The latest rage in automotive vehicle design is the so-called "software-defined vehicle." Instead of dozens and dozens of discrete black boxes, each with its own legacy cruft, an SDV is a clean-sheet approach with a handful of powerful computers, each responsible for a different domain, like powertrain, safety, or infotainment. This allows for a large degree of flexibility to do things in software, whether that's changing the handling, tweaking the UI, or boosting power output.

That's if you're an automaker, at least. Invariably, any customization a driver might want to do only exists within the bounds set up by that OEM. This might extend to some different UI themes, including the ability to upload your own images as a wallpaper and choose between a kaleidoscope of interior LED lighting colors. Even the full-dash, next-generation version of Apple CarPlay is yet to appear in anything production-ready.

For older cars served by the aftermarket, things are a little more free. This is all a long-winded way of saying, "Hey, check out this rad dashboard mod in a Nissan 300ZX I saw on Instagram over the weekend."

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Last September, faulty door handle hardware caused Volkswagen to take the rather drastic steps of suspending sales and production of the electric crossover, as well as recalling almost 100,000 customer cars. Now, it says it has new parts that will allow it to fix existing cars, lift the stop-sale order, and soon, resume production at its factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The ID.4, like many new EVs, features flush door handles in service of the all-important effort of drag reduction. Instead of conventional mechanical handles that interrupt the laminar air flow down the side of the car, VW instead went with an electromechanical solution.

Unfortunately, the door handle assemblies weren't sufficiently waterproofed, allowing the electronics inside to corrode. Consequently, early last year VW started getting complaints of ID.4s with doors that would intermittently open while driving, with reporting almost 300 warranty claims by September, when it pulled the car from sale, issued the recall, and stopped the production line.

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When Honda gave the 11th-generation Civic Hatchback a refresh late last year, among the changes were the addition of a hybrid option to the lineup. There was already a lot to like about Honda's compact, which eschews lamentable trends like an over-reliance on touchscreens for good old-fashioned physical controls. Now, a big efficiency boost makes it even more attractive.

The new powertrain is available in the $29,950 Sport Hybrid and the $32,950 Sport Touring Hybrid (the trim we tested). With an output of 200 hp (150 kW) and 232 lb-ft (315 Nm), it's both more powerful and torquier than the 1.5 L turbo previously found in the top trim Civics. And it uses a heck of a lot less fuel in the process.

The Civic uses a hybrid powertrain with two electric motors working with the 2.0 L, four-cylinder engine. One works as a generator to charge the 1 kWh traction battery from the engine under most conditions. The battery then powers the 181 hp (135 kW) traction motor, which is what mostly drives the front wheels, although like most other series hybrids of this nature, it operates as a parallel hybrid with the 141 hp (105 kW) gasoline engine directly driving the front wheels at highway cruising speeds, as that is actually more efficient. (For some reason, this supposed lack of engineering purity seems to really upset some people, who I am sure will let us know why in the comments.)

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Carbon fiber, aluminum, maybe the odd bit of titanium here or there: These are the materials we usually expect race cars to be made of. Now you can start adding thermoplastics like Ultem to the list. Additive manufacturing has become a real asset in the racer’s toolbox, although the technology has actually been used at the track longer than you might think.

"Some people think that 3D printing was invented last year," said Fadi Abro, senior global director of automotive and mobility at Stratasys. The company recently became NASCAR's official 3D printing partner, but it has a relationship with one of the teams—Joe Gibbs Racing—that stretches back two decades.

"Now the teams only have certain things that they can touch in the vehicle, but what that does is it makes it so that every microscopic advantage you can get out of that one tiny detail that you have control over is so meaningful to your team," Abro said.

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Tesla sold almost 1.8 million cars in 2024, according to data released by the company this morning. Unfortunately for the electric automaker, it sold more than 1.8 million cars in 2023, beating this year's effort by 19,355 vehicles. But unlike last year, it sold more cars than it built, with production falling by 4 percent in 2024.

In the final quarter of 2024, Tesla built 436,718 Models 3 and Y and delivered 471,930, clearing out a stash of inventory in the process. It built an additional 22,727 electric vehicles—the elderly Models S and X and the divisive Cybertruck—and sold 23,640 of them during the same three months. So in Q4 2024, Tesla actually achieved modest, year-over-year growth in total sales of about 2 percent.

But the picture of the year as a whole is less rosy. Model 3 and Y sales fell by 2 percent year over year, with production falling by slightly more. As noted, this appears to have allowed Tesla to reduce what was at one point a growing inventory of unsold vehicles.

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Beleaguered automaker Nissan is going to throw its lot in with Honda. The two Japanese OEMs want to merge by 2026, creating the world's third-largest car company in the process. In fact, earlier this year the two signed memorandums of understanding to create a strategic partnership focused on software and electrification. Now, the changing business environment calls for deeper integration, they say.

"Today marks a pivotal moment as we begin discussions on business integration that has the potential to shape our future. If realized, I believe that by uniting the strengths of both companies, we can deliver unparalleled value to customers worldwide who appreciate our respective brands. Together, we can create a unique way for them to enjoy cars that neither company could achieve alone," said Makoto Uchida, Nissan's president and CEO.

"Creation of new mobility value by bringing together the resources including knowledge, talents, and technologies that Honda and Nissan have been developing over the long years is essential to overcome challenging environmental shifts that the auto industry is facing" said Honda director Toshihiro Mibe. "Honda and Nissan are two companies with distinctive strengths. We are still at the stage of starting our review, and we have not decided on a business integration yet, but in order to find a direction for the possibility of business integration by the end of January 2025, we strive to be the one and only leading company that creates new mobility value through chemical reaction that can only be driven through synthesis of the two teams."

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Yesterday, US Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Joshua Hawley (R-MO) sent letters to the heads of Ford, General Motors, and Tesla, as well as the US heads of Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Stellantis, Subaru, Toyota, and Volkswagen, excoriating them over their opposition to the right-to-repair movement.

"We need to hit the brakes on automakers stealing your data and undermining your right-to-repair," said Senator Merkley in a statement to Ars. "Time and again, these billionaire corporations have a double standard when it comes to your privacy and security: claiming that sharing vehicle data with repair shops poses cybersecurity risks while selling consumer data themselves. Oregon has one of the strongest right-to-repair laws in the nation, and that’s why I’m working across the aisle to advance efforts nationwide that protect consumer rights."

Most repairs aren’t at dealerships

The Senators point out that 70 percent of car parts and services currently come from independent outlets, which are seen as trustworthy and providing good value for money, "while nearly all dealerships receive the worst possible rating for price."

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HEALDSBURG, Calif.—Earlier this summer, Ars got its first drive of Audi's new Q6 e-tron on some very wet roads in Spain. Then, we were driving pre-production Q6s in Euro-spec. Now, the electric SUV is on sale in the US, with more power in the base model and six months more refinement for its software. But the venue change did not bring a change of weather—heavy rain was the order of the day, making me wonder if Audi is building its new electric vehicle on the site of an ancient rain god's temple?

Of all its rivals, Audi appears to have settled into a nomenclature for its vehicles that at least makes a little sense. Odd numbers are for internal combustion engines, even numbers for EVs, although it also appends "e-tron" on the end to make that entirely clear... and give francophones something to snicker about. (Yes, the e-tron GT does not fit into this schema, but nobody's perfect.)

The Q6 e-tron is also the most advanced EV to wear Audi's four rings. Built on a new architecture called PPE (premium platform electric), at its heart is an 800 V powertrain with a 100 kWh (94.4 kWh useable) lithium-ion battery pack that powers a permanently excited synchronous motor driving the rear wheels, and in the case of the quattro versions, an asynchronous motor. The electric motors have 30 percent less energy consumption than those used in the Q8 e-tron, and are smaller and lighter.

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Today, the US Environmental Protection Agency granted a pair of waivers to California, allowing the Golden State to continue regulating vehicle-caused air pollution within its borders. The first is for the California Air Resources Board's Advanced Clean Cars II regulations, which apply to light- and medium-duty vehicles like passenger cars, SUVs, and smaller trucks. The second waiver is for regulations that control the amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) that can be emitted by heavy-duty vehicles as well as off-road vehicles.

The Clean Air Act allows states to apply for a waiver from the EPA to set their own emissions standards in cases where the federal regulations are insufficient to prevent deleterious pollution. The state applied for the latest waivers late in 2023, and after a public comment period and then a review by the agency, the EPA decided to approve them.

"California has longstanding authority to request waivers from EPA to protect its residents from dangerous air pollution coming from mobile sources like cars and trucks," said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. "Today's actions follow through on EPA's commitment to partner with states to reduce emissions and act on the threat of climate change."

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General Motors might have scaled back its electric vehicle ambitions in favor of more hybrids, but it's still accelerating its plans to build out EV charging infrastructure. Today, together with ChargePoint, GM revealed that it will deploy "hundreds" of new DC fast chargers under the GM Energy brand in 2025.

"The transition to electric mobility continues to be driven by leaders such as General Motors offering innovative EVs and committing to make chargers as ubiquitous as possible," said Rick Wilmer, CEO of ChargePoint. "Our collaboration with GM represents a significant investment in the infrastructure to enable fast and easy charging for all. Together, ChargePoint and GM will deliver a seamless fast charging experience via reliable charging hardware managed by our industry-leading software platform."

Many (but not all) of the new chargers will be capable of delivering up to 500 kW, a higher power level than any EV currently on the market is able to charge. Many of the chargers will also feature ChargePoint's "Omni Port," which has both CCS1 and NACS (J3400) plugs, allowing almost all EV drivers to make use of them. (Sorry, Nissan Leaf owners.)

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The fact that Honda was working on a new Prelude coupe was not entirely secret—not after the automaker unveiled a show car at this year's Long Beach Grand Prix. This morning, the Japanese automaker confirmed that the new Prelude will go on sale here in the US late in 2025.

"The return of the Honda Prelude as a hybrid-electric sports model demonstrates our continued commitment to offer a variety of exhilarating products to meet the needs of our customers," said Jessika Laudermilk, assistant vice president of Honda Auto Sales. "The first three products in the Honda lineup in the 1970s were Civic, Accord, and Prelude, and soon all three will be back together again in our passenger car lineup as hybrids."

Honda has often used the two-door Prelude coupe as a testbed for new technologies, including torque vectoring and four-wheel steering, and was praised by the late automotive writer LJK Setright, who owned several Preludes across the years.

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Donald Trump’s attack on clean vehicles is shaping up to be bigger than previously thought.

The incoming Trump administration has even more plans to delay electric vehicle adoption than previously thought. According to Reuters, which has seen transition team documents, the Trump team wants to abolish EV subsidies, claw back federal funding meant for EV charging infrastructure, block EV battery imports on national security grounds, and prevent the federal government and the US military from purchasing more EVs.

During the campaign, candidate Trump made repeated references to ending a supposed EV mandate. In fact, policies put in place by current US President Joe Biden only call for 50 percent of all new vehicles to be electrified by 2032 under EPA rules meant to cut emissions by 56 percent from 2026 levels.

More pollution

Instead, the new regime will be far more friendly to gas guzzling, as it intends to roll back EPA fuel efficiency standards to those in effect in 2019. This would increase the allowable level of emissions from cars by about 25 percent relative to the current rule set. US new vehicle efficiency stalled between 2008 and 2019, and it was only once the Biden administration began in 2021 that the EPA started instituting stricter rules on allowable limits of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from vehicle tailpipes.

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Formula 1’s recent popularity still feels a little strange to longtime fans of the sport, particularly in the US, where it had been so niche for so long. But the past five years have seen F1 rise meteorically, and a new, much younger fanbase infused with enthusiasm for the cutting-edge race cars and the athletes who pilot them has emerged. F1 Arcade capitalizes on that popularity, combining food and drinks—including Lewis Hamilton's agave tipple—with dozens and dozens of race simulators that let you race against friends or compete in teams against others.

With Washington, DC, chosen for F1 Arcade's second US location, I obviously had to go check it out.

My first visit to the arcade in DC's Union Market district was several weeks ago at the launch party, an affair that was packed with influencers and loud music. But I returned earlier this week, having booked a 45-minute, five-race session playing head-to-head against a friend. Prices vary depending on the number of races and whether you're that at peak time, starting at $22/player for three races off-peak and going up to $42/player for five races at peak time. There's no charge for people who are just spectating (or eating and drinking), not racing.

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PHOENIX—Dodge gave its development team a relatively simple brief for the new Charger: It had to look, drive, and sound like a traditional Dodge muscle car. "If we don't make people uncomfortable, where are we going," asked Matt McAleer, Dodge and SRT's CEO. And you can see what he means: customers will have a choice of battery-electric or, from next year, an inline-six gasoline engine. For now, there is no throbbing V8 version, and those options will surely make some Dodge muscle car purists a little uncomfortable.

But the new car certainly looks the part. According to Scott Krueger, vice president for exterior design at Dodge, the stylists' aimed for "heritage, not retro," and they achieved that with a sedan shape that certainly evokes the classic 1968 Charger without directly copying any of its lines. It's a car that looks great in the metal, and features like the LED strip of daylight running lights and the so-called "R-wing" at the front ensure that the design feels thoroughly modern and not a pastiche.

The Charger Daytona name is just for the BEV variant—when the straight-six Charger debuts next year it won't be a Daytona. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

It's not exactly compact, though—at 206.9 inches (5,248 mm) long, 78.1 inches (2,028 mm) wide, and 58.9 inches (1,497 mm) tall, the Charger was built with American roads (and parking spaces) in mind, and is in fact 2 inches (50 mm) wider than the outgoing Charger Hellcat widebody.

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After spending more than $10 billion to try to develop an autonomous robotaxi, General Motors is now calling time on the endeavor. On Tuesday afternoon, the automaker announced that it is done investing in Cruise's robotaxi development and will instead combine the startup's technical team with its internal efforts at GM.

After several years, GM has accepted the inevitable: Given the costs, there's no way to build a profitable robotaxi business. This year, GM will have spent around $2 billion on Cruise.

"GM is committed to delivering the best driving experiences to our customers in a disciplined and capital efficient manner," said Mary Barra, chair and CEO of GM. "Cruise has been an early innovator in autonomy, and the deeper integration of our teams, paired with GM’s strong brands, scale, and manufacturing strength, will help advance our vision for the future of transportation."

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Amazon started selling new cars today. The online retailer and Internet giant has had its sights on shifting metal for some time now, and if you live in one of 48 cities in the US, and you're looking for a new Hyundai, it's ready for your business.

Hyundai has been working with Amazon for several years on its digital experience, adding Alexa to its cars and showcasing its products at Amazon.com. But now, with Amazon Autos, customers can go ahead and buy the car, not just learn about it so they can go to a dealer well-informed.

In fact, the dealerships remain part of the process even with Amazon Autos—hence the fact that the service is not rolling out nationwide.

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Although there's been a whole lot of pessimism recently, electric vehicle sales continue to grow, even if it is less quickly than many hoped. That's true in the commercial vehicle space as well—according to Cox Automotive, 87 percent of vehicle fleet operators expect to add EVs in the next five years, and more than half thought they were likely to buy EVs this year. And where and when to plug those EVs in to charge is a potential headache for fleet operators.

The good news is that charging infrastructure really is growing. It doesn't always feel that way—the $7.5 billion allocated under the Inflation Reduction Act for charging infrastructure has to be disbursed via state departments of transportation, so the process there has been anything but rapid. But according to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, the total number of public charging plugs has doubled since 2020, to more than 144,000 level 2 plugs and closing in on 49,000 DC fast charger plugs.

There are ways to throw off a planned timeline when building out a station with multiple chargers. Obviously you need the funds to pay for it all—if these are to come from grants like the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, that had to wait for the states to each develop their own funding plans, then open for submissions, and so on, before even approving a project, for example.

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Car people, like most flavors of enthusiasts, are often given over to ideological purity tests. Car X is better than car Y because it's naturally aspirated, not turbocharged. Hybrid Q is a pure series hybrid and is thus better than hybrid R, which sometimes operates as a parallel hybrid when that's more efficient. That kind of thing. And we definitely see that attitude when it comes to electric cars, with some people saying that a dedicated BEV will always be better than an electric version of a powertrain-agnostic platform. It's just that these kinds of purity tests rarely stand up when the actual rubber meets the road. That's true with today's car, the 2025 BMW i5 M60 xDrive.

When it was time for BMW to develop its fifth-generation EVs, it made more sense, as a smaller automaker, to create a vehicle architecture that could be equipped with internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrid powertrains, or a fully electric setup of battery plus electric motors. Purists will tell you this results in a lesser vehicle, but if that's true, why is the new i5 so much better than similar electric sedans from rivals like Mercedes, which use dedicated EV-only platforms?

Today's tester is the range-topping i5 M60 version, which boasts a hefty 593 hp (442 kW) and 586 lb-ft (795 Nm) from a pair of electrically excited synchronous motors fed by its 84.3 kWh (useable) lithium-ion battery pack. There's now a PHEV M5 that exceeds this battery EV in both performance and MSRP, but with a 0–60 time of 3.7 seconds and a starting price of $84,100–$95,395 as configured, the i5 M60 is still pretty superlative.

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Today, Rivian announced that it is opening up the Rivian Adventure Network of fast chargers to drivers of all other makes of electric vehicles, beginning with its location in Joshua Tree, California. The Joshua Tree Charging Outpost, which has 12 DC fast chargers, is now accessible to any EV with a CCS1 charging port, as well as any Tesla or EV equipped with a native NACS (J3400) port using an adapter. A planned hardware upgrade in the future will add native NACS cables. (Rivian is switching the plugs on its own EVs from CCS1 to NACS in 2025.)

Rivian revealed its plans in early 2021 to build charging stations, a few months before it let us loose in the R1T electric pickup. The Rivian Adventure Network currently has deployed banks of fast chargers at 91 sites across the US, with another 12 in the works. (A separate Rivian Waypoint Network is building out level 2 chargers with J1772 plugs.)

All but one of the Adventure Network sites have at least six DC fast chargers, although until now, all have been the preserve of Rivians alone. In total, the automaker plans to have 3,500 DC fast chargers in the Adventure Network.

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