Let’s not beat around the bushings. The Honda Civic Type R LE loses all of 50 pounds compared to a standard Civic Type R Touring, according to Honda. That’s not a lot when a Type R Touring weighs more than 3,100 pounds. Where the weight came from, th

When Donald Trump was elected president four years ago, MotorTrend wrote a critical analysis of what the Trump administration would mean for our way of transport. Republican-leaning readers dared me to deliberate this issue in a similarly critical ma

One of the crazier, hard-to-swallow truths of the automotive industry: A whole lot of cars are fed to the Crusher. What’s the Crusher, you ask? It’s a dramatized catch-all phrase to gin up emotions when cars are seemingly destroyed needlessly. The co

George W. Bush was just finishing up his first term as president of the United States when Nissan last redesigned its Frontier midsize pickup. Nearly 20 years later, the entry-level truck finally sports brand-new bodywork, albeit draped over underpin

“Designing cars is nothing more than applied futurology,” says Mercedes-Benz chief designer Bruno Sacco. But if the futurology of the ’50s had come true, our streets would be full of atomic-powered cars with joystick controls and radar guidance syste

A BMS manages the charging and discharging of a battery pack by monitoring its current, voltage, temperature, and state of charge so it can safely be used for thousands of charge/discharge cycles. This monitoring has traditionally been done via coppe

I feel guilty, and a little bit confused. Some of what I’m about to say will go down like a tungsten catamaran. But hear me out. I’ve just driven a 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S—now fitted with a seven-speed manual gearbox as a no-cost option—and you ca

The Wikipedia entry on the first-gen Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen says the truck needed 27 seconds to hit 62 mph. In my case, foot flat on the floor, hustling the long shifter as quickly as I could, I stopped counting after 15, because who cares at that poi

Virtual CES 2021 sucked as much as Virtual Everything Else did, but compelling news broke regarding lidar and autonomous driving. I’m not dialed in enough to sort lidar hype from heroics, so I connected with Tom Jellicoe, an optics expert at the Tech

Every so often, Toyota, purveyor of sensible, family-friendly SUVs, minivans, and sedans, builds a car that absolutely blows you away: the 2000GT that made its debut in 1965 and was intended to take on the Jaguar E-Type; the rally-inspired Celica GT-

Until now, the only things Chevrolet had to fear when it looked at its Colorado versus Ford’s Ranger were the Ranger’s brand equity and Ford’s dominance in pickup fleet sales. When it came to the product, the latest Ranger couldn’t touch the Colorado

When it comes to off-roading, Jeep sets the standard, especially at reasonable price levels. Other brands offer all-wheel drive, and a few of them build a seriously capable off-roader or two if you’re willing to pay, but no one builds a trail-ready m

Here we were worried about the future of performance at Lexus. The midsize GS sport sedan and its spicy GS F halo flatlined last year, and Lexus seems to have busied itself diluting the F hot-rod division’s name with flash-over-dash F Sport styling p

As the result of a more extensive redesign than the typical midcycle refresh, the 2021 Honda Ridgeline’s sheetmetal forward of its windshield is all-new, and it shows. A more prominent, larger grille gives the Ridgeline a bolder look and a more uprig

After a single-year hiatus, the Nissan Pathfinder returns for the 2022 model year. Having shed its predecessor’s jelly-bean shape, the new Pathfinder instead wears rugged bodywork that more closely resembles the look of the larger body-on-frame 2021

The British are famous for understatement, so much so you’d believe it if someone told you it was codified in common law. Rolls-Royce, the most British of automakers, treats understatement with the same reverence it treats the Spirit of Ecstasy that

Times change. And fast. Just seven years ago—the last time we published a midsize sedan Big Test comparison—four-door family car sales were booming. Back then, four midsize sedans made the top 10 best-selling list. In 2020? Only the Toyota Camry made

We still have to wait a year to see Ford’s full-throated response to the Ram TRX when the special F-150 Raptor R arrives with a powerful V-8. But we’re just as excited to see the latest twin-turbo V-6 Raptor that Ford unveiled recently. You’ll be abl

Cruise, a self-driving tech startup, was founded in 2013 and bought by General Motors in 2016. GM remains a majority shareholder, but Cruise operates independently, with 1,600 employees. It is headquartered in San Francisco, where it does much of its

PRICE: $0.50 Back in 1971, we covered automotive safety, specifically focusing on the rise of “The Safety Cars.” These were concept cars produced in collaboration with the Department of Transportation, with the end goal of reducing automotive fatalit

I’ve been waiting my whole career to write this story. See, I love station wagons, and the more powerful, the better. I’ve spent much of my career championing them as the perfect vehicle—some say too much, though I say not nearly enough. Such is my r

It’s pretty easy to dismiss the Maybach GLS 600 as just a gaudy, gussied-up Mercedes GLS. Bathed in pinstriped two-tone paint and festooned with chrome, gill-like vents, and pizza pie–sized wheels, though, this 17-foot, three-ton super-luxury SUV cer

Hennessey has released final photos, specs, and information of its all-new Hennessey Venom F5 hypercar. And although we may have become jaded after the numbers put out by the likes of the Bugatti Chiron, SSC Tuatara, and vehicles hailing from Italy a

@markrechtin The automotive industry pundits. Analysts. Tech bloggers. Fellow car journalists. They chided, they derided, they scolded. How could MotorTrend have gotten it so wrong? The idea that Apple would outsource the manufacturing of a self-driv