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Viva La Revolucion: EV Race Cars Are Coming
EV racers are on the way. You may end up driving one. Chances are you hate this idea. But, we want to suggest, don’t be so quick to judge.
Preview: Drive eO PP03
“We want to become the first overall winner with an electric vehicle,” said Kristaps Dambis, project director at Drive eO, a Lativa based engineering firm turned race team which specializes in developing high performance electric prototypes. The event he’s referring to is the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a notoriously challenging race which has been known to take out fierce competitors in the blink of an eye – a fate the Drive eO team knows all too well.
Driven: 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat
It’s no secret that Dodge’s new 707 horsepower Hellcat power plant has caused quite a stir among performance car enthusiasts. When we headed to Portland earlier this year to drive the Hellcat-flavor Dodge Challenger, we came away with a lot of reasons to be excited. Considering that the Charger and Challenger share a nearly identical platform aside from the coupe’s shorter wheelbase, it comes as little surprise that the driving experience between the two is fairly similar. Still, with four doors, the Charger serves a different purpose in Dodge’s lineup, and the automaker has made a concerted effort to give the Charger its own unique characteristics that complement its sedan configuration and the role it will play for potential buyers. To get a better understanding of exactly what that entails, we headed to Washington D.C. and nearby Summit Point Motorsports Park in West Virginia to see for ourselves.
Driven: 2015 Cadillac CTS Vsport
With competition from the likes of the BMW 5-Series, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and the Audi A6, it’s clear that Cadillac faced an uphill battle when they brought the CTS into the midsized sport sedan fray back in 2002. Since then we’ve seen the CTS-V best the Germans on their own turf with a record-setting Nurburgring lap time and a steady series of tweaks and refinements as the car matured but, performance notwithstanding, there’s always been a sense that while the CTS made for a great midsized sports sedan, it still existed a step or two below its European rivals as an overall package. Last year marked the debut of the all-new third generation CTS, which brought with it a striking new design, a longer wheelbase, a lower roofline, and debut of the Vsport trim level which slots between the base model and the as-yet unannounced CTS-V. Even a brief glance at the new car made it clear that Cadillac was in it to win it with the new CTS, but with the firm foothold of the established players in the segment, would it be enough? We spent a week with the CTS Vsport to find out.
Update: Jaguar Officially Unveils the XE
After a succession of teaser images and rumors, the British automaker has finally taken the wraps off their newest creation, the XE, the brand’s BMW 3-Series fighting mid-sized sport sedan. During today’s unveiling, Jaguar pointed out that this sports sedan would be the “backbone of the business”, and accordingly, the XE is not simply a reboot of the X-Type, but rather a clean slate, aluminum-intensive design that utilizes the latest and greatest in Jaguar’s constantly evolving bag of tricks.
Preview: 2015 Volvo XC90
After more than three years of development, Volvo has finally unveiled the next generation of the XC90. More than just a simple makeover of the SUV, the XC90 is the culmination of an 11 billion dollar overall investment in new product research and development for Volvo from its parent company Geely, and is the first all-new vehicle Volvo has developed since severing its ties with Ford. Moreover, the XC90 features Volvo’s new line of technologically advanced drivetrains, the company’s new modular Scalable Product Architecture platform, and a look at the automaker’s latest design language in a finalized production form.
Driven: BMW i8
When we stepped out onto the front drive of Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica to get a closer look at the we’d be tooling around the backroads of Malibu the following day, the realization that the i8 – as an actual production car bound for showrooms in the very near future – finally dawned upon us. In contrast with the typical catalog of vehicles one sees on the road, even in this part of Southern California, it seems almost implausible. But there it is, a hybrid spaceship of a sports car that any mere mortal can raise the door of, hop in and drive – provided they’ve got the coin for admission, of course.
WR TV: 2014 Cadillac ELR
General Motors takes their Voltec plug-in hybrid technology – first seen in the Chevrolet Volt – upmarket with the Cadillac ELR coupe. With a full driving range of 340 miles between its 16.5kWh lithium-ion battery pack and 1.4-liter,gas-powered generator (or 37 miles on electricity only), the ELR offers an alternative to premium all-electric offerings like the Tesla Model S to buyers who’re concerned about range limitations and charging times.
Progress Report: Driveless Cars
The current popular line of thinking dictates that soon, and in a fairly sudden paradigm shift, driveless cars will be among us, carting us from place to place with little or no input from the driver, a la the Google car. The reality of driveless car technology is that most of its implementation will likely be rolled out gradually through embedded features on your everyday vehicle which will provide different aspects of driving assistance. You might not realize it, but some of the fledgling steps of this technology can probably already be found in your current daily driver.
Overview: 2016 Jaguar XE
This is the overview page for the 2016 Jaguar XE. Rumors, news, reviews, road tests, specifications, videos, awards, and other relevant information will all be included here as they become available.
Overview: 2015 Volvo XC90
This is the overview page for the 2015 Volvo XC90. Rumors, news, reviews, road tests, specifications, videos, awards, and other relevant information will all be included here as they become available.
Review: Detroit Electric SP:01
This is an electric sports car with the body of a Lotus Elise. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. Yes, this is the Detroit Electric SP:01, and on paper, it looks very similar to a certain EV named after a famous Serbian-American electrical engineer.
Winding Road’s Top Cars Of 2013
If you’re buying a new car in 2013, you’ve got a lot of fine options to choose from. As technology advances, vehicles become cleaner, more comfortable, better connected, and safer. Those are all positive characteristics that factor into how we come to view each car as a whole, but the cars that are more entertaining to drive are the fuel that stokes our passions here at Winding Road. So, in that spirit, one of unfettered enthusiasm for driving great cars, on great roads, with great huge smiles on our faces, we bring you our Top Cars Of 2013.
Rumors: Model News — Toyota To Revive Supra… As An EV?
Bizarre as it sounds, if a report from The Detroit Bureau is to be believed, a new Supra from Toyota could be in development using bits and bobs from Tesla. That’s right, the next Supra could be an EV, or at least a hybrid.
Driven: 2012 Toyota Rav4 EV
Range is where the Rav4 EV clearly has an advantage—thanks to that same set of batteries that take so long to juice up. The EPA rates it at 92 miles of combined highway and city driving when charged in Standard mode and 113 miles on Extended. In testing, Toyota engineers saw range go as high as 145 miles. Comparatively, the Fit EV has a combined range of 82 miles, the Focus EV gets 76 miles, and the Leaf 73 miles.
Driven: 2013 Hyundai Elantra GT
For 2013, though, the Elantra Touring has been replaced by this, the Elantra GT. Right off the bat, though, we were skeptical of this new body style. While the old Touring was a dedicated wagon, the Elantra GT is technically a five-door hatch, and it loses cargo volume accordingly. It’s down from a maximum 65.3 cubic feet to 51 cubic feet, although with the second row up, there’s less of a sacrifice, only 1.3 cubic feet is lost (23 cubic feet versus 24.3 in the old model). Overall interior volume is down from 125.5 to 119 cubic feet.
Greenformance: ICE vs. EV, The Real Costs
It would seem, as is the case with football teams and political candidates, that some substantial part of the consumer’s view of EVs starts with a basic “For” or “Against” intuition. On that basis, you can look for data corroborating your stance. If you are in the Against camp, you can criticize the range of EVs, or their pricing, or the cost of battery replacement. If you are on the For side of the aisle, you point to greenhouse gas footprints, or operating costs, or driving characteristics.
Geneva 2012: Giugiaro Brivido Concept
There’s no lack of concept cars in Geneva this year (is there ever?), with a special emphasis seemingly placed on those that can boast supercar looks and performance, hybrid or EV powertrains, and impenetrable names.
Driven: 2012 BMW ActiveE Electric Vehicle
Last week, BMW began leasing its ActiveE, a pure EV based on the 1-Series platform. 700 ActiveE cars will be available to residents of Boston, Hartford, New York, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Francisco. We recently had a chance to drive this test-market EV along 17 Mile Drive in Monterey, California.
Driven: 2012 Year In Review(s)
Please do make sure to bookmark this page, as we’ll use it to post links to every piece of review content we create in the 2012 calendar year. Looking to buy a new car this year? Want to find out if your neighbor’s new whip is more involving than yours? Are you just a junkie for fresh-from-the-driver’s-seat new car reviews? Any and all are good reasons to check back on this meta post, early and often.
First Look: 2012 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive
Smart has announced the third generation of its Fortwo Electric Drive, with more speed, greater range, and larger production volume and availability.
