Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2021 i MotorTrend

Surprise! Why you should trust our Buyer’s Guide more than anyone’s. Hey, can you keep a secret? No? Great! Tell everyone you know: MotorTrend’s Buyer’s Guide is excellent. Once you’ve consumed the best automotive videos, features, news, first drives, and tests around, stick around for a top-class Buyer’s Guide experience. After you’ve perused the new car info in this issue, explore your buying options further at MotorTrend.com/cars—the only online Buyer’s Guide created by MotorTrend’s expert editors. Passion is everything. We care deeply about cars and where this industry is headed. Passion informs everything we do, from the unparalleled way we conduct our annual Car/Truck/SUV of the Year competitions, to the way we write, to the design of our online Buyer’s Guide. It’s why we can help better than anyone with…

“No production car has ever done 0–60 mph in under 2.0 seconds.”—Elon Musk After an exclusive MotorTrend first test of the new 1,020-hp Tesla Model S Plaid, a car with a promised 1.99-second 0–60-mph time, we can confirm the 2.0-second 0–60 barrier remains unbroken. Unless, that is, you write your own rules. Tesla granted us access to be the first independent source to test the Model S Plaid. It’s the latest and greatest version of an EV we chose as our 2013 Car of the Year and declared our Ultimate Car of the Year in 2019. We usually test at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. Our figure-eight and skidpad testing happens in Lot 1. (You can see our tire marks on Google Maps.) Our acceleration and braking tests occur…

Lately, it feels like the only consistent trend in new car sales is that you simply can’t predict what’s coming next. As many continue to cope with changes resulting from the pandemic, those fortunate enough to handle new car payments have begun to reenter the market, and in a big way. But just as automakers started to post record sales this year, the microchip shortage wreaked havoc on their ability to effectively stock dealerships. Through all this craziness, however, one thing hasn’t changed: MotorTrend keeps you informed on what’s new and what’s coming soon. We demystify the new car market in our completely redesigned Buyer’s Guide at MotorTrend.com/cars and preview the updates right here on these pages. We have the info, analysis, and rankings you need to make a smarter…

Thumb the start button. Whirrrr … whomp! The ground shakes as 7.3 liters of naturally aspirated Aston Martin V-12 explode to life before settling down to a busy idle, baritone menace rumbling from the bazooka-caliber side pipes. Cinch the four-point seat belt and clench the steering yoke with your right hand. Depress the clutch and shove the chunky wood-topped shifter into first. The Aston Martin Victor’s barely controlled violence is visceral, the driver always intimately engaged. Yep, the Aston Martin Victor is a modern supercar like no other. That’s not simply because there is but one Victor on the planet, or that there will only ever be one Victor on the planet. It’s not because its wealthy Belgian owner paid Aston Martin about $5 million to build it just for…

France readies a Li-Fi line for last-meters internet connectivity Ever heard of Li-Fi? I hadn’t, nor had several future-looking car-nerd pals I mentioned it to. But the tech is coming soon to phones, tablets, and infrastructure, so savvy auto companies are integrating it into their next-generation products now. Li-Fi stands for Light Fidelity and is to Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) as lidar is to radar. That is, Li-Fi uses light to do what Wi-Fi uses radio waves to do: provide “last meters” over-the-air delivery of internet service from a router to a user’s computer, handheld device, or other internet-connected gizmo. There are many benefits and a few drawbacks. Data transmission is speed-of-light speedy, so the time it takes for messages to go back and forth (latency) is vastly lower than with…

Tesla’s new steering “wheel” looks cool, but it only works well when it, er, works well. It’s shaped like a rectangle with rounded edges and two pistol grips, and it replaces traditional control stalks with touch-sensitive buttons and two scroll wheels. The buttons replace all your typical steering column–mounted stalks. On the left side are individual left and right turn signal buttons; tapping one of them flashes the signal once, while pressing harder turns the signal on completely. Pressing again turns it off. We’d prefer if the signal flashed three times for a lane change when tapped, versus flashing on and off once, but you easily get used to the buttons. Other controls include those for headlights, wipers, horn, sound system, Autopilot, and push-to-talk. The latter feature was disappointing: The…

When you need to know what the best cars are, you can trust us. Here’s a taste of the rankings we provide online in 36 segments (at last count). Rankings are updated regularly—for the most up-to-date listings, point your phone’s camera at the QR code to the left or head to MotorTrend.com/cars. With our hands-on experience with every model, we rank vehicles using the same factors you do, including how they drive, interior space, efficiency, tech, value, and safety.…

It’s a golden age for off-roaders, and even Lexus is happy to play in the dirt. Meet the one-off J201, an LX 570 massively customized by renowned adventurers and vehicle builders Expedition Overland. The idea was to create an OEM+ overlander—think subtle as opposed to SEMA. That OEM+ thinking is evident in the slim roof rack with lockable bins and in the custom front upper control arms and rear lower track arms for increased articulation. It’s there, too, in the Magnuson TVS1900 supercharger, which bumps ye olde 5.7-liter V-8 from 383 horsepower and 403 lb-ft of torque to a beefy 550 hp and 550 lb-ft. The integration is so seamless—it looks factory under the hood—you wonder why this exact setup isn’t standard on all LX 570s. The factory rear bumper…

Hey, have you heard? The Tesla Model S Plaid can run a sub-2.0-second 0–60 time on a prepped surface. Well, sort of. The way we gather acceleration data uses the same launch methodology as does the NHRA, drag racing’s sanctioning body. The official timer starts after 1 foot of forward progress—so, rollout—as the car fully breaks the light beam at a competition dragstrip’s start line. (We factor in this rollout via software when testing without a beam, which is most of the time.) The thing is, on a prepped surface so sticky that it nearly pulls off your shoes, with three electric motors driving all four of the car’s wheels, and 1,050 lb-ft of torque, a lot can happen not only in 1 foot, but also within the length of…

The check engine light. It’s one of those weird cultural artifacts, like the all-seeing eye on a dollar bill. I mean, look at it: a glowing outline of what looks like a 1960s Chevy small-block, complete with a radiator fan sticking out from the water-pump drive and a pancake air cleaner over a downdraft carburetor. There hasn’t been a new car sold in America with a carburetor for about 30 years now. And other than at a classic car show, I can’t recall the last time I looked under a hood and saw a radiator fan physically connected to the engine. Most people never give the eye on the dollar bill a second thought. Same with the check engine light, it seems. I read recently that fewer than 40 percent…