Acura is gearing up to build its first entirely in-house battery-electric vehicles, but it has gotten a head start with the ZDX SUV. Built in collaboration with General Motors, the ZDX is a comfortable and competent luxury EV. More than that, it's a shining example of what badge engineering looks like in the digital age.

Automakers have long collaborated with each other. Sometimes that means working together on a powertrain or vehicle platform for use in quite different products. Sometimes, it's a little less involved—the Dodge Hornet differs very little from the Alfa Romeo Tonale, for example.

In the case of the Acura ZDX, the vehicle platform and the battery-electric powertrain are all thoroughly GM, what used to be called Ultium, until the American automaker retired that branding. It is, in essence, Acura's take on the Cadillac Lyriq and is similar, if not identical, in terms of power output and pricing.

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High-revving naturally aspirated engines and their associated screaming soundtracks might be on their way back to Formula 1. Not with next year's rule changes—that will see even bigger lithium-ion batteries and an even more powerful electric motor, paired with a turbocharged V6. But the sport is starting to think more seriously about the technical rules that will go into effect in 2030, and in an Instagram post yesterday, the man in charge of those rules signaled that he's open to cars that might be louder, lighter, and less complicated.

Mohammed Ben Sulayem's tenure as president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile has been packed with controversy. The former rally driver has alienated many F1 drivers with clampdowns on jewelry and, most recently, swearing, as well as a refusal to explain what happens to the money the FIA collects as fines.

He also ruffled feathers when the FIA opened up the entry process for new teams into the sport and then approved an entry by Andretti Global. While the FIA said yes, the commercial side (which is owned by Liberty Media) and the teams wanted nothing to do with an 11th team—at least until the $200 million anti-dilution fee was more than doubled and Michael Andretti stepped aside.

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Senior politicians in Japan are not going to let Nissan die easily. The automaker has been struggling for some time now, with an outdated product portfolio, ongoing quarterly losses, and soon, the closure of factories and thousands of layoffs. The Japanese government has been trying to find a suitor and had hoped that Honda would do its patriotic duty and save its rival from extinction.

That deal—one branded "a desperate move" by former Nissan CEO and fugitive from Japanese justice Carlos Ghosn—fell apart last week after Renault demanded a price premium for its shares in Nissan, and Nissan demanded a merger of equals with Honda. In reality, it was always going to be a takeover, with very little in it for Honda in the way of complimentary product lines or access to new technologies.

Today, we learned of yet another desperate move—the former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is among a group that is trying to get Tesla to invest in Nissan instead.

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Do you remember The Simpsons episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield"? It first aired in February 1996, and it's the one where Homer and Bart go to Appliance Zone and are confronted with "genuine" Panaphonics, Sorny, and Magnetbox TVs. Well, it seems a similar brand name game has been going on at a Volvo dealership in China.

News started filtering out of China last week about an owner of a Volvo S60 sedan who realized the speakers in his car were not from Bowers and Wilkins, as they were supposed to be. Instead, the speakers were branded Bowers and VVilkins, substituting a pair of Vs for the W. We've seen that "typosquatting" approach in malicious emails plenty of times, but it's a first in a Volvo.

That wasn't the only phony part of the customer's S60. He also realized that the crystal transmission knob wasn't entirely right either and lacked the genuine article's backlighting.

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Some Tesla owners have yet another thing to worry about. As sales crash in Europe and protests gather outside Tesla showrooms in the US as a result of the CEO's political engagement, it now emerges that more than 376,000 Model Y crossovers and Model 3 sedans are at risk for power steering failure. So far, it has resulted in more than 3,000 warranty claims and caused 570 crashes, according to Tesla and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Federal investigators have known about the problem for some time—in 2023 NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened a preliminary inquiry after 12 reports of steering failures, including three Model 3s and nine Model Ys.

By February 2024, NHTSA had received 124 complaints about steering failure in 2023 Teslas and found another 2,264 reports of steering problems. Color me wrong, though—at the time, I wrote that "a software patch is unlikely to help," except a software patch is indeed the remedy here.

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New Yorkers' ongoing attempts to rein in car traffic on the island of Manhattan took a serious blow yesterday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy terminated the city's congestion charge, which made drivers pay for going below 60th Street.

Duffy claimed that it's unfair that drivers should have to pay to use roads since there are already tolls on bridges into Manhattan and claimed there are no alternatives, ignoring the buses and subway trains operated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Further, the city is being unfair against people who live far away, Duffy said. "The toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative and instead takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It’s backwards and unfair," he said in a statement.

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New Yorkers' ongoing attempts to rein in car traffic on the island of Manhattan took a serious blow yesterday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy terminated the city's congestion charge, which made drivers pay for going below 60th Street.

Duffy claimed that it's unfair that drivers should have to pay to use roads since there are already tolls on bridges into Manhattan and claimed there are no alternatives, ignoring the buses and subway trains operated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Further, the city is being unfair against people who live far away, Duffy said. "The toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative and instead takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It’s backwards and unfair," he said in a statement.

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Formula 1 racing turns 75 this year. The sport has been under new management for a few years and is now owned by an American entertainment company that's interested in trying new things to grow the sport—a refreshing change from the previous regime that did little but get rich at everyone else's expense. Among the new things it's not afraid to try was last night's F1 75 Live event, a star-studded extravaganza held under the dome of London's O2 Arena.

The idea behind F1 75 was to gather all 10 teams together to reveal each one's new look to the fans and make something of a splash about it. It's the first time the sport has attempted such a thing. In years past, teams would simply wait until the start of preseason testing to reveal that year's livery, although more recently, individual teams have started holding season launch events themselves.

F1 has started broadcasting some of that preseason testing on its streaming platform, but evidently, the bosses don't want to wait that long to start recapturing the attention of the fanbase, hence F1 75 Live in mid-February.

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PALM SPRINGS, Calif.—After a very pleasant morning getting acquainted with the model-year 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5, it was time to meet the new addition to the range: the $55,400 Ioniq 5 XRT. It's the latest example of an automotive trend, quietly simmering in the background, suddenly taking off. And in this case, that trend is when a carmaker takes something that's normally meant to be driven on the road and makes it a bit more... rugged.

No, it's not a new idea—Audi Allroads and Volvo Cross Countries have played this game for years and years. More recently, companies like Porsche and Lamborghini have gotten into the act, creating supercars with six-figure price tags that aren't fazed by a little sand or snow.

But the Ioniq 5 isn't a supercar—it's just a super car. The XRT treatment was done by Hyundai's California design team, and it involves new, more protective cladding at the front and rear. The black plastic looks at first glance like it might be forged carbon—in fact it's a pixelated camo pattern that calls out to the "Parametric Pixel" design language that underpins the Ioniq 5's blocky look. The twin red-accented tow hooks are almost whimsical.

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PALM SPRINGS, Calif.—Can it really have been four(ish) years since we first drove the Hyundai Ioniq 5? With looks like a scaled-up hatchback from the 1980s, and one of the most advanced electric vehicle powertrains on the market, the Ioniq 5 was an instant hit with Ars and car buyers. Since then, Hyundai has begun building Ioniq 5s at its new plant in Georgia, and for model year 2025, it has made some tweaks that have turned a great EV into an even better one.

The Ioniq 5 was the first EV to use Hyundai's new E-GMP platform, designed for mid-to-large EVs with rear- or all-wheel drive. The powertrain uses an 800 V architecture, which endows it with a number of advantages, some obvious, like very fast DC fast charging, some less obvious, such as less mass (and expense) given over to high-voltage cabling. On the road, it proved highly efficient, not to mention stylish and practical.

The tweaks for model year 2025 are subtle as far as midlife upgrades go. There's a new wheel design, and some of the details at the front and rear bumper are more pronounced. The idea was to "accentuate the CUVness" of the car, according to Brad Arnold, head of exterior design at Hyundai Design—perhaps broadening the appeal to those who have no affection for late '80s hatchback vibes.

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Hyundai Ioniq 5s with NACS (J3400) ports, as opposed to the CCS1 style, are starting to roll out of its factory in Savannah, Georgia. It's the first manufacturer to sell electric vehicles with native NACS ports—other than Tesla, that is, and you'll be able to read about our first drive in the model year 2025 Ioniq 5, as well as the new, off-roady Ioniq 5 XRT next week. But we've got some good news for owners of any existing Hyundai EVs out there—if your car has a CCS1 port, then next month, you're eligible for a free CCS1-NACS adapter.

Hyundai wasn't the first OEM to ink a deal with Tesla to gain access to the Supercharger network, but it is ahead of Ford, General Motors, and Rivian in swapping to the Tesla-style charge ports. Existing owners get access to the large charging network, too, but they'll need an adapter to make use of the smaller NACS plugs.

And those will be available next month, Hyundai told us. What's more, they're going to be gratis, or free as in beer. As long as you have a VIN, the automaker will send you the adapter, which you'll be able to order once the website goes live in March.

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The proposed merger between Honda and Nissan is officially dead. The plan, announced in late December, would have created the world's third-largest automaker, displacing Volkswagen Group from the bronze on the podium. But it was also never quite seen as a merger of equals—many suspected this was a Honda takeover of beleaguered Nissan at the behest of the Japanese government.

Nissan is already part of a triple-alliance, together with Mitsubishi and France's Renault. Although Mitsubishi considered joining the Honda-Nissan merger, that was old news by late January.

That alliance might have been part of the problem. Although not an actual merger, the car companies involved each own stakes in the other—in Renault's case, it owns 37.5 percent of Nissan. Honda would have liked Nissan to buy out Renault's stake, presumably not keen on such a significant chunk of the company under foreign ownership.

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American roads have grown deadlier for everyone, but the toll on pedestrians has been disproportionate. From a record low in 2009, the number of pedestrians being killed by vehicles rose 83 percent by 2022 to the highest it's been in 40 years. During that time, overall traffic deaths increased by just 25 percent. Now, a new study from AAA has identified a number of common factors that can explain why so many more pedestrians have died.

Firstly, no, it's not because there are more SUVs on the road, although these larger and taller vehicles are more likely to kill or seriously injure a pedestrian in a crash. And no, it's not because everyone has a smartphone, although using one while driving is a good way to increase your chances of hitting someone or something. These and some other factors (increased amount of driving, more alcohol consumption) have each played a small role, but even together, they don't explain the magnitude of the trend.

For a while, researchers started seeing that the increased pedestrian death toll was almost entirely happening after dark and on urban arterial roads—this has continued to be true through 2022, the AAA report says.

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The re-election of President Trump has had a noticeable effect on the way many CEOs are running their businesses. Programs to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion are being canceled, and seven-figure checks were sent to his inauguration fund by CEOs like Apple's Tim Cook. The behavior from the Oval Office is mirrored by the rest of the administration, which is why it was a little surprising to see the CEO of a major company speak out against current US government policies. But that's exactly what Ford President and CEO Jim Farley has done.

Speaking at a conference, Farley said that "President Trump has talked a lot about making our US auto industry stronger," but that "so far what we're seeing is a lot of cost and chaos," reported Automotive News.

During the election, Trump promised to enact heavy tariffs on a wide range of imports from countries across the globe. Among those particularly targeted were Canada and Mexico. The two countries share borders with the US and, for many years, were joined in a free-trade association that encouraged US companies to set up factories in Canada and Mexico to take advantage of lower wages.

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DAYTONA BEACH, Florida—The North American road racing season kicked off in fine form a couple of weekends ago with the annual Rolex 24 at Daytona. This year, Honda Racing Corporation President Koji Watanabe was invited as the Grand Marshal, and his attendance at the race gave Ars a chance to talk racing with him, including an update on the company's F1 endeavors, which next year see it team up with Aston Martin. As we found out, it's going to be hard work.

At the beginning of last year, Honda rearranged the corporate structure around its motorsport activities. Honda Performance Development, which was responsible for developing Honda and Acura racing cars in IndyCar and IMSA, rebranded itself as Honda Racing Corporation US, a move that has meant closer collaboration between the teams in California and Japan, aligning everything under one overall boss—Watanabe.

The ARX-06 at Le Mans—with Takuma Sato?

Given that our roundtable with Watanabe and Vice President of HRC US Kelvin Fu took place during an endurance race, I asked whether the new corporate structure for racing would make a Le Mans program for the ARX-06 more feasible. Until now, the fact that the ARX-06 is branded as an Acura has been a stumbling block—Acura is a US-only brand, so it makes sense to race it in IMSA, but Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship are global events, and such a car would probably need to be labeled as—and therefore paid for by—Honda.

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If you live or drive in Austin, Texas, you might start seeing some new-looking Teslas on your roads later this summer. Tesla says it wants to start offering rides for money in the two-seater "Cybercab" that the company revealed last year at a Hollywood backlot. California might be the place with enough glitz to unleash that particular stock-bumping news to the world, but the Golden State is evidently far too restrictive for a company like Tesla to truck with. Instead, the easygoing authorities in Texas provide a far more attractive environment when it comes to putting driverless rubber on the road.

During the early days of its autonomous vehicle (AV) ambitions, Tesla did its testing in California, like most of the rest of the industry. California was early to lay down laws and regulations for the nascent AV industry, a move that some criticized as premature and unnecessarily restrictive. Among the requirements has been the need to report test mileage and disengagements, reports that revealed that Tesla's testing has in fact been extremely limited within that state's borders since 2016.

Other states, mostly ones blessed with good weather, have become a refuge for AV testing away from California's strictures, especially car-centric cities like Phoenix, Arizona, and Austin, Texas. Texas amended its transportation code in 2017 to allow autonomous vehicles to operate on its roads, and it took away any ability for local governments to restrict testing or deployment. By contrast, companies like Waymo and the now-shuttered Cruise were given much more narrow permission to deploy only in limited parts of California.

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Life isn't so easy for automotive manufacturers right now. Take Porsche, which just published preliminary financial numbers for last year and projections for 2025. While things aren't Tesla levels of bad, they're not exactly great. Sales were down 28 percent in China last year and 3 percent overall. Worse yet, profit margins are just over 10 percent, far below the 18 percent the company was targeting.

As a result, Porsche says it's taking "extensive measures" to improve profitability, including adding more internal combustion and plug-in hybrid vehicles to go with the slow-selling EVs. All told, the company expects to spend $830 million (800 million euros) on expanding its non-battery EV lineup in 2025.

There's a lot of that sort of thing going around. Last year, General Motors and Ford lamented missing where the market actually is with too many too-expensive EVs and not enough hybrids. And over at Porsche's sister brand Audi, a similar realization set in, to the point that the brand developed a new combustion engine vehicle architecture (called PPC) to go alongside the new EV-only PPE platform. That new platform will presumably be welcomed over at Porsche as well.

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The Genesis Electrified GV70 continues to intrigue me. Together with the internal combustion engine version, it's the closest thing we'll get to a baby Bentley shooting brake, at least without being part of the Brunei royal family. It's a handsome five-door that looks almost station wagon-ish, without actually succumbing to the retail poison that body style has sadly become.

A station wagon G70, called the Shooting Brake, does exist—in Europe, anyway. But neither it nor the four-door sedan G70 are available with a battery electric powertrain. SUVs being popular helped in that regard. The vehicle starts at around the midpoint for a luxury electric SUV at $66,950; the Prestige trim we tried bumps that starting price to $73,750.

Some people reflexively take offense on seeing those three letters, but this Electrified GV70 has been kept away from the growth hormones. It's identical in length to a Ford Mustang Mach-E, but here, we see one downside to the Electrified GV70's use of a common platform—the Genesis loses out to the Ford by four inches when we compare wheelbases.

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In a move that will no doubt upset some of the more... orderly minded out there, Polestar is temporarily deviating from its otherwise most logical naming convention. Instead of giving its cars numbers based on some theoretical measurement of performance or their position in the showroom hierarchy, the numbers are chronological. Polestar 1 was the first, then Polestar 2, and so on.

That remains true for the last couple of Polestars we drove—the big Polestar 3 SUV and the slightly smaller, slightly cheaper, Porsche Macan-rivaling Polestar 4. And later this year we should see the Polestar 5. But then it will jump to the Polestar 7, a new compact SUV, which undoubtedly has more sales potential than the drop-top Polestar 6 two-seater, no matter how sharp that car might end up looking.

"I brought in and changed the sequence, because I wanted to bring in the Polestar 7 because I think it's an important car," explained Michael Lohscheller, who became Polestar's CEO last fall.

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Early car sales data for January is starting to arrive from countries across the pond, and they paint an alarming picture for Tesla. Sales are crashing in France, Germany, and the UK—all affluent countries that are key markets for Tesla's electric vehicles. Coming on the heels of a large financial miss, it's just one more problem for the automaker.

Tesla sales dropped around 13 percent across Europe in 2024, but so far this year, the scale of the problem is far greater. In France, sales of new Teslas fell by 63 percent, while total car sales in the country fell by just 6 percent, with EV sales dropping just half a percent.

Germany was already looking like lost ground for Tesla—its 41 percent drop in 2024 accounted for most of Tesla's lost sales across Europe. That must make the 59 percent drop in German Tesla sales recorded during January even more painful on the profit and loss statements.

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