car review

2026 Lucid Air Touring review: This feels like a complete car now

car review, Cars, Features, Lucid Air Touring / Mike M. / January 23, 2026

It’s efficient, easy to live with, and smooth to drive.

The 2026 Lucid Air Touring sees the brand deliver on its early promise. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

Life as a startup carmaker is hard—just ask Lucid Motors.

When we met the brand and its prototype Lucid Air sedan in 2017, the company planned to put the first cars in customers’ hands within a couple of years. But you know what they say about plans. A lack of funding paused everything until late 2018, when Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund bought itself a stake. A billion dollars meant Lucid could build a factory—at the cost of alienating some former fans because of the source.

Then the pandemic happened, further pushing back timelines as supply shortages took hold. But the Air did go on sale, and it has more recently been joined by the Gravity SUV. There’s even a much more affordable midsize SUV in the works called the Earth. Sales more than doubled in 2025, and after spending a week with a model year 2026 Lucid Air Touring, I can understand why.

There are now quite a few different versions of the Air to choose from. For just under a quarter of a million dollars, there’s the outrageously powerful Air Sapphire, which offers acceleration so rapid it’s unlikely your internal organs will ever truly get used to the experience. At the other end of the spectrum is the $70,900 Air Pure, a single-motor model that’s currently the brand’s entry point but which also stands as a darn good EV.

The last time I tested a Lucid, it was the Air Grand Touring almost three years ago. That car mostly impressed me but still felt a little unfinished, especially at $138,000. This time, I looked at the Air Touring, which starts at $79,900, and the experience was altogether more polished.

Which one?

The Touring features a less-powerful all-wheel-drive powertrain than the Grand Touring, although to put “less-powerful” into context, with 620 hp (462 kW) on tap, there are almost as many horses available as in the legendary McLaren F1. (That remains a mental benchmark for many of us of a certain age.)

The Touring’s 885 lb-ft (1,160 Nm) is far more than BMW’s 6-liter V12 can generate, but at 5,009 lbs (2,272 kg), the electric sedan weighs twice as much as the carbon-fiber supercar. The fact that the Air Touring can reach 60 mph (98 km/h) from a standing start in just 0.2 seconds more than the McLaren tells you plenty about how much more accessible acceleration has become in the past few decades.

At least, it will if you choose the fastest of the three drive modes, labeled Sprint. There’s also Swift, and the least frantic of the three, Smooth. Helpfully, each mode remembers your regenerative braking setting when you lift the accelerator pedal. Unlike many other EVs, Lucid does not use a brake-by-wire setup, and pressing the brake pedal will only ever slow the car via friction brakes. Even with lift-off regen set to off, the car does not coast well due to its permanent magnet electric motors, unlike the electric powertrains developed by German OEMs like Mercedes-Benz.

This is not to suggest that Lucid is doing something wrong—not with its efficiency numbers. On 19-inch aero-efficient wheels, the car has an EPA range of 396 miles (673 km) from a 92 kWh battery pack. As just about everyone knows, you won’t get ideal EV efficiency during winter, and our test with the Lucid in early January coincided with some decidedly colder temperatures, as well as larger ($1,750) 20-inch wheels. Despite this, I averaged almost 4 miles/kWh (15.5 kWh/100 km) on longer highway drives, although this fell to around 3.5 miles/kWh (17.8 kWh/100 km) in the city.

Recharging the Air Touring also helped illustrate how the public DC fast-charging experience has matured over the years. The Lucid uses the ISO 15118 “plug and charge” protocol, so you don’t need to mess around with an app or really do anything more complicated than plug the charging cable into the Lucid’s CCS1 socket.

After the car and charger complete their handshake, the car gives the charger account and billing info, then the electrons flow. Charging from 27 to 80 percent with a manually preconditioned battery took 36 minutes. During that time, the car added 53.3 kWh, which equated to 209 miles (336 km) of range, according to the dash. Although we didn’t test AC charging, 0–100 percent should take around 10 hours.

The Air Touring is an easy car to live with. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

Monotone

I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a sucker for the way the Air looks when it’s not two-tone. That’s the Stealth option ($1,750), and the dark Fathom Blue Metallic paint ($800) and blacked-out aero wheels pushed many of my buttons. I found plenty to like from the driver’s seat, too. The 34-inch display that wraps around the driver once looked massive—now it feels relatively restrained compared to the “Best Buy on wheels” effect in some other recent EVs. The fact that the display isn’t very tall helps its feeling of restraint here.

In the middle is a minimalist display for the driver, with touch-sensitive displays on either side. To your left are controls for the lights, locks, wipers, and so on. These icons are always in the same place, though there’s no tactile feedback. The infotainment screen to the right is within the driver’s reach, and it’s here that (wireless) Apple CarPlay will show up. As you can see in a photo below, CarPlay fills the irregularly shaped screen with a wallpaper but keeps its usable area confined to the rectangle in the middle.

The curved display floats above the textile-covered dash, and the daylight visible between them helps the cabin’s sense of spaciousness, even without a panoramic glass roof. A stowable touchscreen display lower down on the center console is where you control vehicle, climate, seat, and lighting settings, although there are also physical controls for temperature and volume on the dash. The relatively good overall ergonomics take a bit of a hit from the steeply raked A pillar, which creates a blind spot for the driver.

The layout is mostly great, although the A pillar causes a blind spot. Jonathan Gitlin

For all the Air Touring’s power, it isn’t a car that goads you into using it all. In fact, I spent most of the week in the gentlest setting, Smooth. It’s an easy car to drive slowly, and the rather artificial feel of the steering at low speeds means you probably won’t take it hunting apices on back roads. I should note, though, that each drive mode has its own steering calibration.

On the other hand, as a daily driver and particularly on longer drives, the Touring did a fine job. Despite being relatively low to the ground, it’s easy to get into and out of. The rear seat is capacious, and the ride is smooth, so passengers will enjoy it. Even more so if they sit up front—Lucid has some of the best (optional, $3,750) massaging seats in the business, which vibrate as well as kneading you. There’s a very accessible 22 cubic foot (623 L) trunk as well as a 10 cubic foot (283 L) frunk, so it’s practical, too.

Future-proof?

Our test Air was fitted with Lucid’s DreamDrive Pro advanced driver assistance system ($6,750), which includes a hands-free “level 2+” assist that requires you to pay attention to the road ahead but which handles accelerating, braking, and steering. Using the turn signal tells the car to perform a lane change if it’s safe, and I found it to be an effective driver assist with an active driver monitoring system (which uses a gaze-tracking camera to ensure the driver is doing their part).

Lucid rolled out the more advanced features of DreamDrive Pro last summer, and it plans to develop the system into a more capable “level 3” partially automated system that lets the driver disengage completely from the act of driving, at least at lower speeds. Although that system is some ways off—and level 3 systems are only road-legal in Nevada and California right now anyway—even the current level 2+ system leverages lidar as well as cameras, radar, and ultrasonics, and the dash display does a good job of showing you what other vehicles the Air is perceiving around it when the system is active.

As mentioned above, the model year 2026 Air feels polished, far more so than the last Lucid I drove. Designed by a refugee from Tesla, the car promised to improve on the EVs from that brand in every way. And while early Airs might have fallen short in execution, the cars can now credibly be called finished products, with much better fit and finish than a few years ago.

I’ll go so far as to say that I might have a hard time deciding between an Air or an equivalently priced Porsche Taycan were I in the market for a luxury electric four-door, even though they both offer quite different driving experiences. Be warned, though, like with the Porsche, the options can add up quickly, and the resale prices can be shockingly low.

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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Ferrari doing what it does best: The 12Cilindri review

car review, Cars, Ferrari 12Cilindri / Mike M. / January 16, 2026

Retro design and a naturally aspirated V12 deliver tremendous appeal, but it’ll cost ya.

In the old days, they used to say Ferrari would sell you an engine and give you the car for free. The rest of the 12Cilindri is too good for that cliche, but it really is all about the engine. Credit: Bradley Iger

It has been nearly 80 years since Ferrari unleashed its first V12-powered sports car upon the world with the 125 S. In 1947, its debut year, the 125 S secured Ferrari’s first race victory, along with five other wins in the 14 events it competed in that season.

Although it was soon replaced by the 159 S, the success of the 125 S kick-started Ferrari’s storied history of producing some of the most desirable 12-cylinder performance cars known to man. And while the Italian automaker has come to embrace forced induction and electrification in recent years, its legacy of building stunning front-engine, rear-wheel drive machines with spectacular V12s stuffed into their engine bays continues with the 12Cilindri Spider.

Ferrari hasn’t shied away from leveraging cutting-edge technology in the development of its latest models, but the company also understands the value of a good throwback. As the successor to the 812 Superfast, the 12Cilindri boasts clever performance technologies, like a sophisticated active aero system and a four-wheel steering system that can manage each corner independently to enhance response, but it’s ultimately an homage to the heady days of late ’60s luxury grand touring. The exterior styling takes obvious inspiration from the 365 GTB Daytona, while its lack of all-wheel drive, turbocharging, and electric assistance bucks trends that have become nearly inescapable in modern performance cars.

It’s actually an easy car to drive every day, despite the width. Bradley Iger

Buy the engine, get the car for free?

Instead, Ferrari has deliberately prioritized the core principles that have defined its most enduring GT icons: elegant design, a meticulously engineered chassis, and a sensational naturally aspirated V12, the latter represented here by a 6.5 L dry-sump mill that delivers 819 hp (611 kW) and a soaring 9,500-rpm redline.

That horsepower figure might not raise as many eyebrows as it would have just a few years ago, but it’s worth noting that at a time in history when an alarming number of new performance vehicles are now as heavy as full-size pickups, the 12Cilindri Spider tips the scales at a relatively svelte dry weight of 3,571 (1,620 kg) pounds thanks in part to its focus on the fundamentals. Equipped with massage seats and a retractable hardtop that opens and closes in just 14 seconds, the 12Cilindri Spider is primarily aimed at fulfilling drivers’ fantasies of cruising along the French Riviera with the smell of the ocean in the air and the banshee wail of 12 cylinders in their ears. But it also takes on a noticeably more sportscar-like persona than its primary rival, the Aston Martin Vanquish Volante, mainly due to the 12Cilindri’s eight-speed dual-clutch transmission and more earnest performance-tuned chassis.

Sport is the 12Cilindri Spider’s default drive mode, a naming decision that helps set expectations for suspension stiffness, but you can also depress the steering-wheel-mounted Manettino drive mode dial to enable Bumpy Road mode, which softens the adaptive dampers beyond their standard tuning for more compliance on rough pavement. While the gearbox occasionally needs a second to get its act together from a standstill, and the car’s low stance makes the nose lift system an often-used feature, the 12Cilindri Spider is a remarkably civil cruiser when pressed into service for everyday driving tasks.

Crackle red paint covers the intake boxes, and maybe the cylinder heads. Bradley Iger

Still an HMI disaster

The in-car tech does tarnish this driving experience to a tangible degree, though. The liberal use of capacitive surfaces on the steering wheel and the instrument panel to control features like rear-view mirror position and adaptive cruise control, as well as the functions that are accessed via the 15.6-inch digital gauge cluster, frequently led to frustration during my time with the car, and although the high-resolution 10.25-inch central touchscreen looks great and is quick to respond to user inputs, wireless Apple CarPlay crashed on several occasions for no discernible reason and remained inaccessible until after the next key cycle. These may seem like trivial issues, but in a car with a $507,394 MSRP ($661,364 as-tested with destination fee), it’s tough to excuse problems that are so distracting and seemingly easy to rectify.

We had the same problem with the 296 GTB, and it’s time Ferrari retired its capacitive wheel and replaced them all with the version that has physical buttons. Which it will do for existing owners—for a hefty fee.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly, those quibbles always seemed to fade away whenever I found an open stretch of canyon road and set the Manettino to Race mode. Doing so eases up the electronic assists, sets up the transmission and differential for sharper response, and opens up the valves in the active exhaust system. But, in contrast to convention, it leaves the steering weight, suspension stiffness, throttle response, and brake-by-wire system alone in order to maintain predictable dynamic behavior regardless of which drive mode you’re in.

Ferrari’s capacitive touch multifunctioning steering wheel continues to let down the experience of driving a modern Ferrari. Bradley Iger

Although the exhaust is a bit quieter than I’d prefer, even with the roof stowed away, the sound that this V12 makes as you wind it out is the stuff that dreams are made of. It took me a moment to recalibrate to the lofty redline, though—with the gearbox set to manual mode, my mind naturally wanted to pull the column-mounted paddle about 2,000 rpm early. I blame this on my seat time in the Vanquish coupe last year. Aston’s decision to equip the Vanquish’s 5.2 L V12 with a pair of turbochargers enables it to best the 12Cilinidri’s horsepower figure by a few ponies while also providing a significant advantage in peak torque output (738 lb-ft/1,000 Nm versus the Ferrari’s 500 lb-ft/678 Nm), but it also relegates the Vanquish’s redline to a more prosaic 7,000 rpm while naturally muting its tone a bit.

OK, that’s enough torque

And to be frank, I don’t think the 12Cilindri Spider needs another 238 lb-ft (322 Nm), a theory that was backed by the flashing traction control light that fired up any time I got a little too brave with the throttle coming out of a slow corner. Intervention from the Ferrari’s electronic safeguards is so seamless that I rarely noticed it happening at all, though, and I can’t say the same for the Vanquish, which is undoubtedly thrilling to drive but often felt like it was fighting against its own prodigious output in order to keep the nose on the intended path. The 12Cilindri, by contrast, feels easy to trust when the going gets fast, and that sensation is bolstered by tons of mechanical grip, a quick steering rack, and a firm, progressive brake pedal.

But regardless of my thoughts on the matter, the 12Cilindri’s successor will likely be a significantly different beast with a lot more power on tap. Nearly a decade ago, we predicted that the 812 would likely be the last Ferrari to feature a naturally aspirated V12, and while this is a prediction that we’re happy to have been wrong about, this era is undoubtedly drawing to a close. A hybridized V12 will likely offer even more grunt, and enthusiasts rarely scoff at the prospect of more power, but it also opens the door to all-wheel drive, significantly more heft, and ultimately a very different driving experience. Until then, the 12Cilindri Spider serves as an important reminder that sometimes the most compelling aspects of a performance car can’t be quantified on a spec sheet.

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Not too big, not too expensive: The Chevrolet Equinox EV

car review, Cars, Chevrolet Equinox EV, First drive / Shannon Garcia / December 19, 2025

There’s a lot of goodwill out there for the Chevrolet Bolt. As maybe the first properly affordable longer-range electric car on the market, the Bolt wasn’t perfect. It didn’t charge very fast, and people found the seats quite uncomfortable. But it could get more than 230 miles on a single charge—a lot in 2017—and you didn’t have to be flush to afford one. Oh, and it was also pretty good to drive. I know I was a fan from the first time I tried a prototype at CES in 2016.

Understandably, Bolt fans were upset when Chevy decided to kill off the car. Yes, it lacked features compared to more modern EVs, but it is also the brand‘s bestselling EV by quite a country mile. “Not to worry,” said the executives, who told us they had something better coming built on the platform they used to call Ultium but don’t anymore. Starting at around the same $35,000 price tag the Bolt launched with, this would be the new Equinox EV.

That $34,995 price tag was perhaps a bit more appealing when the car was eligible for the now-dead $7,500 IRS clean vehicle tax credit. Truth be told, the LT1 spec is a little bare-boned, and you’ll need to step up to the LT2 we tested—which starts at $40,295—if you want things like heated seats or wireless charging for your devices. (The good news here is that people looking for a bargain should know that used Equinox EVs with decent specs are already much cheaper, just a year after the car’s launch.) And let’s not forget, when the Bolt was young, the more expensive trim was almost $42,000.

Rear 3/4 view of 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV 1LT in Galaxy Gray Metallic parked on a street in front of a shop. Preproduction model shown. Actual production model may vary. Visit chevy.com/EquinoxEV for availability. — The Equinox EV shares nothing but a name with the gas-powered Equinox crossover. I think the EV version is much nicer to look at. Credit: Chevrolet

Not too big, but not too small

You get quite a lot more EV for the money in 2025 than you did in 2017. The Equinox EV is a whole vehicle class bigger, at 190.6 inches (4,840 mm) long, 77 inches (1,954 mm) wide, and 64.8 inches (1,646 mm) tall. It’s also a lot more comfortable than the subcompact was. The seats haven’t been pared down to save space and weight, and the suspension does a decent job of insulating you from the potholes that always grow around this time of year. And there’s a useful amount of storage space, with 26.4 cubic feet (748 L) of cargo volume with the rear seats in use or 57.2 cubic feet (1,620 L) with the rear seats down.

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2026 Mercedes CLA first drive: Entry level doesn’t mean basic

car review, Cars, First drive, Mercedes-Benz CLA / DJ Henderson / December 16, 2025

SAN FRANCISCO—Automakers are starting to follow somewhat familiar paths as they continue their journeys to electrification. Electric vehicles are, at first, strange new tech, and usually look like it. Mercedes-Benz’s EQS and EQE are good examples—with bodies that look like bars of soap worn down in the shower, they stood out. For early adopters and trailblazers that might be fine, but you need to sell cars to normal people if you want to survive, and that means making EVs more normal. Which is what Mercedes did with its newest one, the all-electric CLA.

The normal looks belie the amount of new technology that Mercedes has packed into the CLA, though. The car sticks to the four-door coupe look that the company pioneered a couple of decades ago, but there’s a thoroughly modern electric powertrain connected to the wheels, run by four powerful networked computers. And yes, there’s AI. (For the pedants, “coupe” means cut down, not two-door, so the name is accurate.)

The CLA is the first of a new series of Mercedes that will use the same modular architecture, and interestingly, it’s powertrain agnostic—a hybrid CLA is coming in time, too. But first the battery EV, which makes good use of some technology Mercedes developed for the EQXX concept car.

A blue Mercedes-Benz CLA parked in profile

At 185.9 inches (4,722 mm) long, 73 inches (1,854 mm) wide, and 57.8 inches (1,468 mm) tall, it’s not a particularly big car. In addition to the trunk, there’s a small frunk up front. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

That creation was capable of about 750 miles (1,207 km) on a single charge, but it was handbuilt and lacked working rear doors or an actual back seat. The CLA manages as much as 374 miles on a full charge of its 85 kWh (useable) battery pack, although as ever this decreases a little as you fit larger wheels.

But Mercedes has been restrained in this regard, eschewing that terrible trend for larger and larger wheels. Designers use that trick to hide the size of their SUVs, but the relatively diminutive size of the CLA needs no such visual trickery, and the rims range from 17–19 inches and no larger. Smaller wheels make less drag, and even though the CLA doesn’t look like it has been rubbed smooth, its drag coefficient of 0.21 says otherwise.

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Ugly infotainment mars the 2025 Subaru Forester Hybrid experience

2025 Subaru Forester Hybrid, car review, Cars / 9u50fv / December 10, 2025

Although many of us associate it with rally-derived machinery from the late 1990s and early 2000s, these days, Subaru has mostly abandoned its performance cars to concentrate on its true calling—rugged, all-wheel-drive vehicles that are high on practicality, powered by horizontally opposed “boxer” engines. One area where the brand has never particularly excelled has been fuel efficiency, which is where today’s test car, the Subaru Forester Hybrid, comes in.

The last time Ars reviewed a Subaru Forester, it left us impressed. How about one with 40 percent better economy, in that case? Now, the 2.5 L flat-four engine operates on the Atkinson/Miller cycle, which generates 162 hp (121 kW) and 154 lb-ft (208 Nm). There’s an electric motor-generator starter and an electric traction motor with 118 hp (88 kW) and 199 lb-ft (270 Nm) that work together to send a combined 194 hp (145 kW) to all four wheels via a symmetrical all-wheel drive system and a planetary continuously variable transmission.

The Forester Hybrid is 183.3 inches (4,656 mm) long, 70.2 inches (1,783 mm) wide, and 68.1 inches (1,729 mm) tall, with a 105.1-inch (2,670 mm) wheelbase. Jonathan Gitlin

If that sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it’s the same powertrain that Subaru has also fitted to the smaller Crosstrek Hybrid that we drove in September.

The 14 hp (10 kW) bump over the non-hybrid Forester is little enough that it probably won’t be noticed, but a combined EPA fuel efficiency of 35 mpg (6.7 L/100 km) is a meaningful increase over the unelectrified Forester’s 29 mpg (8.1 L/100 km). In practice, I struggled to exceed 31 mpg (7.6 L/100 km) during my week with the Forester, although as you’ll note from the temperatures displayed on the dash, winter temperatures have arrived, and we all know the cold makes all vehicles less efficient, not just EVs.

Driving a CVT hybrid can often feel disconcerting. Sometimes you press the accelerator and the car decides that electric propulsion will suffice; other times, the engine will rev with a non-linear relationship to the power being delivered at the wheels, as internal combustion tops up lithium-ion and then sends electrons to a motor to make the car go. Like all Atkinson cycle engines, it doesn’t sound very mellifluous when worked hard.

The rest of the driving experience was quite pleasant. The Forester Hybrid rides well on tires that have plenty of sidewall, and the 8.7-inches (221 mm) of ground clearance gives plenty of room for suspension travel. While it doesn’t handle like a WRX (or my dear departed Saab 9-2x), driving the Forester is no real chore. Other than the engine and some wind noise, it’s mostly refined on the move.

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2026 Hyundai Ioniq 9: American car-buyer tastes meet Korean EV tech

car review, Cars, Hyundai Ioniq 9 / Shannon Garcia / October 31, 2025

The Ioniq 9 interior. Jonathan Gitlin

The native NACS charge port at the rear means all of Tesla’s v3 Superchargers are potential power-up locations; these will take the battery from 10–80 percent state of charge in 40 minutes. Or use the NACS-CCS1 adapter and a 350 kW fast charger (or find one of Ionna’s 350 kW chargers with a NACS plug) and do the 10–80 percent SoC top-up in a mere 24 minutes.

With this most-powerful Ioniq 9, I’d mostly keep it in Eco mode, which almost entirely relies upon the rear electric motor. When firing with both motors, the Calligraphy outputs 422 hp (315 kW) and more importantly, 516 lb-ft (700 Nm). In Sport mode, that’s more than enough to chirp the tires from a standstill, particularly if it’s damp. Low rolling resistance and good efficiency was a higher priority for the Ioniq 9’s tire selection than lateral grip, and with a curb weight of 6,000 lbs (2,735 kg) it’s not really a car that needs to be hustled unless you’re attempting to outrun something like a volcano. It’s also the difference between efficiency in the low 2 miles/kWh range.

Life with the Ioniq 9 wasn’t entirely pain-free. For example, the touch panel for the climate control settings becomes impossible to read in bright sunlight, although the knobs to raise or lower the temperature are at least physical items. I also had trouble with the windshield wipers’ intermittent setting, despite the standard rain sensors.

A Hyundai Ioniq 9 seen from the rear 3/4s. — Built just outside of Savannah, Georgia, don’t you know. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

At $74,990, the Ioniq 9 Calligraphy comes more heavily specced than electric SUVs from more luxury, and therefore more expensive, brands and should charge faster and drive more efficiently than any of them. If you don’t mind giving up 119 hp (89 kW) and some options, all-wheel drive is available from $62,765 for the SE trim, and that longer-legged single-motor Ioniq 9 starts at $58,955. Although with just 215 hp (160 KW) and 285 lb-ft (350 Nm), the driving experience won’t be quite the same as the model we tested.

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Porsche’s 2026 911 Turbo S is a ballistic, twin-turbo, 701-horsepower monster

car review, Cars, First drive, Porsche 911 Turbo S / 9u50fv / October 28, 2025

Other upgrades

To handle the 61 hp (45.5 kW) of additional power over the outgoing car, the new Turbo S features 10 mm wider tires at the rear—sticky Pirelli P Zero Rs to be exact. Porsche also outfitted a new form of active suspension to the Turbo S, which uses one of the pumps from the Panamera’s trick new Active Ride suspension to drive actuators at each of the car’s four corners.

By raising or lowering pressure, the 911 Turbo S effectively varies the stiffness of its anti-rollbars, resulting in a cushier ride for daily driving and a more aggressive one in Sport or Sport Plus. The feeling of the Turbo S is never exactly plush—those low-profile tires aren’t ideal for that—but neither is it harsh. I felt quite comfortable cruising over the broken Malagan asphalt, making this an ideal daily driver.

I didn’t even mind the soft-top convertible in the Cabriolet, which raises and lowers quickly and, even at highway speed, doesn’t add much road noise to the equation. Still, if I were buying, I’d go coupe instead of Cabriolet, if only for the extra headroom and cleaner styling.

I won’t be buying, though, because I can’t afford one. The 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S starts at $270,300 for the coupe or $284,300 for the soft-top Cabriolet, plus a $2,350 destination fee. That’s for a reasonably well-equipped car, including the new active suspension and carbon-ceramic brakes, but start digging into the options catalogue or ponder the expanded palette in Porsche’s Paint to Sample lines, and you’ll quickly find yourself on the painful side of $300,000. That’s a mighty amount of money for a 911, a whopping $40,000 MSRP increase over last year’s model, but given the wild level of engineering required to deliver this much power and responsiveness, it doesn’t feel completely out of line.

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Great hybrid V6, lousy HMI: Three days with a Ferrari 296 GTB

car review, Cars, Ferrari 296 GTB / Beth Washington / October 23, 2025

The first time I drove this generation of mid-engined Ferrari, it was on a curated route on the company’s home turf. As the Po Valley gives way to the Apennines, you find plenty of narrow winding roads, steep gradients, and hairpin turns. It was an engaging few hours of driving, but it was too brief to properly assess some of the 296’s technology. I found the ride firm but comfortable on rough Italian tarmac and the hybrid system easy to operate, flicking into calm-and-quiet electric-only mode through the villages I encountered.

That was back in 2022 during the unveiling of Ferrari’s 499P race car. Last month, I met the 499P again as it visited the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, along with the rest of the World Endurance Championship. And that afforded another chance to get to know the 296, with three days rather than three hours to form an impression.

Head west from Austin and you’ll find twisty roads that wrap around the hills. It would have been easy to spend an entire day out there, but that seemed repetitive—I’d experienced the 296’s back road behavior already. Plus, there were things to do at the racetrack, although I’ll admit I took the long way there and back each day.

Driving among the AVs

For mixing it up in downtown traffic—among the dozens of all-white Waymo Jaguars and brightly wrapped Zoox Toyotas doing their autonomous driving thing—the Ferrari’s eDrive mode is perfectly sufficient. It uses the axial flux electric motor that lives between the 2.9 L V6 engine and the eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, but the donut-shaped motor’s 165 hp (123 kW) and, more importantly, 232 lb-ft (315 Nm) are all you need to move the 296’s roughly 3,300 lbs (1,500 kg) at city speeds. Visibility is good looking forward and is adequate otherwise, and the throttle mapping makes it easy to measure out just as much acceleration as you need.

Beyond the confines of the city center, you’ll want the contribution of the V6’s 654 hp (488 kW). There are three modes to choose from. Hybrid is best when the lithium-ion traction battery is charged, and the car’s brain will cut the V6 as and when necessary to save some fuel. If the 7.4 kWh battery is depleted, switching into Performance mode is a solution. This keeps the internal combustion engine fired and uses spare power to keep topping up the pack. It also sounds more raucous.

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The most efficient Crosstrek ever? Subaru’s hybrid gets a bit rugged.

car review, Cars, First drive, Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid / Beth Washington / September 30, 2025

MG2 then sits at the rear of the CVT, linked via a planetary gearset, and working in concert with the gasoline engine to power the wheels. Alone, MG2 can also manage a minimal mile or so of EV-only range at a max of 19 mph (30.5 km/h)—but more importantly, boosts total low-end torque and high-end horsepower, as well as handling regenerative braking. (We’re still waiting on the exact horsepower contribution and will update this when we hear back from Subaru.)

It might be a boxer, but it’s no heavyweight

The Atkinson 2.5 L puts out just 162 hp (119 kW) and 154 lb-ft (209 Nm) of torque on its own, but MG2 contributes enough juice for combined system rating peaks of 194 hp (143 kW). That’s an improvement of 14 hp versus the ICE-only (non-Atkinson) 2.5 L Boxer’s 180 hp (and 178 lb-ft). Those numbers might still seem paltry compared to so many other automakers in the modern era, which responded to governmental regulations by hybridizing ever bigger and heavier cars to make them more powerful rather than necessarily more efficient—BMW’s gargantuan M5 stands out as a recent offender. Not so for Crosstrek, which still tips the scales at a relatively svelte 3,662 pounds (1,661 kg), further contributing to efficiency while accelerating.

There’s a horizontally opposed boxer engine under there. And the orange HV cables are a clue there’s a hybrid system, too. Michael Teo Van Runkle

The new Crosstrek Hybrid only manages insignificant weight savings compared to 3,717 lbs (1,686 kg) for the previous plug-in, which boasted 17 miles (27 km) of all-electric range. But that generation therefore sacrificed trunk space to house a much larger 8.8-kWh lithium-ion battery. Dual motors and the smaller battery pack do contribute to a 400-pound (181-kg) gain versus the equivalent non-hybrid variant of the current generation, though. Yet in addition to the power improvements, fuel economy jumps up to EPA ratings of 36 mpg (6.5.L//100 km) city, 36 highway, and (therefore) 36 combined—38 percent better than the ICE Crosstrek, according to Subaru.

In back-to-back drives through the forested hills of northern Oregon and southern Washington, punching the go pedal in a Crosstrek Hybrid brings on a much more potent rush of throttle response and acceleration, far outpacing the naturally aspirated engine. The constant-velocity transmission simulates shifts despite effectively holding the hybrid system in its happy place, and the sound of MG2 working produces a fun little whine, almost like a turbocharger. All while the Symmetrical AWD system smoothly and predictably meters traction out to each wheel in quintessential Subaru fashion.

The most efficient Crosstrek ever? Subaru’s hybrid gets a bit rugged. Read More »

zr1,-gtd,-and-america’s-new-nurburgring-war

ZR1, GTD, and America’s new Nürburgring war

car review, Cars, Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, Corvette ZR1X, Features, First drive, Ford Mustang GTD, Nordschleife, Nurburgring / Mike M. / September 29, 2025

Drive quickly and make a lot of horsepower.

Ford and Chevy set near-identical lap times with very different cars; we drove both.

Credit: Tim Stevens | Aurich Lawson

There’s a racetrack with a funny name in Germany that, in the eyes of many international enthusiasts, is the de facto benchmark for automotive performance. But the Nürburgring, a 13-mile (20 km) track often called the Green Hell, rarely hits the radar of mainstream US performance aficionados. That’s because American car companies rarely take the time to run cars there, and if they do, it’s in secrecy, to test pre-production machines cloaked in camouflage without publishing official times.

The track’s domestic profile has lately been on the rise, though. Late last year, Ford became the first American manufacturer to run a sub-7-minute lap: 6: 57.685 from its ultra-high-performance Mustang GTD. It then did better, announcing a 6: 52.072 lap time in May. Two months later, Chevrolet set a 6: 49.275 lap time with the hybrid Corvette ZR1X, becoming the new fastest American car around that track.

It’s a vehicular war of escalation, but it’s about much more than bragging rights.

The Green Hell as a must-visit for manufacturers

The Nürburgring is a delightfully twisted stretch of purpose-built asphalt and concrete strewn across the hills of western Germany. It dates back to the 1920s and has hosted the German Grand Prix for a half-century before it was finally deemed too unsafe in the late 1970s.

It’s still a motorsports mecca, with sports car racing events like the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators, but today, it’s better known as the ultimate automotive performance proving ground.

It offers an unmatched variety of high-speed corners, elevation changes, and differing surfaces that challenge the best engineers in the world. “If you can develop a car that goes fast on the Nürburgring, it’s going to be fast everywhere in the whole world,” said Brian Wallace, the Corvette ZR1’s vehicle dynamics engineer and the driver who set that car’s fast lap of 6: 50.763.

“When you’re going after Nürburgring lap time, everything in the car has to be ten tenths,” said Greg Goodall, Ford’s chief program engineer for the Mustang GTD. “You can’t just use something that is OK or decent.”

Thankfully, neither of these cars is merely decent.

Mustang, deconstructed

You know the scene in Robocop where a schematic displays how little of Alex Murphy’s body remains inside that armor? Just enough of Peter Weller’s iconic jawline remains to identify the man, but the focus is clearly on the machine.

That’s a bit like how Multimatic creates the GTD, which retains just enough Mustang shape to look familiar, but little else.

Multimatic, which builds the wild Ford GT and also helms many of Ford’s motorsports efforts, starts with partially assembled Mustangs pulled from the assembly line, minus fenders, hood, and roof. Then the company guts what’s left in the middle.

Ford’s partner Multimatic cut as much of the existing road car chassis as it could for the GTD. Tim Stevens

“They cut out the second row seat area where our suspension is,” Ford’s Goodall said. “They cut out the rear floor in the trunk area because we put a flat plate on there to mount the transaxle to it. And then they cut the rear body side off and replace that with a wide-body carbon-fiber bit.”

A transaxle is simply a fun name for a rear-mounted transmission—in this case, an eight-speed dual-clutch unit mounted on the rear axle to help balance the car’s weight.

The GTD needs as much help as it can get to offset the heft of the 5.2-liter supercharged V8 up front. It gets a full set of carbon-fiber bodywork, too, but the resulting package still weighs over 4,300 lbs (1,950 kg).

With 815 hp (608 kW) and 664 lb-ft (900 Nm) of torque, it’s the most powerful road-going Mustang of all time, and it received other upgrades to match, including carbon-ceramic brake discs at the corners and the wing to end all wings slung off the back. It’s not only big; it’s smart, featuring a Formula One-style drag-reduction system.

At higher speeds, the wing’s element flips up, enabling a 202 mph (325 km/h) top speed. No surprise, that makes this the fastest factory Mustang ever. At a $325,000 starting price, it had better be, but when it comes to the maximum-velocity stakes, the Chevrolet is in another league.

More Corvette

You lose the frunk but gain cooling and downforce. Tim Stevens

On paper, when it comes to outright speed and value, the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 seems to offer far more bang for what is still a significant number of bucks. To be specific, the ZR1 starts at about $175,000, which gets you a 1,064 hp (793 kW) car that will do 233 mph (375 km/h) if you point it down a road long enough.

Where the GTD is a thorough reimagining of what a Mustang can be, the ZR1 sticks closer to the Corvette script, offering more power, more aerodynamics, and more braking without any dramatic internal reconfiguration. That’s because it was all part of the car’s original mission plan, GM’s Brian Wallace told me.

“We knew we were going to build this car,” he said, “knowing it had the backbone to double the horsepower, put 20 percent more grip in the car, and oodles of aero.”

At the center of it all is a 5.5-liter twin-turbocharged V8. You can get a big wing here, too, but it isn’t active like the GTD’s.

Chevrolet engineers bolstered the internal structure at the back of the car to handle the extra downforce at the rear. Up front, the frunk is replaced by a duct through the hood, providing yet more grip to balance things. Big wheels, sticky tires, and carbon-ceramic brakes round out a package that looks a little less radical on the outside than the Mustang and substantially less retooled on the inside, but clearly no less capable.

The engine bay of a yellow Corvette ZR1. — A pair of turbochargers lurk behind that rear window. Credit: Tim Stevens

And if that’s not enough, Chevrolet has the 1,250 hp (932 kW), $208,000 ZR1X on offer, which adds the Corvette E-Ray’s hybrid system into the mix. That package does add more weight, but the result is still a roughly 4,000-lb (1,814 kg) car, hundreds less than the Ford.

’Ring battles

Ford and Chevy’s battle at the ‘ring blew up this summer, but both brands have tested there for years. Chevrolet has even set official lap times in the past, including the previous-generation Corvette Z06’s 7: 22.68 in 2012. Despite that, a fast lap time was not in the initial plan for the new ZR1 and ZR1X. Drew Cattell, ZR1X vehicle dynamics engineer and the driver of that 6: 49.275 lap, told me it “wasn’t an overriding priority” for the new Corvette.

But after developing the cars there so extensively, they decided to give it a go. “Seeing what the cars could do, it felt like the right time. That we had something we were proud of and we could really deliver with,” he said.

Ford, meanwhile, had never set an official lap time at the ‘ring, but it was part of the GTD’s raison d’être: “That was always a goal: to go under seven minutes. And some of it was to be the first American car ever to do it,” Ford’s Goodall said.

That required extracting every bit of performance, necessitating a last-minute change during final testing. In May of 2024, after the car’s design had been finalized by everyone up the chain of command at Ford, the test team in Germany determined the GTD needed a little more front grip.

To fix it, Steve Thompson, a dynamic technical specialist at Ford, designed a prototype aerodynamic extension to the vents in the hood. “It was 3D-printed, duct taped,” Goodall said. That design was refined and wound up on the production car, boosting frontal downforce on the GTD without adding drag.

Chevrolet’s development process relied not only on engineers in Germany but also on work in the US. “The team back home will keep on poring over the data while we go to sleep, because of the time difference,” Cattell said, “and then they’ll have something in our inbox the next morning to try out.”

When it was time for the Corvette’s record-setting runs, there wasn’t much left to change, just a few minor setup tweaks. “Maybe a millimeter or two,” Wallace said, “all within factory alignment settings.”

A few months later, it was my turn.

Behind the wheel

No, I wasn’t able to run either of these cars at the Nürburgring, but I was lucky enough to spend one day with both the GTD and the ZR1. First was the Corvette at one of America’s greatest racing venues: the Circuit of the Americas, a 3.5-mile track and host of the Formula One United States Grand Prix since 2012.

A head-on shot of a yellow Corvette ZR1. — How does 180 mph on the back straight at the Circuit of the Americas sound? Credit: Tim Stevens

I’ve been lucky to spend a lot of time in various Corvettes over the years, but none with performance like this. I was expecting a borderline terrifying experience, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Despite its outrageous speed and acceleration, the ZR1 really is still a Corvette.

On just my second lap behind the wheel of the ZR1, I was doing 180 mph down the back straight and running a lap time close to the record set by a $1 million McLaren Senna a few years before. The Corvette is outrageously fast—and frankly exhausting to drive thanks to the monumental G forces—but it’s more encouraging than intimidating.

The GTD was more of a commitment. I sampled one at The Thermal Club near Palm Springs, California, a less auspicious but more technical track with tighter turns and closer walls separating them. That always amps up the pressure a bit, but the challenging layout of the track really forced me to focus on extracting the most out of the Mustang at low and high speeds.

The GTD has a few tricks up its sleeve to help with that, including an advanced multi-height suspension that drops it by about 1.5 inches (4 cm) at the touch of a button, optimizing the aerodynamic performance and lowering the roll height of the car.

A black Ford Mustang GTD in profile.

Heavier and less powerful than the Corvette, the Mustang GTD has astonishing levels of cornering grip. Credit: Tim Stevens

While road-going Mustangs typically focus on big power in a straight line, the GTD’s real skill is astonishing grip and handling. Remember, the GTD is only a few seconds slower on the ‘ring than the ZR1, despite weighing somewhere around 400 pounds (181 kg) more and having nearly 200 fewer hp (149 kw).

The biggest difference in feel between the two, though, is how they accelerate. The ZR1’s twin-turbocharged V8 delivers big power when you dip in the throttle and then just keeps piling on more and more as the revs increase. The supercharged V8 in the Mustang, on the other hand, is more like an instantaneous kick in the posterior. It’s ferocious.

Healthy competition

The ZR1 is brutally fast, yes, but it’s still remarkably composed, and it feels every bit as usable and refined as any of the other flavors of modern Corvette. The GTD, on the other hand, is a completely different breed than the base Mustang, every bit the purpose-built racer you’d expect from a race shop like Multimatic.

Chevrolet did the ZR1 and ZR1X development in-house. Cattell said that is a huge point of pride for the team. So, too, is setting those ZR1 and ZR1X lap times using General Motors’ development engineers. Ford turned to a pro race driver for its laps.

A racing driver stands in front his car as mechanics and engineers celebrate in the background. — Ford factory racing driver Dirk Muller was responsible for setting the GTD’s time at the ‘ring. Credit: Giles Jenkyn Photography LTD/Ford

An engineer in a fire suit stands next to a yellow Corvette, parked on the Nurburgring. — GM vehicle dynamics engineer Drew Cattell set the ZR1X’s Nordschleife time. Credit: Chevrolet

That, though, was as close to a barb as I could get out of any engineer on either side of this new Nürburgring. Both teams were extremely complimentary of each other.

“We’re pretty proud of that record. And I don’t say this in a snarky way, but we were first, and you can’t ever take away first,” Ford’s Goodall said. “Congratulations to them. We know better than anybody how hard of an accomplishment or how big of an accomplishment it is and how much effort goes into it.”

But he quickly added that Ford isn’t done. “You’re not a racer if you’re just going to take that lying down. So it took us approximately 30 seconds to align that we were ready to go back and do something about it,” he said.

In other words, this Nürburgring war is just beginning.

ZR1, GTD, and America’s new Nürburgring war Read More »

Small, affordable, efficient: A lot to like about the 2026 Nissan Leaf

car review, Cars, First drive, nissan leaf / Mike M. / September 12, 2025

Smaller on the outside, bigger on the inside, and it goes farther on a single charge.

The color is called Seabreeze Blue Pearl, and isn’t it great it’s not silver or grey? Credit: Nissan

SAN DIEGO—The original Nissan Leaf was a car with a mission. Long before Elon Musk set his sights on Tesla selling vast numbers of electric vehicles to the masses, then-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn wanted Nissan to shift half a million Leafs a year in the early 2010s. That didn’t quite come to pass, but by 2020, it had sold its 500,000th EV, which went from its factory in Sunderland, England, to a customer in Norway.

Pioneering though they were, both first- and second-generation Leafs were compromised. They were adapted from existing internal combustion engine platforms, with the electric powertrains shoehorned inside. The cars’ real handicaps were a lack of liquid cooling for the battery packs. Like an older Porsche 911, the Leaf was air-cooled, albeit with none of the collector value. That’s all changed for generation three.

The new Leaf is built on a dedicated EV platform shared with Nissan’s alliance partners Renault and Mitsubishi, and which we have previously seen used to good effect in the Nissan Ariya. The benefits of using a platform purpose-designed for electric propulsion are obvious from the space efficiency. The new car is 3 inches (75 mm) shorter from the outside, but offers nearly 9 inches (221 mm) more rear leg room (yes, really), making it a much more suitable place to put adults.

Is it a sedan? Is it a crossover? Nissan

Although the new Leaf is 0.8 inches (20 mm) wider, it’s a few mm shorter and has a lower drag coefficient (Cd 0.26), so the overall effect is a more efficient shape. The nose bears a family resemblance to the Ariya, and the body style is sort of a crossover, sort of a fastback sedan, depending on your frame of reference.

Here and there, you’ll notice iconography that calls out the automaker’s name: two vertical stripes (ni in Japanese), then three horizontal ones (san in Japanese). I’m told that if you look, there are some ginkgo leaves as Easter eggs hidden in the design, but I did not find them during our hours with the car.

For now, there’s one powertrain option: a 214 hp (160 kW), 262 lb-ft (355 Nm) motor (packaged together with its inventor and reducer), powered by a 75 kWh (net) lithium-ion battery pack. The battery pack is integrated into the car’s thermal management system, which also loops in the chiller, the motor, and the HVAC system. It can fast-charge at up to 150 kW via the NACS port built into its left side (or using a CCS1 adapter here) and should charge from 10–80 percent in 35 minutes. On the driver’s side is a J1772 port for AC charging that can also work bidirectionally to send up to 1.5 kW of AC power to an external device via an adapter.

Nissan said it kept the J1772 port because it expects to sell the new Leaf to a lot of legacy customers who already have their own home charger, and it wanted to minimize the number of adapters necessary.

Let’s talk trim levels

How far it goes on a single charge depends on which trim level you’re in. Nissan brought some preproduction Leaf Platinum+ models to the first drive. These are very highly equipped, with an electrochromic dimming roof, the LED head- and taillights you see in the images, a couple of AC outlets inside the car (with the ability to power up to 3.4 kW across two outlets), and a better sound system. But it also comes on 19-inch alloy wheels, and as we all know, bigger wheels mean smaller range. Indeed, the Leaf Platinum+ has a range of 259 miles (417 km) on a single charge.

The $34,230 SV+ loses the panoramic roof and the interior V2L outlets, and you’ll have to manually open and close the tailgate at the back. And the alloy wheels are an inch smaller, which increases the range to 288 miles (464 km).

But it keeps the heated front seats and the twin 14.3-inch displays (one for your instruments, one for infotainment) with Google built in. For the Platinum+ and SV+, that means onboard Google Maps with a route planner that will take into account your state of charge and which can precondition the battery if it knows your destination is a fast charger.

19-inch Nissan Leaf wheel — Big wheels have their drawbacks. Credit: Nissan

Nissan is only including the Google connected services for the first year, though—after that, owners will have to pay a monthly fee, although Nissan wasn’t able to tell us how much that is. Conveniently, both wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are included and will continue to work after the year’s trial. And you can manually precondition the battery for charging, but automatic preconditioning via the infotainment system will not work without an active subscription.

The SV+ and Platinum can also be optioned with a heat pump ($300).

But the $29,990 S+ cannot. And it lacks the twin displays of the car you see in the images, which means no automatic battery preconditioning, although like the more expensive trims it does still have wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. You also get 18-inch steel wheels with aero hubcaps, and a range of 303 miles (487 km) on a single charge. See what I mean about wheel size and range?

How does it drive?

A Nissan Leaf — Turning over a new leaf. Credit: Nissan

I’d very much like to spend some time in an S+ and an SV+, if only to see what difference a larger tire sidewall makes to the ride comfort. On 19-inch wheels, the ride was firm and translated bumps and divots through the suspension and into the cabin. There wasn’t much body roll, but your progress will be limited by the grip available to the low rolling-resistance tires—push too hard and the result is plenty of understeer.

But this is not a “push too hard” kind of EV. With just 214 hp, it accelerates quickly enough to get out of its own way, but it’s telling that Nissan did not share a 0–60 mph time during the briefing. (If I had to guess, I’d say between 5–6 seconds, which used to be considered very rapid.)

It has four drive modes—Eco, Normal, Sport, and Personal—with three different throttle maps and two steering weights to choose from. And there are now four levels of lift-off regenerative braking, which you toggle on with the left steering wheel paddle and off with the right paddle. You can’t turn regen completely off, so like General Motors’ family of EVs, the Leaf will not really coast and loses a few mph even on downhill stretches, as it converts some kinetic energy to electrical energy.

There’s also an e-Step button on the dash, which turns on maximum regen braking and may add some friction braking to the mix. Unlike using the paddles, this setting should remain on the next time you start the car. But neither of the full regen settings is able to bring the car to a complete stop—we were told that the feature is viewed with suspicion in some markets, including Japan, and like pop-out door handles, it appears that China is in the process of banning one-pedal driving entirely.

There are plenty of real buttons and switches in here. Nissan

Both e-Step and max-regen work very well in traffic or on a twisty road, where they simulate engine braking. But given the choice, I would use the paddles to control regen braking. That’s because, like the Mercedes EQ family of EVs, in this mode the brake pedal moves toward the firewall as the car slows. The engineer’s excuse for this is that the pedal moves by the same distance it would have moved had the driver used it to slow the car by the amount it has just slowed. But my rebuttal is that the brake pedal should always be where I expect to find it in an emergency, and if that’s an inch farther away, that’s not cool.

That’s really a minor gripe, though; no one says you have to push the e-Step switch on the dash. Slightly more annoying—but only slightly—is the wind noise from the sideview mirrors, which is noticeable even at 45 mph (72 km/h), although easily drowned out if you’re listening to something on the audio system.

For a daily driver, the third-generation Leaf is rather compelling, especially the S+, although the lack of heated front seats in that model might be too much of a deal-breaker, considering how important seat heaters are to EV efficiency in winter. (Because it’s more efficient to heat the driver than warm all the air in the car.)

The SV+ is more likely to be the sweet spot—this trim level can have the Seabreeze paint you see here or a white pearl, which are alternatives to the four shades available to the S+. The Hyundai Kona EV and Kia Niro EV are probably the Leaf’s two closest rivals, both of which are compelling cars. And the forthcoming Kia EV3 will probably also be cross-shopped. All of which is good news if you’re looking for a smaller, affordable electric car.

Small, affordable, efficient: A lot to like about the 2026 Nissan Leaf Read More »

2025 VW Jetta GLI: Save the manuals, but not like this

car review, Cars, Volkswagen Jetta GLI / Beth Washington / August 27, 2025

the American sedan take on a GTI

Specs mean nothing if you get the feel and execution wrong.

Built in Mexico, the Volkswagen Jetta is a North American sedan take on the Golf hatchback. Credit: Jim Resnick

Manual transmissions have gone the way of the dodo, but you can still find a few out there. Bless Volkswagen for keeping the helical gears turning, both literally and figuratively. The 2025 Jetta GLI, Volkswagen’s sporty sedan, still offers a gear lever with actual gears attached at the other end, and a third pedal hanging down from under the dash. Meanwhile, Golf GTI fans are still sobbing in their beer because 2024 was the last model year you could row your own in the hot hatch—now it’s paddles only.

Volkswagen updated the 2025 Jetta GLI with a new grille, LED headlights, and light bars that connect across both the front grille and rear taillights. There’s a red accent stripe that runs across the lower front fascia and turns up at the front corners, somewhat like The Joker’s lipstick, but way less menacing. It’s less distinctive than the Golf GTI, though, and the design even reminds me of the 2017-era Honda Accord a bit. So, yes, in a face-off, the Golf GTI wins.

The test GLI’s wheels get black paint with the Black Package (blackened wheels and side mirror caps). The Monument Gray color option pairs with a black roof, which must seem like a good idea to people who don’t live in the Southwest, where cars overheat before they’re even started.

A black Jetta wheel — Our test car had the black package. Credit: Jim Resnick

Performance: Punch without poetry

VW’s long-running EA888 2.0 L engine, which debuted back in 2007 in the Audi A3, resides under the hood. Now in its fourth turbocharged generation, it develops a healthy 228 hp (170 kW) and 258 lb-ft (350 Nm) of torque, entirely respectable numbers from modest displacement and compact external dimensions.

Mated to this particular 6-speed manual, the engine has its work cut out for itself. On my very first drive, before examining the technical data on gearbox ratios, I could tell that the manual 6-speed had massive gaps between first, second, and third gears.

Diving further into the gearing matter, the ratio spread between first and third gears is vastly wider in the 6-speed manual transmission than in the 7-speed DSG semi-automatic gearbox. This means that as you upshift the manual, the engine is faced with a huge drop in engine revs when you let out the clutch, placing the engine well below the rev range it would prefer to operate within to provide maximum power.

VW Jetta engine bay — EA888 in the house. Credit: Jim Resnick

Let’s look at the ratios, and remember that a lower numerical value means a “taller” or “higher” ratio, just like on multi-speed bicycles. The manual’s first gear is 3.77:1, where the DSG’s is 3.40:1. Upshift to the 2.09:1 second gear in the manual, and you select a gear that’s a whopping 55 percent taller than first gear. Conversely, the same 1-2 shift in the DSG (from 3.40:1 up to 2.75:1) results in a 19 percent taller gear ratio—a far narrower gap.

Third gear tells a similar story. The 6-speed manual’s third ratio (1.47:1) is 17 percent higher than the 1.77:1 ratio in the DSG (again, this “taller” gear giving 17 percent less mechanical advantage). Advantage: automatic.

Closer ratios mean better, faster engine torque recovery and better continued acceleration, because the engine will be spinning in the happier part of its power band—engines being happiest when revving at their torque peak and beyond.

Now, you might well argue that the manual’s third gear gives a higher top speed in-gear than the DSG automatic’s. And that’s 100 percent true. But it’s also irrelevant when you have three (or four!) more gears left to go in the transmission.

And then there’s the action of the shifter itself, with very long throws from forward to aft gates.

A white VW Jetta in profile

It’s quite handsome from some angles. Credit: Jim Resnick

But wait. I began this diatribe by complimenting the Jetta GLI for still offering a choice of manual or automatic gearbox. Indeed, if the manual gearbox had the DSG automatic’s ratios, the paragraphs above would have a very different tenor. The lesson here is that not all manuals are created equal.

We can also look objectively at the stopwatch. Using others’ published figures (don’t take our word for it), 0–60 mph figures tell the tale, as well. Car and Driver cites a time of 6.0 seconds to 60 mph for the manual GLI, where they achieved 5.6 seconds for the dash in the DSG automatic, a big gap.

Regardless of which transmission is used, a limited-slip differential tries to put the power down evenly, and adaptive suspension with multiple driving modes serves up a responsive connectedness to, or relative isolation from, the road surface. Compared to the standard GTI (not the Golf R), the Jetta GLI still rides with a greater accent on ride comfort, and that’s not always a bad thing, especially given the Jetta’s greater rear seat accommodations, which offer 2.4 inches (61 mm) more rear legroom than the GTI. Real adults can live back there for hours at a time without fidgeting, whereas you likely tickle that threshold in a GTI after a little over an hour.

Interior & tech

Inside, the GLI features perforated leather heated and cooled seats, a leather-wrapped and flat-bottom steering wheel that is still saddled with capacitive multifunction controls, a digital instrument cluster that can be configured with traditional dials or a compartmentalized digital-looking display, plus an 8-inch infotainment screen. While the latter may seem small compared to other cars that sport TV-size tablets perched on the dash, it at least comes fully equipped with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There’s a slow creep elsewhere in the industry to make this functionality either optional or simply unavailable, which is unforgivable in an era where we can hardly survive without our smartphones.

While much of the controls sit within the infotainment touchscreen, major climate controls reside just below, using capacitive sliders. These sliders are not anywhere near as intuitive as switches and knobs, but at least you don’t need to hunt and peck through endless menus to find them while driving.

The Jetta isn’t as modern as the 8th-generation Golf inside, but it’s had a bit of a tech upgrade. Jim Resnick

The GLI comes standard with active driver assists, including blind-spot warning, forward collision warning, emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and emergency assist.

Volkswagen managed to incorporate some pragmatic features and comforts. A 15 W wireless and cooled charging pad sits up front, and the trunk sports 14.1 cubic feet (400 L) of space with an actual spare tire under the trunk floor (although it’s a compact spare with limited mileage range).

The premium Beats Audio system in the Jetta GLI pumps 400 W through nine speakers, including a subwoofer. With all those speakers and electrons going for it, I expected way more than it delivered. It creates muddy bass frequencies that are simply inescapable, either by attenuating the bass or by lowering subwoofer gain.

Despite the preponderance of directionless bass, the system produces very little body to the music played, whether it’s jazz from Bill Evans or punk from Bad Religion. Midrange and high-end reproduction is no better. Shrill treble joins the errant bass, making everything sound muddy and indistinct. Delicate acoustic piano passages have little clarity, and Joni Mitchell hides behind a giant curtain of Saran Wrap. Poor Joni.

Driving the GLI is sometimes joyful, as the engine responds eagerly across all RPMs. The chassis and suspension prove willing, though a bit soft for a sports sedan. VW’s steering feels communicative, but not among the best of the modern electrically boosted lot.

VW equips this GLI with all-season Hankook Energy GT tires, sized 225/40R18. I specifically cite these tires because they underperform for the GLI. They don’t produce grip adequate for a sporty sedan, and they come up short underpinning the GLI. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, if the GLI’s engine is a 9, if the gearbox is a 5, and the interior is an 8.5, the GLI’s Hankook tires are a 6.

The GLI’s brakes are a version of the tire story. Despite borrowing front rotors and calipers from the lovely Golf R, they proved grabby, overboosted, and touchy in the GLI. Like the gearbox and tires, specs can tell you nothing in terms of feel and execution.

The GLI’s fuel economy lands at a decent 26/36/30 city/highway/combined mpg (9/6.5/7.8 L/100 km). In thoroughly mixed driving, I achieved an average of 29.1 mpg (8 L/100 km) over my approximately 400 miles (644 km).

The overall truth

The 2025 Jetta GLI certainly possesses sporty aspirations, but a few things hold it back from being the complete package that its Golf GTI stablemate is. Although the Golf GTI no longer offers a manual, the GLI’s 6-speed transmission disappoints both in feel and performance, with huge gaps between cogs. Of course, this malady could be overcome by ordering a DSG automatic GLI, but then any fun gleaned by rowing your gears is also lost.

This car could be better than it is. Credit: Jim Resnick

Closer to the road, mediocre tires generate modest grip. Compared to the Golf, the Jetta gains in rear seat legroom but loses in feel, performance, and tenacity. If it’s performance with practicality you’re after, the $35,045 price of this GLI as tested will get you what you need. But you’ll want something a bit spicier.

A veteran of journalism, product planning and communications in the automotive and music space, Jim reports, critiques and lectures on autos, music and culture.

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