an EV-specific contest will be like choosing the best tires made…

Pickup Trucks Rule! An F-150 EV that is still an F-150.—Tony Quiroga Rivian really hit a hole in one on the first hole; the R1T nails its mission.—Greg Fink Turns out, a truck with sports-car steering is an excellent idea. Funny that startup Rivian made it happen.—Tony Quiroga SLOW PLAY: We plugged the Lightning into a 120-volt socket on a Friday at 4:15 p.m., the battery showing 27 percent. The F-150 thought it would be full Wednesday at 11:34 a.m. Come Monday at 9:18 a.m., the full-battery estimate was adjusted to be earlier, Tuesday at 10:44 p.m. The prominent range figures on EVs’ window stickers aren’t the perfect laboratory comparison many expect, as there is more than one method automakers can legally employ to arrive at those figures. Also, as…

Gonna Need More Truck The R1T’s body control and steering are so good, you forget it’s a truck.—Ezra Dyer The Lightning is the anti-Hummer: low-key, traditional inside, and simple.—Rich Ceppos The Hummer is what Lambo would have made if the LM002 were electric.—K.C. Colwell Last year, at our inaugural EV of the Year event, there wasn’t a single vehicle that could tow more than 5000 pounds. There are now three such entries: the GMC Hummer EV (7500-pound towing capacity), Ford F-150 Lightning (10,000-pound max), and Rivian R1T (11,000 pounds). To evaluate this emerging electric-towing phenomenon, we hitched each to the same load, a 29-foot camper that weighs 6100 pounds, the sort of trailer a family of four might take on the quintessential summer getaway. We ran all three trucks on…

In theory, the EQS ought to excite us. After all, in AMG form, this all-wheel-drive electric luxury car produces 751 horsepower, allowing it to race to 60 mph in 3.0 seconds. It’s even capable of going 290 miles at 75 mph on a full charge (the non-AMG EQS580 can go 350 miles). In practice, the most performance-oriented variant of the three-pointed-star brand’s electric hatchback left us dispirited. Yes, its build quality and interior materials far surpass those from the likes of Lucid and Tesla, but the EQS fails to mimic the cosseting characteristics of its gas-powered counterpart, the S-class. Particularly, the EQS’s back seat lacks the grandeur we expect of a flagship model, as the car’s partially-consumed-lozenge shape puts a noticeable dent in rear-seat headroom—a trait the upright position of…

At long last, Cadillac has given the Escalade the V treatment. Side-stepping the split between tamer V-badged models and full-bore V Blackwings, the Escalade-V’s mission is simply one of power and prestige. Power comes from a super-charged 6.2-liter V-8, a hand-built mill lifted from the CT5-V Blackwing but with a larger Roots blower. With a 10-speed automatic and power to all four wheels, the blown V-8’s 682-hp wallop should propel the super Slade to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds (4.3 for the longer ESV version). A V mode button activates this brute’s most dynamic settings and engages launch control when the driver mashes both pedals from a stop. Lift off the brake for an EV-like surge of acceleration. The engine makes 653 pound-feet of torque, 80 percent of which is…