Cars

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Employee pricing for all, tariffs on the sticker: OEMs react to tariffs

Cars, trump tariffs / /

So VW wants to make it clear to customers why some of its products are about to get more expensive, which it estimates will begin around April 22 or 23. It will do that by adding a new line to the Monroney sticker, with a line for the import fee added alongside the destination charge, according to a VW memo seen by Automotive News.

Send employees home

Around 3 million people work in the automotive industry in the US, and it’s hard to see how the sector will avoid job losses as it contracts, particularly once the parts tariff goes into effect. (Some parts can cross the US border more than once on their journey from raw material to finished component and will get much more expensive, especially as Canada and Mexico levy retaliatory tariffs of their own.)

Stellantis is having a rough time in North America, where its sales have fallen for the past seven consecutive quarters. Now, some of its workers in Michigan and Indiana are among the first to be idled due to the tariffs.

The company is laying off 900 workers temporarily at stamping, casting, and transmission plants as a result of idling production at factories in Windsor, Canada (where 4,500 employees are being sent home for two weeks), and Toluca, Mexico (where workers will still get paid but won’t assemble cars this month), according to a letter sent by Stellantis to employees, seen by Reuters.

We can expect more automakers to react in the coming days, but the full effects will be delayed as automakers and their dealerships run down existing inventory, which may take a couple of months. One thing is clear: It will be an even lousier time to buy a new vehicle, the prices of which have already been elevated by 25 percent since the pandemic of 2020.

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Honda will sell off historic racing parts, including bits of Senna’s V10

Cars, F1, Formula 1, honda, racing / /

Honda’s motorsport division must be doing some spring cleaning. Today, the Honda Racing Corporation announced that it’s getting into the memorabilia business, offering up parts and even whole vehicles for fans and collectors. And to kick things off, it’s going to auction some components from the RA100E V10 engines that powered the McLaren Honda MP4/5Bs of Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger to both F1 titles in 1990.

“We aim to make this a valuable business that allows fans who love F1, MotoGP and various other races to share in the history of Honda’s challenges in racing since the 1950s,” said Koi Watanabe, president of HRC, “including our fans to own a part of Honda’s racing history is not intended to be a one-time endeavor, but rather a continuous business that we will nurture and grow.”

The bits from Senna’s and Berger’s V10s will go up for auction at Monterey Car Week later this year, and the lots will include some of the parts seen in the photo above: cam covers, camshafts, pistons, and conrods, with a certificate of authenticity and a display case. And HRC is going through its collections to see what else it might part with, including “heritage machines and parts” from IndyCar, and “significant racing motorcycles.”

Honda will sell off historic racing parts, including bits of Senna’s V10 Read More »

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The 2025 BMW M5 Touring review: Way more power, way too much weight

BMW M5, car review, Cars / /

Basic functions like adjusting the fan speed of the air conditioning system require taking your attention off of the road to call up the comfort settings on the display, and if you dare to venture further down the rabbit hole to adjust something else, you’ll find an app drawer-style menu filled with ambiguously named icons that rarely get you where you want to go the first time out.

Do I change the damper stiffness by pressing the M Mode button on the center console, or is it in the Drivetrain and chassis submenu under Driving Settings? The answer is neither. (In fact, you should use iDrive’s excellent voice commands so you can keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road—Ed.)

With adjustments for throttle response, brake regeneration, steering weight, brake pedal responsiveness, transmission behavior, all-wheel drive system modes, simulated engine noise volume, and other performance-related features, you can create literally hundreds of different combinations of vehicle settings, but thankfully, the aforementioned M1 and M2 buttons on the steering wheel provide an easy way to call up one of your two favorite presets on the fly. The bigger concern, though, is how all of these augmentations and enhancements seem to conspire to hide the shortcomings of BMW’s design decisions but aren’t successful in doing so.

Chassis upgrades are a prerequisite for an M car, and with an M-tuned adaptative suspension, additional structural bracing, massive brake discs with six-piston calipers up front, four-wheel steering, and torque vectoring all on board as standard, the M5 certainly isn’t short on them. Given that, it’s reasonable to expect that an M model will have a firmer ride quality than its garden-variety counterpart.

But the vehicle has an additional measure of harshness as compared to previous M5 models, even under normal driving situations with the dampers set to their most relaxed mode, which I theorize is related to the suspension tuning needed to keep body motions controlled and maintain a sport-oriented feel despite the weight involved.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a grand tourer of the highest order. Triple-digit speeds can be accessed with a brief stab of the throttle, and thanks to the improved ergonomics of the latest 5-Series and the model-specific sport seats that are both comfortable and supportive, the M5 will still devour highway miles with the best of them. At times when both the electric motor and the V8 are working together, the hybridized powertrain also delivers the kind of instant-on throttle response that’s typically reserved for EVs.

The 2025 BMW M5 Touring review: Way more power, way too much weight Read More »

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Gran Turismo 7 expands its use of AI/ML-trained NPCs with good effect

AI, Cars, gaming, gran turismo 7, GT Sophy / /

GT Sophy can now race at 19 tracks, up from the nine that were introduced in November 2023. The AI agent is an alternative to the regular, dumber AI in the game’s quick race mode, with easy, medium, and hard settings. But now, at those same tracks, you can also create custom races using GT Sophy, meaning you’re no longer limited to just two or three laps. You can enable things like damage, fuel consumption and tire wear, and penalties, and you can have some control over the cars you race against.

Unlike the time-limited demo, the hardest setting is no longer alien-beating. As a GT7 player, I’m slowing with age, and I find the hard setting to be that—hard, but beatable. (I suspect but need to confirm that the game tailors the hardest setting to your ability based on your results, as, when I create a custom race on hard, only seven of the nine progress bars are filled, and in the screenshot above, only five bars are filled.)

Having realistic competition has always been one of the tougher challenges for a racing game, and one that the GT franchise was never particularly great at during previous console generations. This latest version of GT Sophy does feel different to race against: The AI is opportunistic and aggressive but also provokable into mistakes. If only the developer would add it to more versions of the in-game Nürburgring.

Gran Turismo 7 expands its use of AI/ML-trained NPCs with good effect Read More »

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Also, a Rivian EV spinoff, wants us to “move beyond cars”

Also, Cars, Micromobility, Rivian / /

There’s a new “exciting, small EV” on the way, to be launched early next year by Also, a spinoff of the electric vehicle maker Rivian. Details are light on exactly what that product will be, but don’t go expecting a $20,000 electric hatchback or the like—think more like an e-bike. Also will be into micromobility, not competing with Mini or Smart.

Also started out as an internal project to see if Rivian could use its knowledge of electric powertrains, vehicle electronics, and software to build other “small vehicle form factors.” In fact, in 2023, news broke of a Rivian e-bike in the works at Rivian, although it was unclear if it would be something with pedals or more like an electric motorcycle.

Things are still rather vague. Also’s announcement says its “flagship product” will launch in early 2026 and that the company will focus on the US and Europe at first. It will build “an exciting range of electric vehicles that are efficient, sustainable, and delightful to use,” using in-house technology.

But Rivian founder RJ Scaringe told TechCrunch that “there’s a seat, and there’s two wheels, there’s a screen, and there’s a few computers and a battery.”

Since Also doesn’t have the cost of having to buy that tech like most e-bike makers do, it may be able to make its products a lot cheaper.

Also will be independent of Rivian, but Rivian will own a minority stake in the startup, which is also being financed by Eclipse, a venture capital company. Scaringe will be a board member, but Chris Yu, Rivian’s former VP of future programs, will be Also’s president.

Also, a Rivian EV spinoff, wants us to “move beyond cars” Read More »

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F1’s cruel side is on show as Red Bull to fire Liam Lawson after 2 races

Cars, F1, red bull / /

That was before a mediocre time at Alpine and a disastrous stint at McLaren, and while Drive to Survive‘s producers would no doubt have loved the redemption story of Ricciardo returning to Red Bull, it wasn’t to be, as the speed just wasn’t there.

The entire point of having the junior Racing Bull team is so Red Bull’s driver program has another pair of race seats to allow its young drivers to get experience. But in practice, it hasn’t really been much of a success.

Neither Max Verstappen nor Sebastian Vettel (the team’s previous four-time champion) were properly part of the young driver program, nor was Perez. And the racers who were promoted to the Red Bull seat—Danny Kvyat, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon—all fell short of Red Bull’s expectations and were replaced.

ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - DECEMBER 06: Yuki Tsunoda of Japan and Visa Cash App RB and Liam Lawson of New Zealand and Visa Cash App RB take a selfie at the Visa Cash App RB team photo after practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina Circuit on December 06, 2024 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Yuki Tsunoda (L) and Liam Lawson (R) were teammates at the end of last year. Credit: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images

There may have been doubts about Tsunoda’s speed when he first joined the Racing Bull team (then called Alpha Tauri) back in 2021, but five years on, the Japanese driver has silenced those doubts. Promoting Tsunoda to the main squad seemed an obvious fix to the Perez problem, but Red Bull bosses Christian Horner and Helmut Marko evidently believed otherwise. Instead, for 2025, they went with Lawson, lifting him up from a reserve role that led to 11 races over a couple of years.

And that has been a disaster. This year’s Red Bull is very much not the fastest car in the field—that’s the McLaren, for now. Depending on the day, the Red Bull might only be the fourth fastest car, behind Ferrari and Mercedes, too, at least while Verstappen is driving it. In years past, a heavy revision to the car might have solved things. But with F1’s budget cap, a team like Red Bull can no longer spend its way out of the problem.

F1’s cruel side is on show as Red Bull to fire Liam Lawson after 2 races Read More »

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Boeing will build the US Air Force’s next air superiority fighter

Boeing, Cars / /

Today, it emerged that Boeing has won its bid to supply the United States Air Force with its next jet fighter. As with the last fighter aircraft design procurement in recent times, the Department of Defense was faced with a choice between awarding Boeing or Lockheed the contract for the Next Generation Air Dominance program, which will replace the Lockheed F-22 Raptor sometime in the 2030s.

Very little is known about the NGAD, which the Air Force actually refers to as a “family of systems,” as its goal of owning the skies requires more than just a fancy airplane. The program has been underway for a decade, and a prototype designed by the Air Force first flew in 2020, breaking records in the process (although what records and by how much was not disclosed).

Last summer, the Pentagon paused the program as it reevaluated whether the NGAD would still meet its needs and whether it could afford to pay for the plane, as well as a new bomber, a new early warning aircraft, a new trainer, and a new ICBM, all at the same time. But in late December, it concluded that, yes, a crewed replacement for the F-22 was in the national interest.

While no images have ever been made public, then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in 2024 that “it’s an F-22 replacement. You can make some inferences from that.”

The decision is good news for Boeing’s plant in St. Louis, which is scheduled to end production of the F/A-18 Super Hornet in 2027. Boeing lost its last bid to build a fighter jet when its X-32 lost out to Lockheed’s X-35 in the Joint Strike Fighter competition in 2001.

A separate effort to award a contract for the NGAD’s engine, called the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion, is underway between Pratt & Whitney and GE Aerospace, with an additional program aiming to develop “drone wingmen” also in the works between General Atomics and Anduril.

Boeing will build the US Air Force’s next air superiority fighter Read More »

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Racer with paraplegia successfully test drives Corvette with hand controls

Accessibility, Cars, Motorsport, paraplegia, Robert Wickens / /

Able-bodied co-driver Milner will use the Corvette GT3.R’s regular pedals when he drives, with the hand controls engaged when Wickens is in the car. The new hand controls are mounted to the steering wheel column, where otherwise you’d find a spacer between the column and multifunction steering wheel. There are paddles on both sides that operate the throttle, and a ring that engages the brakes.

The road-going Corvette C8 uses brake-by-wire, and Bosch has developed an electronic brake system for motorsport applications, which is now fitted to DXDT’s Corvette. Wickens actually used the Bosch EBS in the last two Pilot Challenge races of last year, but unlike the Corvette, the Elantra did not have a full brake-by-wire system.

Robert Wickens explains how his hand controls work.

“When I embarked on this journey of racing with hand controls, I was always envisioning just that hydraulic sensation with my hands, on applying the brake. And, yeah, everyone involved, they made it happen,” Wickens said. Adding that sensation has involved using tiny springs and dampers, and Wickens likened the process of fine-tuning that to working on a suspension setup for a race car, altering spring rates and damper settings until it felt right.

“You know, the fact that I was just straight away comfortable; frankly, internally, I was concerned that [it] might take me a little bit to get up to speed, but thankfully that wasn’t the case so far. There’s obviously still a lot of work to be done, but so far, I think the signs are positive,” he said.

“I think the biggest takeaway I have so far is that it feels like the Bosch EBS and the hand control system that was developed by Pratt Miller it was like it belonged in this car,” he said. “There hasn’t been a single hiccup. It feels like… when they designed the Z06 GT3, it was always in the plan, almost? It’s just looks like it belongs in the car. It feels like it belongs in the car.”

Racer with paraplegia successfully test drives Corvette with hand controls Read More »

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A tough race for the rookies as F1 starts 2025 in Australia

Cars, Formula 1 / /

Williams’ Alex Albon scored a fine fifth for the storied team. The preseason vibes for Williams were correct—after a few years of being one of—if not the—slowest, it now looks to be leading the midfield. And Racing Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda demonstrated that he probably should have been promoted to the Red Bull team with a fine 5th place in qualifying that sadly did not translate to points in the race.

The Sauber team, which becomes Audi next year, appeared dreadful in Bahrain but arrived in Oz with some new bodywork, including a revised front wing. That helped Nico Hulkenberg finish seventh, scoring more points in the process than the Swiss-based team managed across all 24 races last year.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 16: Alexander Albon of Thailand driving the (23) Williams FW47 Mercedes leads Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain driving the (44) Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit on March 16, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia.

Albon drove a great race to fifth place. Credit: James Sutton – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images

Better luck in China

It was a much harder day for some, including most of the rookies. Racing Bull’s new driver, Isack Hadjar, was caught out on the formation lap by differing grip conditions between the asphalt and painted lines on what are public roads for most of the year. Cleaning up the crash delayed the start by 15 minutes as a distraught Hadjar made his way back to the pits to watch the race unfold without him. After he barely lost out on the F2 title at the end of last year when his car stalled at the start, one hopes he can put his last couple of races behind him.

Alpine’s Jack Doohan, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto (who beat Hadjar to the F2 championship last year), and Red Bull’s Liam Lawson (who sort of still counts as a rookie) also each ended their days prematurely after crashing out, but so too did former world champion Fernando Alonso and last year’s race winner Carlos Sainz. That two such experienced drivers also got caught out should bring some comfort to the four youngsters.

It was also a rough start to Lewis Hamilton’s tenure at Ferrari. The seven-time world champion and his new race engineer were developing their working relationship in real time, and Hamilton bristled at the constant suggestions from the pit wall. It was an underwhelming day in general for Ferrari, which only finished 8th (Leclerc) and 10th (Hamilton).

Isack Hadjar crashed out of the Australian Grand Prix before it even happened. Kym Illman/Getty Images

The sport returns next weekend in China.

A tough race for the rookies as F1 starts 2025 in Australia Read More »

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Used Tesla prices tumble as embarrassed owners look to sell

Cars, Tesla, used ev prices / /

Similarly, one should take with a pinch of salt a website offering to steal Teslas from owners who are unable to find a buyer themselves.

According to data from Car Gurus, used Tesla prices have fallen twice as fast (-3.7 percent) as the wider car market (-1.5 percent) over the last 90 days. Year over year, used Tesla prices are down 7.5 percent, compared to 2.8 percent for the market as a whole. And that’s on top of steep depreciation caused by a series of new car price cuts over the past few years, as well as rental car companies and other companies disposing of fleets of Teslas en masse.

The Model 3 has been on sale longer than the Model Y, and you’d expect the older cars to have depreciated more. Indeed, the average price of a 2017 Model 3 is just under $20,000 now. But even recent model years are shedding value rapidly—a model-year 2022 Model 3 is worth just $25,000 on average.

Model Y prices have decreased by a greater degree, although the higher MSRP and younger age of the Y mean prices haven’t dropped quite as far as the 3, yet. But CarGurus has seen between 16–21 percent drops for each model year of the Model Y, year over year.

CarGurus isn’t the only one to notice this trend, either. According to its data, iSeeCars says used Teslas have dropped by 13.6 percent, year over year. The Models 3, Y, and S were all in its top four EVs for depreciation, although top place went to the Porsche Taycan (which might be starting to look like a bargain).

For its part, Tesla has been trying to boost its image with the help of President Trump. On Monday, the president took to the South Lawn of the White House to promote Tesla’s cars, apparently buying one despite having campaigned on an explicitly anti-electric vehicle platform.

Used Tesla prices tumble as embarrassed owners look to sell Read More »

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Despite everything, US EV sales are up 28% this year

Cars, EV adoption / /

With all the announcements from automakers planning for more gasoline and hybrid cars in their future lineups, you’d think that electric vehicles had stopped selling. While that might be increasingly true for Tesla, everyone else is more than picking up the slack. According to analysts at Rho Motion, global EV sales are up 30 percent this year already. Even here in the US, EV sales were still up 28 percent compared to 2024, despite particularly EV-unfriendly headwinds.

Getting ahead of those unfriendly winds may actually be driving the sales bump in the US, where EV sales only grew by less than 8 percent last year, for contrast. “American drivers bought 30 percent more electric vehicles than they had by this time last year, making use of the final months of IRA tax breaks before the incentives are expected to be pulled later this year,” said Charles Lester, Rho Motion data manager.

With the expected loss of government incentives and the prospect of new tariffs that will add tens of thousands of dollars to new car prices, now is probably a good time to buy an EV if you think you’re going to want or need one.

Perhaps surprisingly, growth in the much more EV-tolerant European Union was barely higher, at 29 percent for the year to date, helped by a new tax on plug-in hybrid weight in France, Rho Motion says. Both Germany and the UK EV markets have grown by 40 percent this year.

China is speeding past the rest of the world in terms of electrifying its transportation, and unsurprisingly it comes out on top in Rho Motion’s data, with 35 percent growth for the year to date compared to 2024. Looking month by month shows an even more impressive 73 percent increase year over year, thanks to where the lunar new year fell in 2024 and 2025.

Despite everything, US EV sales are up 28% this year Read More »

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BEVs are better than combustion: The 2025 BMW i4 xDrive40 review

BMW i4 xDrive40, car review, Cars / /

But it’s not really fair to compare yesterday’s 430i with this i4 xDrive40; with 395 hp (295 kW) and 442 lb-ft (600 Nm) on tap and a $62,300 MSRP, this EV is another rung up the price and power ladders.

The i4 uses BMW’s fifth-generation electric motors, and unlike most other OEMs, BMW uses electrically excited synchronous motors instead of permanent magnets. The front is rated at 255 hp (190 kW) and 243 lb-ft (330 Nm), and the rear maxes out at 308 hp (230 kW) and 295 lb-ft (400 Nm). They’re powered by an 84 kWh battery pack (81 kWh usable), which on 18-inch wheels is good for an EPA range of 287 miles (462 km).

Our test car was fitted with 19-inch wheels, though, which cuts the EPA range to 269 miles (432 km). If you want a long-distance i4, the single-motor eDrive40 on 18-inch wheels can travel 318 miles (511 km) between charges, according to the EPA, which offers an interesting demonstration of the effect of wheel size and single versus dual motors on range efficiency.

A BMW i4 wheel

There’s a new design for the 19-inch M Aero wheels, but they’re part of a $2,200 package. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

It’s very easy to switch between having the car regeneratively brake when you lift the throttle (in B) or just coast (in D), thanks to the little lever on the center console. (Either way, the car will regeneratively brake when you use the brake pedal, up to 0.3 G, at which point the friction brakes take over.) If you needed to, you could hit 62 mph (100 km/h) in 5.1 seconds from a standstill, which makes it quick by normal standards if not by bench racers. In practice, it’s more than fast enough to merge into a gap or overtake someone if necessary.

During our time with the i4, I averaged a little worse than the EPA numbers. The winter has been relatively mild as a result of climate change, but the weather remained around or below freezing during our week with the i4, and we averaged 3.1 miles/kWh (20 kWh/100 km). Interestingly, I didn’t notice much of a drop when using Sport mode, or much of a gain using Eco mode, on the same 24-mile mix of city streets, suburban arteries, and highways.

BEVs are better than combustion: The 2025 BMW i4 xDrive40 review Read More »