Cars – Page 4

Why it makes perfect sense for this bike to have two gears and two chains

bicycles, buffalo bicycle s2, buffalo bicycles, Cars, engineering, SRAM, world bicycle relief / Mike M. / February 4, 2025

Buffalo S2 bike, seen from the drive side, against a gray background, double kickstand and rack visible. — Credit: World Bicycle Relief

The S2 model aimed to give riders an uphill climbing gear but without introducing the complexities of a gear-shifting derailleur, tensioned cables, and handlebar shifters. Engineers at SRAM came up with a solution that’s hard to imagine for other bikes but not too hard to grasp. A freewheel in the back has two cogs, with a high gear for cruising and a low gear for climbing. If you pedal backward a half-rotation, the outer, higher gear engages or disengages, taking over the work from the lower gear. The cogs, chains, and chainrings on this bike are always moving, but only one gear is ever doing the work.

Seth at Berm Peak suggests that the shifting is instantaneous and seemingly perfect, without clicking or chain slipping. If one chain breaks, you can ride on the other chain and cog until you can get it fixed. There might be some inefficiencies in the amount of tension on the chains since they have to be somewhat even. But after trying out ideas with simplified internal gear hubs and derailleurs, SRAM recommended the two-chain design and donated it to the bike charity.

Two people loading yellow milk-style crates of cargo onto Buffalo bicycles, seemingly in the street of a small village. — Credit: World Bicycle Relief

Buffalo S2 bikes cost $165, just $15 more than the original, and a $200 donation covers the building and shipping of such a bike to most places. You can read more about the engineering principles and approach to sustainability on World Bike Relief’s site.

Why it makes perfect sense for this bike to have two gears and two chains Read More »

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance is quite a name, quite a car

car review, Cars, Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance four-door / Kris Guyer / February 4, 2025

The powertrain has been tuned for power delivery, not maximum efficiency—that isn’t the job of a car wearing the AMG badge—and has an almost-dizzying amount of drive modes, suspension settings, and levels of battery regeneration, all configurable from Mercedes’ flat UI infotainment system that can be a little busy to look at but which remains very intuitive (and comes with rather excellent voice recognition). In fact, this might be the least-distracting implementation of MBUX I’ve encountered so far.

When you first start the AMG GT 63 S, it defaults to electric mode, as long as the battery has some charge in it. Top speed is capped at 87 mph (140 km/h), and the electric motor has more than enough torque to make using this mode perfectly pleasant. Your neighbors will appreciate the silence as you leave in the morning, too. There are three levels of lift-off regen, up to the highest setting, which is a one-pedal driving mode.

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S engine bay. Jonathan Gitlin

Comfort fires up the V8 as necessary but will defer to the electric motor whenever possible. It upshifts the nine-speed transmission early, and with the dampers set to Comfort as well, this is the mode you’d use with passengers on board. Because the car is meant to be a performance hybrid, the powertrain will use spare engine power to recharge the battery pack whenever it can and will fully charge the pack in about 30 minutes of driving.

One mode maintains the battery’s state of charge, another is for slippery conditions, and then there’s Sport, Sport+, and Race. These offer escalating levels of performance, with more boost from the electric motor supplementing the raucous V8, faster shift times from the transmission, sharper throttle maps, and more regenerative braking. Finally, there’s an individual mode for you to pick your own settings.

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance is quite a name, quite a car Read More »

Driving the Ford Mustang Dark Horse R makes every other pony feel tame

Cars, Ford Mustang, Ford Performance / Kris Guyer / January 31, 2025

The steering wheel is track-spec, too, a Sparco steering wheel that replaces the big, leather-wrapped one in the road car. Behind that, the 12.4-inch digital gauge cluster is gone. A MoTeC display instead stands proud, the sort that you’d expect to find in a real race car, which this, of course, very much is.

It surely shifts like a race car, with linkage connected to an upright plastic shift knob. It offers no semblance of padding and communicates everything that’s happening in the transmission through your fingertips, though the clutch action is far lighter than the one on your average track toy. This made it a breeze to swing out of the pit lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway, far easier than the hair-trigger clutch on most track-only machines.

The shift action is delightfully short, too, and though that MoTeC gauge cluster had a sweeping tachometer running across the top, I didn’t need it. The sound of that Coyote and the way it shook my core made it pretty clear when it was time to grab another gear.

I did a lot of running up and down those gears as I swung the Dark Horse R through the twisty infield at Charlotte, gradually gaining confidence in pushing the car and its Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires a bit more. As I began to feel the limits, it was pretty clear that the car’s manually adjustable Multimatic DSSV suspension and alignment had been configured in a very safe way.

When I cranked that Sparco steering wheel over aggressively mid-turn, the car just fell into terminal understeer, patiently plowing straight ahead until I wound back to a more reasonable steering angle. Given that this Mustang has neither traction nor stability control, with 500 hp going straight through the limited-slip rear differential and to the road with no digital abatement, that was probably for the best, especially because I had just a handful of laps to get comfortable.

The back half of a Ford Mustang Dark Horse R — Credit: Tim Stevens

Needless to say, the experience left me wanting more. Buyers of this $145,000 track toy are in for a real treat, especially those lucky enough to compete in the race series. The Mustang Dark Horse R gives all the right feels and experience of a proper racing machine like the GT3 or GT4 flavors, but at a much more attainable cost. It’s familiar enough to be manageable but still unbridled enough to deliver the proper experience that any would-be racer wants.

Driving the Ford Mustang Dark Horse R makes every other pony feel tame Read More »

Here’s why the tech industry gets excited about sports car racing

Cars, endurance racing, IMSA, NASA, technology transfer / Paul Patrick / January 31, 2025

It would take IMSA 700 years to drive to Mars

Racing has always been used to improve the breed, but now mostly with software.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | NASA

DAYTONA BEACH—Last week, ahead of the annual Rolex 24 at Daytona and the start of the North American road racing season, IMSA (the sport’s organizers) held a tech symposium across the road from the vast speedway at Embry-Riddle University. Last year, panelists, including Crowdstrike’s CSO, explained the draw of racing to their employers; this time, organizations represented included NASA, Michelin, AMD, and Microsoft. And while they were all there to talk about racing, it seems everyone was also there to talk about simulation and AI.

I’ve long maintained that endurance racing, where grids of prototypes and road car-based racers compete over long durations—24 hours, for example—is the most relevant form of motorsport, the one that makes road cars better. Formula 1 has budgets and an audience to dwarf all others, and there’s no doubt about the level of talent and commitment required to triumph in that arena. The Indy 500 might have more history. And rallying looks like the hardest challenge for both humans and machines.

But your car owes its disc brakes to endurance racing, plus its dual-clutch transmission, if it’s one of the increasing number of cars fitted with such. But let’s not overblow it. Over the years, budgets have had to be reined in for the health of the sport. That—plus a desire for parity among the teams so that no one clever idea runs away with the series—means there are plenty of spec or controlled components on a current endurance racer. Direct technology transfer, then, happens less and less often—at least in terms of new mechanical bits or bobs you might find inside your next car.

Software has become a new competitive advantage for the teams that race hybrid sports prototypes from Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Porsche, and Lamborghini, just as it is between teams in Formula E.

But this year’s symposium shone a light on a different area of tech transfer, where Microsoft or NASA can use the vast streams of data that pour out of a 60-car, 24-hour race to build more accurate simulations and AI tools—maybe even ones that will babysit a crewed mission to Mars.

Sorry, did you say Mars?

“Critically, it takes light 20 minutes to make that trip, which has some really unfortunate operational impacts,” said Ian Maddox of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center’s Habitation office. A 40-minute delay between asking a question and getting an answer wouldn’t work for a team trying to win the Rolex 24, and “it certainly isn’t going to work for us,” he said.

“And so we’re placed in—I’ll be frank—the really uncomfortable position of having to figure out how to build AI tools to help the crew on board a Mars ship diagnose and respond to their own problems. So to be their own crew, to be their own engineering teams, at least for the subset of problems that can get really bad in the course of 45 minutes to an hour,” Maddox said.

Building those kinds of tools will require a “giant bucket of really good data,” Maddox said, “and that’s why we’ve come to IMSA.”

Individually, the hybrid prototypes and GT cars in an IMSA race are obviously far less complicated than a Mars-bound spacecraft. But when you get that data from all the cars in the race together, the size starts to become comparable.

“And fundamentally, you guys have things that roll and we have things that rotate, and you have things that get hot and cold, and so do we,” Maddox said. “When you get down to the actual measurement level, there are a lot of similarities between the stuff that you guys use to understand vehicle performance and the stuff we use to understand vehicle performance.”

Not just Mars

Other speakers pointed to areas of technology development—like tire development—that you may have read about recently here on Ars Technica. “[A tire is] a composite material made with more than 200 components with very non-linear behavior. It’s pressure-sensitive, it’s temperature-sensitive. It changes with wear… and actually, the ground interaction is also one of the worst mechanisms to try to anticipate and to understand,” said Phillippe Tramond, head of research of motorsport at Michelin.

For the past four years, Michelin has been crunching data gathered from cars racing on its rubber (and the other 199 components). “And eventually, we are able to build and develop a thermomechanical tire model able to mimic and simulate tire behavior, tire performance, whatever the specification is,” Tramond said.

That tool has been quite valuable to the teams racing in the GTP class of hybrid prototypes, as it means that their driver-in-the-loop simulators are now even more faithful to real life. But Michelin has also started using the tire model when developing road tires for specific cars with individual OEMs.

For Sid Siddhartha, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, the data is again the draw. Siddhartha has been using AI to study human behavior, including in the game Rocket League. “We were able to actually show that we can really understand and home in on individual human behavior in a very granular way, to the point where if I just observe you for two or three seconds, or if I look at some of your games, I can tell you who played it,” Siddhartha said.

That led to a new approach by the Alpine F1 team, which wanted to use Siddhartha’s AI to improve its simulation tools. F1 teams will run entirely virtual simulations on upgraded cars long before they fire those changes up in the big simulator and let their human drivers have a go (as described above). In Alpine’s case, they wanted something more realistic than a lap time simulator that just assumed perfect behavior.

The dreaded BoP

“Eventually, we are connected to IMSA, and IMSA is interested in a whole host of questions that are very interesting to us at Microsoft Research,” Siddhartha said. “They’re interested in what are the limits of driver and car? How do you balance that performance across different classes? How do you anticipate what might happen when people make different strategic decisions during the race? And how do you communicate all of this to a fan base, which has really blown me away, as John was saying, who are interested in following the sport and understanding what’s going on.”

“Sports car racing is inherently complex,” said Matt Kurdock, IMSA’s managing director of engineering. “We’ve got four different classes. We have, in each car, four different drivers. And IMSA’s challenge is to extract from this race data that’s being collected and figure out how to get an appropriate balance so that manufacturers stay engaged in the sport,” Kurdock said.

IMSA has the cars put through wind tunnels and runs CFD simulations on them as well. “We then plug all this information into one of Michelin’s tools, which is their canopy vehicle dynamic simulation, which runs in the cloud, and from this, we start generating a picture of where we believe the optimized performance of each platform is,” Kurdock said.

That’s something to think about the next time your favorite team gets the short end of the stick in the latest balance of performance—better known as BoP—update.

Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica’s automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC.

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Ford made a NASCAR Mach-E, but it’s not sure what to do with it yet

Cars, electric racing, Ford Performance, NASCAR / Mike M. / January 30, 2025

Ford’s no stranger to the NASCAR life. Ford driver Joey Logano was the 2024 Cup Series Champion in one of the company’s Mustang-bodied machines. He’s currently leading the 2025 series, too. However, the Blue Oval and its Ford Performance division are going into uncharted territory with its new prototype, an all-electric Mach-E built atop elements of NASCAR’s current Next Gen chassis.

The machine uses three motors to make a total of 1,341 hp (1,000 kW). Yes, three motors, one for each rear wheel plus the odd one out up front, giving the thing all-wheel drive. That’s a seeming necessity, given the car has two times the power that any NASCAR racer is allowed to deploy on the non-restrictor plate races.

But that extra driven axle isn’t just for acceleration. “If you’re rear-wheel drive only, you’re only getting rear regen,” Mark Rushbrook said. He’s the global director of Ford Performance. Since braking forces are higher at the front axle, an extra motor there means more regen to recharge the battery.

The motors and the car’s development were done by Austrian motorsport development house STARD, which also provided the engineering behind Ford’s previous electric demonstrators, like the Supervan and the SuperTruck.

The most interesting thing, though, might just be the car’s shape. The NASCAR Mach-E has a decidedly crossover profile, much like NASCAR and ABB’s prototype EV, helping to make room for the batteries—78 kWh to be exact.

Is now the time to go EV racing?

Ford Performance is still working out where and when we’ll see this latest demonstrator actually demonstrating, but Rushbrook said this concept was developed in concert with NASCAR and other manufacturers, so this isn’t just a one-off. With shifting EV perception across the country and many saying that alternate fuels are the way forward, part of the plan is to figure out just what the fans want to see.

Ford made a NASCAR Mach-E, but it’s not sure what to do with it yet Read More »

Weight saving and aero optimization feature in the 2025 Porsche 911 GT3

car review, Cars, Features, First drive, Porsche 911 GT3 / Rejus Almole / January 29, 2025

Among the changes are better aero, shorter gearing, and the return of the Touring.

The Porsche 911 GT3 is to other 911s as other 911s are to regular cars. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

VALENCIA, SPAIN—A Porsche 911 is rather special compared to most “normal” cars. The rear-engined sports car might be bigger and less likely to swap ends than the 1960s version, but it remains one of the more nimble and engaging four-wheeled vehicles you can buy. The 911 comes in a multitude of variants, but among driving enthusiasts, few are better regarded than the GT3. And Porsche has just treated the current 911 GT3 to its midlife refresh, which it will build in regular and Touring flavors.

The GT3 is a 911 you can drive to the track, spend the day lapping, and drive home again. It’s come a long way since the 1999 original—that car made less power than a base 911 does now. Now, the recipe is a bit more involved, with a naturally aspirated flat-six engine mounted behind the rear axle that generates 502 hp (375 kW) and 331 lb-ft (450 Nm) and a redline that doesn’t interrupt play until 9,000 rpm. You’ll need to exercise it to reach those outputs—peak power arrives at 8,500, although peak torque happens a bit sooner at around 6,000 revs.

It’s a mighty engine indeed, derived from the racing version of the 911, with some tweaks for road legality. So there are things like individual throttle valves, dry sump lubrication, solid cam finger followers (instead of hydraulic valve lifters), titanium con rods, and forged pistons.

I’ve always liked GT3s in white.

For this car, Porsche has also worked on reducing its emissions, fitting four catalytic converters to the exhaust, plus a pair of particulate filters, which together help cut NOx emissions on the US test cycle by 44 percent. This adds 3 lbs (1.4 kg) of mass and increases exhaust back pressure by 17 percent. But there are also new cylinder heads and reprofiled camshafts (from the even more focused, even more expensive GT3 RS), which increase drivability and power delivery in the upper rev range by keeping the valves open for longer.

Those tweaks might not be immediately noticeable when you look at last year’s GT3, but the shorter gearing definitely will be. The final drive ratios for both the standard seven-speed PDK dual-clutch gearbox and the six-speed manual have been reduced by 8 percent. This lowers the top speed a little—a mostly academic thing anyway outside of the German Autobahn and some very long runways—but it increases the pulling force on the rear wheels in each gear across the entire rev range. In practical terms, it means you can take a corner in a gear higher than you would in the old car.

There have been suspension tweaks, too. The GT3 moved to double front wishbone suspension (replacing the regular car’s MacPherson struts) in 2021, but now the front pivot point has been lowered to reduce the car diving under braking, and the trailing arms have a new teardrop profile that improves brake cooling and reduces drag a little. Porsche has altered the bump stops, giving the suspension an inch (24 mm) more travel at the front axle and slightly more (27 mm) at the rear axle, which in turn means more body control on bumpy roads.

A white Porsche 911 GT3 seen in profile

Credit: Porsche

New software governs the power steering. Because factors like manufacturing tolerances, wear, and even temperature can alter how steering components interact with each other, the software automatically tailors friction compensation to axle friction. Consequently, the steering is more precise and more linear in its behavior, particularly in the dead-ahead position.

The GT3 also has new front and rear fascias, again derived from the racing GT3. There are more cooling inlets, vents, and ducts, plus a new front diffuser that reduces lift at the front axle at speed. Porsche has tuned the GT3’s aerodynamics to be constant across the speed range, and like the old model, it generates around 309 lbs (140 kg) of downforce at 125 mph (200 km/h). Under the car, there are diffusers on the rear lower wishbones, and Porsche has improved brake and driveshaft cooling.

Finally, Porsche has made some changes to the interior. For instance, the GT3 now gains the same digital display seen on other facelifted 911s (the 992.2 generation if you’re a Porsche nerd), similar to the one you’d find in a Taycan, Macan, or Panamera.

Some people may mourn the loss of the big physical tachometer, but I’m not one of them. The car has a trio of UI settings: a traditional five-dial display, a more reduced three-dial display, and a track mode with just the big central tach, which you can reorient so the red line is at 12 o’clock, as was the case with many an old Porsche racing car, rather than its normal position down around 5 o’clock. And instead of a push button to start the car, there’s a twister—if a driver spins on track, it’s more intuitive to restart the car by twisting the control the way you would a key.

You can see the starter switch on the left of the steering wheel. Porsche

Finally, there are new carbon fiber seats, which now have folding backrests for better access to the rear. (However, unless I’m mistaken, you can’t adjust the angle of the backrest.) In a very clever and welcome touch, the headrest padding is removable so that your head isn’t forced forward when wearing a helmet on track. Such is the attention to detail here. (Customers can also spec the car with Porsche’s 18-way sports seats instead.)

Regular, Touring, Lightweight, Wiessach

In fact, the new GT3 is available in two different versions. There’s the standard car, with its massive rear wing (complete with gooseneck mounts), which is the one you’d pick if your diet included plenty of track days. For those who want a 911 that revs to 9 but don’t plan on spending every weekend chasing lap times, Porsche has reintroduced the GT3 Touring. This version ditches the rear wing for the regular 911 rear deck, the six-speed manual is standard (with PDK as an option), and you can even specify rear seats—traditionally, the GT3 has eliminated those items in favor of weight saving.

Of course, it’s possible to cut even more weight from the GT3 with the Weissach Pack for the winged car or a lightweight package for the Touring. These options involve lots of carbon fiber bits for the interior and the rear axle, a carbon fiber roof for the Touring, and even the option of a carbon fiber roll cage for the GT3. The lightweight package for the touring also includes an extra-short gear lever with a shorter throw.

The track mode display might be too minimalist for road driving—I tend to like being able to see my directions as well as the rpm and speed—but it’s perfect for track work. Note the redline at 12 o’clock. Porsche

Although Porsche had to add some weight to the 992.2 compared to the 992.1 thanks to thicker front brake discs and more door-side impact protection, the standard car still weighs just 3,172 lbs (1,439 kg), which you can reduce to 3,131 lbs (1,420 kg) if you fit all the lightweight goodies, including the ultra-lightweight magnesium wheels.

Behind the wheel

I began my day with a road drive in the GT3 Touring—a PDK model. Porsche wasn’t kidding about the steering. I hesitate to call it telepathic, as that’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s extremely direct, particularly the initial turn-in. There’s also plenty of welcome feedback from the front tires. In an age when far too many cars have essentially numb steering, the GT3 is something of a revelation. And it’s proof that electronic power steering can be designed and tuned to deliver a rewarding experience.

The cockpit ergonomics are spot-on, with plenty of physical controls rather than relegating everything to a touchscreen. If you’re short like me and you buy a GT3, you’ll want to have the buckets set for your driving position—while the seat adjusts for height, as you raise it up, it also pitches forward a little, making the seat back more vertical than I’d like. (The seats slide fore and aft, so they’re not quite fixed buckets as they would be in a racing car.)

The anti-dive effect of that front suspension is quite noticeable under braking, and in either Normal or Sport mode, the damper settings are well-calibrated for bumpy back roads. It’s a supple ride, if not quite a magic carpet. On the highway, the Touring cruises well, although the engine can start to sound a little droning at a constant rpm. But the highway is not what the GT3 is optimized for.

On a dusty or wet road, you need to be alert if you’re going to use a lot of throttle at low speed. Jonathan Gitlin

On windy mountain roads, again in Normal or Sport, the car comes alive. Second and third gears are perfect for these conditions, allowing you to keep the car within its power band. And boy, does it sound good as it howls between 7,000 and 9,000 rpm. Porsche’s naturally aspirated flat-sixes have a hard edge to them—the 911 RSR was always the loudest race car in the pack—and the GT3 is no exception. Even with the sports exhaust in fruity mode, there’s little of the pops, bangs, and crackles you might hear in other sports cars, but the drama comes from the 9000 rpm redline.

Porsche asked us to keep traction control and ESC enabled during our drive—there are one-touch buttons to disable them—and given the muddy and dusty state of the roads, this was a wise idea. (The region was beset by severe flooding recently, and there was plenty of evidence of that on the route.) Even with TC on, the rear wheels would break traction if you were injudicious with the throttle, and presumably that would be the same in the wet. But it’s very easy to catch, even if you are only of moderate driving ability, like your humble correspondent.

After lunch, it was time to try the winged car, this time on the confines of the Ricardo Torno circuit just outside the city. On track, the handling was very neutral around most of the corners, with some understeer through the very slow turn 2. While a low curb weight and more than 500 hp made for a very fast accelerating car, the braking performance was probably even more impressive, allowing you to stand on the pedal and shed speed with no fade and little disturbance to the body control. Again, I am no driving god, but the GT3 was immensely flattering on track, and unlike much older 911s, it won’t try to swap ends on you when trail-braking or the like.

The landing was not nearly as jarring as you might think. Porsche

After some time behind the wheel, I was treated to some passenger laps by one of my favorite racing drivers, the inimitable Jörg Bergmeister. Unlike us journalists, he was not required to stay off the high curbs, and he demonstrated how well the car settles after launching its right-side wheels into the air over one of them. It settles down very quickly! He also demonstrated that the GT3 can be plenty oversteer-y on the exit of corners if you know what you’re doing, aided by the rear-wheel steering. It’s a testament to his driving that I emerged from two passenger laps far sweatier than I was after lapping the track myself.

The GT3 and GT3 Touring should be available from this summer in the US, with a starting price of $222,500. Were I looking for a 911 for road driving, I think I might be more tempted by the much cheaper 911 Carrera T, which is also pared to the bone weight-wise but uses the standard 380 hp (283 kW) turbocharged engine (which is still more power than the original GT3 of 1999). That car delivers plenty of fun at lower speeds, so it’s probably more useable on back roads.

A green Porsche 911 GT3 seen at sunset — Credit: Porsche

But if you want a 911 for track work, this new GT3 is simply perfect.

Weight saving and aero optimization feature in the 2025 Porsche 911 GT3 Read More »

Mazda celebrates 35 years of the MX-5 with anniversary model

Cars, Mazda MX-5 / Paul Patrick / January 27, 2025

The 35th Anniversary Edition is the latest in a long line of special edition Miatas, including anniversary cars for the 10th, 20th, 25th, and 30th editions. The focus here was on “classic elegance,” with Artisan Red paint that’s almost burgundy, plus a tan Nappa leather interior that will remind some of the tan leather interiors that Mazda used on some NAs.

The 35th Anniversary Edition is similar to the Grand Touring trim, which means features like heated seats, and Mazda says it has added a limited-slip differential, additional bracing, and some newly tuned Bilstein dampers. There’s also a beige convertible roof and some shiny 17-inch alloy wheels.

It’s also a bit more expensive than other Miatas, with an MSRP of $36,250. That’s $1,620 more expensive than the next-most-expensive six-speed Miata (the Grand Touring), but it does come with the aforementioned extra equipment. Getting a hold of one might be a bit tricky, though—Mazda will only import 300 into the US.

Mazda celebrates 35 years of the MX-5 with anniversary model Read More »

Jeep’s first battery EV is not what we expected: the 2024 Wagoneer S

car review, Cars, First drive, Jeep Wagoneer S / Kris Guyer / January 26, 2025

Drag optimization means it’s very quiet inside, but it’s also quite expensive.

The Wagoneer S is more like an electric Cherokee than a Wrangler EV. Credit: Michael Teo Van Runkle

This year marks the return of the Jeep Wagoneer, which formerly served as a more luxurious version of the Cherokee, but now hits the market as Jeep’s first full EV. The challenge? How to merge the modern electric lifestyle with the outdoorsy, rugged ethos that defines Jeep as a brand, alongside the more recent addition of the internal-combustion Grand Wagoneer SUV’s enormous luxury.

First of all, the new Wagoneer S wound up much smaller in person than I expected. The overall profile falls more in line with the shape of mid-size electric crossovers including the Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Chevrolet Equinox, and of course, Tesla’s Model Y. But the interior volume belies that relatively compact exterior, with plenty of space for me at 6’1″ (185 cm) to sit comfortably in both the front and rear seats. Total cargo volumes of 30.6 cubic feet (866 L) with the second row up and 61 cubic feet (1,727 L) with the second row folded flat end up mattering less than the large floor footprint, because the height used to calculate those measurements drops with the low sloping roofline and rear window.

Much of the interior space can be attributed to packaging of the Wagoneer EV’s battery. Rather than going for all-out kilowatt-hours in a dedicated skateboard layout, Jeep instead used the Stellantis group’s STLA Large platform, in this case stuffed with a 100.5-kWh lithium ion pack built on 400 V architecture. That’s enough for an EPA-estimated 303 miles of range (487 km), a solid figure but not a seriously impressive efficiency stat. In comparison, the world-beating Lucid Air Pure RWD manages about 40 percent more range per kilowatt-hour and a Polestar 3 AWD does about 18 percent worse. Claimed DC fast charge times of 23 minutes for a 20-80 percent top up, or 100 miles (160 km) in 10 minutes similarly get the job done without standing out from the pack.

That modular STLA Large chassis can house either a full internal-combustion engine, a hybrid powertrain, or fully electric components. The Wagoneer S uses two matching 335 hp (250 kW) motors, front and rear, for a combined 600 hp (447 kW) and 618 lb-ft of torque (838 Nm). In typical EV fashion, the latter comes on quick and makes this undoubtedly the fastest accelerating Jeep ever, as I learned while battling horrendous headwinds in fire-ravaged Southern California (which served as something of a nonstop reminder of the importance of taking baby steps, a la Jeep’s first EV, toward a more sustainable transportation future).

Pushing deep into the “throttle” pedal, the Wagoneer S will happily chirp all four tires in Sport mode. And the jerk thrusting my torso and skull back into the plush seat suggests that Jeep’s claimed 0-60 mph time of 3.4 seconds might just be accurate, potentially thanks to being able to do a true launch by stepping on the brake and gas pedals simultaneously—possible because Jeep chose to retain more standard mechanical brakes rather than a brake-by-wire system as on the EV6/Ioniq siblings and Model Y.

The suspension tuning definitely trends toward the typical tautness of today’s crossover segment, where aspirational sporty dynamics can sometimes create harsh and uncomfortable ride quality. But I still might have ventured to call the Wagoneer S somewhat softer than most of the competition, until the roughest of roads revealed the 5,667 lb (2,570 kg) curb weight. For an EV, that figure falls roughly in the middle of the pack, but this crossover weighs about as much as a full-size internal-combustion three-row SUV.

Still, even at highway speeds (in gale-force winds) or on those roughest of roads, the Wagoneer S remains shockingly quiet. And not just to enhance the experience of the Wagoneer S Launch Edition’s 1,200 W Macintosh sound system. Instead, Jeep exterior designer Vince Galante walked me through the design process, which kicked off with a targeted 0.30 coefficient of drag despite the need to stick with a squared-off, upright SUV posture typical of Jeeps throughout history.

“On the exterior design portion, the aerodynamic drag is our biggest contributor,” Galante told me. “It kind of comes up off the hood, up the A pillar, and tapers down towards the back, and finishes in a square, yet tapered pillar reminiscent of the original Wagoneer. But through the middle of the car, it’s basically ideal for what the wind wants to do.”

From the front or side perspective, this Wagoneer looks almost as boxy as a 1980s Jeep. But a rear viewing angle reveals the massive rear wing creating that illusion, which sits well off the sloping line of the rear roof and glass.

“Anytime we do a floating element, we think ‘Yeah, there’s no way engineering’s gonna let us get away with this,'” Galante laughed. “We work really collaboratively with the engineers, and they were like, ‘Let’s test it. Let’s see what it does.’ And they came back and said, ‘You know, yeah, this has potential. But you guys gotta make it sit off the surface three times more dramatically.'”

Galante estimates the original wing design rose up two inches, while the final production version is more like nine inches off the rear window. He also pointed out a host of other less obvious details, from body panels that step in by fractions of millimeters to differently rounded radii of wheel arch edges, and especially the confluence where the A pillar connects to the body.

“The windshield, the A pillar, the side glass, the mirror, the post that holds the mirror, the fender, everything comes together there,” he said. “I think every vehicle I’ve ever worked on, that was the last thing to finalize in the wind tunnel… I mean, we’re talking tenths of millimeters for some of the iterations that we’re doing in those areas. Especially the front edge of the A pillar, I can recall trying twenty, thirty, forty different radii on there to get that just right.”

All the aero considerations attempt to coax air to stick to surfaces, then break off suddenly and evenly. The rear wing therefore pushes air down toward the rear window, while creating as little turbulence as possible. The final range figure critically—and barely—cracking 300 miles justified so much refinement in Jeep’s new rolling road wind tunnel, thanks to a final Cd of 0.294. Maybe juggling production cost savings of the STLA Large platform dictated such extensive aerodynamic efforts more than a dedicated skateboard battery layout might have, but the resulting quietude that combating those inefficiencies produced does truly border on a luxury experience, even if we’re not quite at Audi (nor Lucid) levels of silence.

On the interior, Jeep also tried to lean into the Wagoneer S’s sustainability, using quality materials with textural designs and as little piano-black plastic as possible. The fabrics, plastics, and aluminum trim come almost entirely from recycled sources—62 percent for suede and 100 percent for fabric and carpeting, in fact—and you’ll see zero chrome anywhere on the car, since chroming is apparently one of the most environmentally deleterious processes in all of automaking.

But the Wagoneer S similarly leans into a tech-heavy user experience, with almost 55 inches of screen visible from the front seats: the gauge cluster, center infotainment, climate controls, passenger dash screen, and digital rearview mirror all contribute to that total. Climate control, especially, seems critical—and an often overlooked element for many EV manufacturers. Rather than a full panoramic glass roof, as on the Lucids and Polestars of the world, this Jeep gets a long sunroof with a retracting insulated cover to keep out heat. The excellent ventilated front and rear seats (and massaging, for the fronts!) also more efficiently cool down passengers.

For my taste, the digitalization of driving went a little too far. I never enjoy a rotating shift knob but this one clicks into gear with a positive heft. I also noticed some pixelation and latency in the gauge cluster’s navigation maps, as if the refresh rate was too slow for the speed I was driving. Not that I started ripping up the road too much in this luxury crossover, or at least, not more often than scientific experimentation demanded (and a similar problem also affected the Dodge Charger EV we drove recently).

Sport mode brought out some of my inner grinning child, but I actually preferred the Wagoneer S in Eco mode. So much power split to the front and rear wheels can create some torque steer, and throttle response that borders on touchy. The electrically assisted steering also prioritizes a heavy on-center zone, then snaps to light inputs with the slightest turn of the wheel, which made holding a steady line slightly distracting.

Instead, Eco dulls down the throttle response and the steering becomes a bit less reactive. The Wagoneer S will then also more regularly disconnect the front wheels for improved efficiency—though at the hubs, rather than the axles, so some reciprocating mass still saps precious electrons.

It would be more efficient to disconnect the rears, but this decision also centers around maintaining some semblance of Jeep-ness. Even if the Wagoneer S aligns most nearly with recent Cherokee and Grand Cherokee models, rather than the off-roady Wrangler and Gladiator or the super-luxe Grand Wagoneer. The forthcoming Trailhawk version promises to double down on the 4×4 capability, with a locking rear differential, better tires, and hopefully better suspension than I experienced on a quick sojourn off the asphalt onto a slightly rutted gravel road east of San Diego.

More importantly, cheaper trims will arrive later in 2025, also, since the Launch Edition’s tall ask of $71,995 almost doubles the starting sticker of a Equinox EV, seriously eclipses either a Model Y, EV6, or Ioniq 5, and also somehow costs more than a Polestar 3 or even a Lucid Air. Jeep so far wants to keep pricing for those lower-spec Wagoneer EVs under wraps, though, even if the heart of the run will undoubtedly help the first electric Jeep more effectively escape from unfortunate comparisons to such stiff competition.

Jeep’s first battery EV is not what we expected: the 2024 Wagoneer S Read More »

Millions of Subarus could be remotely unlocked, tracked due to security flaws

Cars, privacy, Subaru, syndication / Paul Patrick / January 25, 2025

Flaws also allowed access to one year of location history.

About a year ago, security researcher Sam Curry bought his mother a Subaru, on the condition that, at some point in the near future, she let him hack it.

It took Curry until last November, when he was home for Thanksgiving, to begin examining the 2023 Impreza’s Internet-connected features and start looking for ways to exploit them. Sure enough, he and a researcher working with him online, Shubham Shah, soon discovered vulnerabilities in a Subaru web portal that let them hijack the ability to unlock the car, honk its horn, and start its ignition, reassigning control of those features to any phone or computer they chose.

Most disturbing for Curry, though, was that they found they could also track the Subaru’s location—not merely where it was at the moment but also where it had been for the entire year that his mother had owned it. The map of the car’s whereabouts was so accurate and detailed, Curry says, that he was able to see her doctor visits, the homes of the friends she visited, even which exact parking space his mother parked in every time she went to church.

A year of location data for Sam Curry’s mother’s 2023 Subaru Impreza that Curry and Shah were able to access in Subaru’s employee admin portal thanks to its security vulnerabilities. Credit: Sam Curry

“You can retrieve at least a year’s worth of location history for the car, where it’s pinged precisely, sometimes multiple times a day,” Curry says. “Whether somebody’s cheating on their wife or getting an abortion or part of some political group, there are a million scenarios where you could weaponize this against someone.”

Curry and Shah today revealed in a blog post their method for hacking and tracking millions of Subarus, which they believe would have allowed hackers to target any of the company’s vehicles equipped with its digital features known as Starlink in the US, Canada, or Japan. Vulnerabilities they found in a Subaru website intended for the company’s staff allowed them to hijack an employee’s account to both reassign control of cars’ Starlink features and also access all the vehicle location data available to employees, including the car’s location every time its engine started, as shown in their video below.

Curry and Shah reported their findings to Subaru in late November, and Subaru quickly patched its Starlink security flaws. But the researchers warn that the Subaru web vulnerabilities are just the latest in a long series of similar web-based flaws they and other security researchers working with them have found that have affected well over a dozen carmakers, including Acura, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Kia, Toyota, and many others. There’s little doubt, they say, that similarly serious hackable bugs exist in other auto companies’ web tools that have yet to be discovered.

In Subaru’s case, in particular, they also point out that their discovery hints at how pervasively those with access to Subaru’s portal can track its customers’ movements, a privacy issue that will last far longer than the web vulnerabilities that exposed it. “The thing is, even though this is patched, this functionality is still going to exist for Subaru employees,” Curry says. “It’s just normal functionality that an employee can pull up a year’s worth of your location history.”

When WIRED reached out to Subaru for comment on Curry and Shah’s findings, a spokesperson responded in a statement that “after being notified by independent security researchers, [Subaru] discovered a vulnerability in its Starlink service that could potentially allow a third party to access Starlink accounts. The vulnerability was immediately closed and no customer information was ever accessed without authorization.”

The Subaru spokesperson also confirmed to WIRED that “there are employees at Subaru of America, based on their job relevancy, who can access location data.” The company offered as an example that employees have that access to share a vehicle’s location with first responders in the case when a collision is detected. “All these individuals receive proper training and are required to sign appropriate privacy, security, and NDA agreements as needed,” Subaru’s statement added. “These systems have security monitoring solutions in place which are continually evolving to meet modern cyber threats.”

Responding to Subaru’s example of notifying first responders about a collision, Curry notes that would hardly require a year’s worth of location history. The company didn’t respond to WIRED asking how far back it keeps customers’ location histories and makes them available to employees.

Shah and Curry’s research that led them to the discovery of Subaru’s vulnerabilities began when they found that Curry’s mother’s Starlink app connected to the domain SubaruCS.com, which they realized was an administrative domain for employees. Scouring that site for security flaws, they found that they could reset employees’ passwords simply by guessing their email address, which gave them the ability to take over any employee’s account whose email they could find. The password reset functionality did ask for answers to two security questions, but they found that those answers were checked with code that ran locally in a user’s browser, not on Subaru’s server, allowing the safeguard to be easily bypassed. “There were really multiple systemic failures that led to this,” Shah says.

The two researchers say they found the email address for a Subaru Starlink developer on LinkedIn, took over the employee’s account, and immediately found that they could use that staffer’s access to look up any Subaru owner by last name, zip code, email address, phone number, or license plate to access their Starlink configurations. In seconds, they could then reassign control of the Starlink features of that user’s vehicle, including the ability to remotely unlock the car, honk its horn, start its ignition, or locate it, as shown in the video below.

Those vulnerabilities alone, for drivers, present serious theft and safety risks. Curry and Shah point out that a hacker could have targeted a victim for stalking or theft, looked up someone’s vehicle’s location, then unlocked their car at any time—though a thief would have to somehow also use a separate technique to disable the car’s immobilizer, the component that prevents it from being driven away without a key.

Those car hacking and tracking techniques alone are far from unique. Last summer, Curry and another researcher, Neiko Rivera, demonstrated to WIRED that they could pull off a similar trick with any of millions of vehicles sold by Kia. Over the prior two years, a larger group of researchers, of which Curry and Shah are a part, discovered web-based security vulnerabilities that affected cars sold by Acura, BMW, Ferrari, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rolls Royce, and Toyota.

More unusual in Subaru’s case, Curry and Shah say, is that they were able to access fine-grained, historical location data for Subarus going back at least a year. Subaru may in fact collect multiple years of location data, but Curry and Shah tested their technique only on Curry’s mother, who had owned her Subaru for about a year.

Curry argues that Subaru’s extensive location tracking is a particularly disturbing demonstration of the car industry’s lack of privacy safeguards around its growing collection of personal data on drivers. “It’s kind of bonkers,” he says. “There’s an expectation that a Google employee isn’t going to be able to just go through your emails in Gmail, but there’s literally a button on Subaru’s admin panel that lets an employee view location history.”

The two researchers’ work contributes to a growing sense of concern over the enormous amount of location data that car companies collect. In December, information a whistleblower provided to the German hacker collective the Chaos Computer Computer and Der Spiegel revealed that Cariad, a software company that partners with Volkswagen, had left detailed location data for 800,000 electric vehicles publicly exposed online. Privacy researchers at the Mozilla Foundation in September warned in a report that “modern cars are a privacy nightmare,” noting that 92 percent give car owners little to no control over the data they collect, and 84 percent reserve the right to sell or share your information. (Subaru tells WIRED that it “does not sell location data.”)

“While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the Internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines,” Mozilla’s report reads.

Curry and Shah’s discovery of Subaru’s security vulnerabilities in its tracking demonstrate a particularly egregious exposure of that data—but also a privacy problem that’s hardly less disturbing now that the vulnerabilities are patched, says Robert Herrell, the executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, which has sought to create legislation for limiting a car’s data tracking.

“It seems like there are a bunch of employees at Subaru that have a scary amount of detailed information,” Herrell says. “People are being tracked in ways that they have no idea are happening.”

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Wired.com is your essential daily guide to what’s next, delivering the most original and complete take you’ll find anywhere on innovation’s impact on technology, science, business and culture.

Millions of Subarus could be remotely unlocked, tracked due to security flaws Read More »

California’s air pollution waiver and the “EV mandate” are banned by Trump

Cars, EV adoption / Tim Belzer / January 21, 2025

To do this, it eliminates “state emissions waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles.” That spells bad news for California and the 17 other states that follow the California Air Resources Board’s Zero Emissions Vehicles regulations. California has been granted waivers under the Clean Air Act to set emissions controls within its state borders, but the first Trump administration spent much time and energy battling CARB’s waiver.

The previous moves to block CARB’s waiver were partially successful and only reversed by the US Environmental Protection Agency just over a month ago.

The revised clean vehicle tax credit, which provides up to $7,500 in credit toward the purchase of a new EV, or up to $4,000 for the purchase of a used EV, also looks to be in trouble. The executive order also calls out “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies and effectively mandate their purchase by individuals, private businesses, and government entities alike by rendering other types of vehicles unaffordable.” However, as the clean vehicle tax credit is a part of the tax code, changes to it will require Congress to pass legislation to that effect.

As you might expect, environmental groups are not impressed. “The transition to electric vehicles is opening factories and putting people back to work across the country,” said Katherine García, Sierra Club director of the Clean Transportation for All campaign. “Instead of building upon progress we’ve made, Donald Trump remains intent on fear-mongering around electric vehicles and taking the US back in time while the rest of the world moves forward on auto innovation. Rolling back vehicle emission safeguards harms our health, our wallets, and our climate.”

California’s air pollution waiver and the “EV mandate” are banned by Trump Read More »

GM faces ban on selling driver data that can be used to raise insurance rates

Cars, data brokers, General Motors, OnStar, Policy / Paul Patrick / January 17, 2025

The FTC said its complaint alleged that “GM used a misleading enrollment process to get consumers to sign up for its OnStar connected vehicle service and the OnStar Smart Driver feature.” Lina Khan, who is in her final week as FTC chair, said that “GM monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds.”

Settlement not quite finalized

The proposed settlement was approved in a closed meeting by the FTC’s three Democrats, with the two Republicans recorded as absent. The pending agreement will be subject to public comment for 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, and a final FTC decision will be made under the Trump administration.

In addition to location data, the GM/FTC settlement covers “radio listening data regarding specific content, channel, or station; hard braking, hard acceleration, hard cornering, crossing of a designated high-speed threshold, seat belt usage, or late-night driving; and trip time and duration for such events.” GM and OnStar agreed to delete data collected before the settlement and ask third parties to delete data previously shared with them.

GM also “must allow consumers to disable the collection of Location Data from their Vehicles to the extent the Vehicle is equipped with the necessary technology.”

GM issued a press release on the settlement. “Last year, we discontinued Smart Driver across all GM vehicles, unenrolled all customers, and ended our third-party telematics relationships with LexisNexis and Verisk,” GM said. “In September, we consolidated many of our US privacy statements into a single, simpler statement as part of our broader work to keep raising the bar on privacy… As part of the agreement, GM will obtain affirmative customer consent to collect, use, or disclose certain types of connected vehicle data (with exceptions for certain purposes).”

Affirmative consent is not required for purposes such as providing driver data to emergency responders, responding to customer-initiated communications, complying with government requests and legal requirements, and investigating product quality or safety problems. While the ban on sharing driving data lasts only five years, the overall settlement would be in place for 20 years.

GM faces ban on selling driver data that can be used to raise insurance rates Read More »

Trek FX+ 7S e-bike is a premium city commuter

Cars, Class 3 e-bike, e-bike review, trek / Mike M. / January 17, 2025

Post-pandemic, my creed became “Bicycles deliver the freedom that auto ads promise.” That belief is why I’ve almost exclusively used a bike to move myself around Portland, Oregon since (yes, I have become a Portlandia stereotype).

However, that lifestyle is a lot more challenging without some pedal assistance. For a few summers, I showed up sweaty to appointments after pedaling on a $200 single-speed. So in 2024, I purchased the FX+ 2, based primarily on my managing editor’s review. It’s since been a workhorse for my daily transportation needs for the past year; I’ve put more than 1,000 miles on it in eight months.

So given my experience with that bike, I was the natural choice to review Trek’s upgraded version, the FX+ 7S.

A premium pedaler

First off, my time with the FX+ 2 has been great—no regrets about that purchase. But my one quibble is with the battery. Due to the frequency and length of my rides, I need to charge the bike more often than not, and I sometimes experience range anxiety riding to the opposite side of town. Even though both e-bikes are considered lightweight at 40 pounds, they’re still not the easiest things to pedal sans assist, and I’m reliant on their built-in lighting systems after dark.

But I didn’t have to worry about my remaining charge with the FX+ 7 and its 360 Wh battery. Its extra capacity gives me much less range anxiety, as I can ride without fear of losing juice on the route home. And the LCD on the frame gives you a clear indicator of how much distance and time you have left in your ride, which is always handy. I would caution, however, about relying too much on your estimated distance remaining.

The Trek FX+7's LCD screen show the charge remaining in the bike. — The LCD provides some useful info. You can see how much charge is left on the battery, or you can press that button to see your speed, wattage power, or miles ridden. Credit: Chris DeGraw

During a 15-mile, hour-long ride while fluctuating between the first two assist levels I had modified, I drained 61 percent of the battery. While the estimated time remaining on my ride was consistent and accurate, the predicted mileage dropped occasionally, although that’s probably because I was changing the assist level frequently.

Trek FX+ 7S e-bike is a premium city commuter Read More »