Cars

Rally Arcade Classics is a fun ’90s-throwback racing game

Cars, game review, gaming, Rally Arcade Classics / Mike M. / October 3, 2025

Over the years, racing sims have come a long way. Gaming PCs and consoles have become more powerful, physics and tire models have become more accurate, and after COVID, it seems like nearly everyone has a sim rig setup at home. Sim racing has even become an accepted route into the world of real-life motorsport (not to be confused with the Indy Racing League).

But what if you aren’t looking to become the next Max Verstappen? What if you miss the more carefree days of old, where the fidelity wasn’t quite so high, nor were the stakes? Rally Arcade Classics is worth a look.

Developed by NET2KGAMES, you might think of RAC as a spiritual successor to legendary titles like Sega Rally and Colin McRae Rally. Forget about the Nürburgring or even street circuits laid out in famous cities you might have visited; instead, this game is about point-to-point racing against the clock—mostly—across landscapes that long-time World Rally Championship fans will remember.

Not a Focus but a Sufoc WRC, getting air in Finland. Credit: NET2KGAMES

There’s Finland, with plenty of fast dirt roads, complete with crests that will launch your car into the air. Or the dusty, sinewy mountain roads of Greece. Catalyuna (in Spain) provides technical tarmac stages. And Monte Carlo combines tarmac, ice, snow, and challenging corners. But since this is rallying, each location is broken into a series of short stages. Oh, and some of them will be at night.

Then there are the cars. This is an indie game, not a AAA title, so there are no official OEM licenses here. But there are plenty of cars you’ll recognize from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. These comprise a mix of front-, rear-, and all-wheel drive machinery, some of them road cars and others heavily modified for rallying. You start off in the slowest of these, the Kopper, which is an off-brand Mini Cooper, a car that won a famous victory at the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally, despite being many, many horsepower down on the mostly RWD cars it beat.

The models of the cars, while not Gran Turismo 7-level, are close enough that you don’t really notice the Peugeot 205 is called the Paigot 5, or the Golf GTI now being the Wolf. The Betta is a Lancia Delta Integrale, the Fourtro is an Audi Quattro, and the Selicka is the Toyota Celica, but I must admit I’m not quite sure why the Subaru Imprezas are called the Imperial R and the MR Bang STI—answers in the comments if you know, please.

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Illinois utility tries using electric school buses for bidirectional charging

Cars, electric bus, EVs, syndication, V2G / DJ Henderson / October 3, 2025

Thank you driver for getting me here

School buses are usually parked when the grid is under its biggest strain.

The Thomas C2 Jouley is a popular electric school bus. Credit: Thomas Built Buses

The largest electric utility in Illinois is rolling out a program for a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric school bus-charging pilot with three Chicagoland school districts, testing the functionality of bidirectional chargers that could make energy cheaper for customers and reduce grid load.

The Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd) announced in September that it would begin the testing phase of its novel V2G electric school bus charging pilot, the first of its kind in northern Illinois, coinciding with the beginning of the school year.

The utility began testing with the River Trails, Troy, and Wauconda school districts—which have all had electric buses for more than two years—in northern Illinois. It is currently collecting data from bidirectional chargers, EV chargers that flow energy both ways. Its testing will determine how the chargers and buses can best transfer energy when parked and plugged into the grid.

“We’re not only working with these three school districts, we’re testing with them, but we’re also seeking input from other school districts to better understand their interest in V2G and how we could support their needs as we design new research and development efforts and potentially new programs,” said Cristina Botero, senior manager for beneficial electrification at ComEd.

According to the utility, bidirectional charging could result in a number of benefits, such as reducing grid demand during peak hours; lowering costs and energy usage for customers; and funding school districts that participate in the program. Botero said the goal is to eventually have a scalable model for the V2G program that other districts across Illinois could opt into “later down the line.”

The testing is beginning with four electric school buses across the three districts. ComEd began soft testing the pilot in June before publicly testing with the school districts in September, prioritizing research and development on the functionality of the chargers.

“School buses in general tend to be stationary during times where normally the grid is at its biggest strain,” Botero said. “[When] the grid is most loaded, that happens to be the time where many of these vehicles are not in use and happen to be connected and fully charged. This offers the possibility of using some of the energy in that battery to send back to the grid to support grid congestion,” she said.

Botero added that this can even be helpful during outages, because energy stored in electric school bus chargers can still be used. Participating school districts could also see their energy consumption and costs drop.

“It is helping potentially reduce the energy consumption of a school if it’s able to use its own battery for its own consumption. It can also reduce the cost of energy for the school, and really to all customers, because it’s reducing grid strain,” Botero said.

The pilot is part of ComEd’s $231 million beneficial electrification (BE) program, approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission. In 2021, Illinois passed the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which required all major utilities to establish a BE plan. ComEd’s first BE plan, spanning 2023 to 2025, consists of eight pilot programs in which the company has invested $11 million, including the V2G pilot.

The commission recently approved $168 million in funding for the next BE plan from 2026 to 2028, which includes an additional $11 million for research and development efforts that will include V2G.

ComEd partnered with software company Resource Innovations and charging vendor Nuvve for the pilot. The current testing phase, Botero said, is technology-based and focuses on determining how the technology works and how energy discharge impacts the grid.

Nuvve owns and operates the bidirectional charging technology and identified the customers to bring to the pilot.

“When you have an electric school bus, you have a fairly large battery inside that vehicle that is going to be doing nothing most of the time,” said Hamza Lemsaddek, chief operating officer at the Nuvve subsidiary Fermata Energy, which oversees the project. “The concept of V2G is, number one, the ability of not just charging the vehicle, but also discharging the vehicle [with] this bidirectional piece. The second step is to have a platform that is able to aggregate a large number of vehicles, and depending on where those vehicles are, provide a variety of grid services.”

Lemsaddek explained that the performance of the buses and chargers helps ComEd reduce their grid peak load. “By providing those grid services to help the grid be stable or more resilient, there is a value that you are providing, and therefore [Nuvve] can get compensated for that,” he said. “Then we share a lot of that value with the vehicle owner”—in this case, the school districts. “While the vehicle is parked doing nothing, it’s actually providing a service to the grid, and you get compensated for that.”

While the three districts are getting stipends for participation in the pilot, they were chosen because they already had electric school bus technology. The Wauconda school district, for example, has two electric school buses funded through a Driving a Cleaner Illinois grant, a program of the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Fund.

Wauconda has had the two buses for three years, with two years of funding left. Rick Strauss, director of transportation for Wauconda, said that while he is hopeful for the success of the pilot, the electric buses have already posed significant challenges for the district, leading him to doubt whether the buses can effectively give back to the grid.

For example, Strauss said that the district will put an average of 10,000 miles on a diesel bus per year. “But after three years with our electric buses, with the amount of issues that we had, each one of them had less than 1,000 miles on them after two years of service,” he said, adding that the buses probably spent more time “on a tow truck” going to get fixed than on their actual routes.

Strauss also listed among the issues a lack of certified mechanics that can work on the buses when they break, frequent technological failures, and buses losing functionality in cold weather.

Although he said he recognizes the benefits of electric buses, such as quieter motors, better air quality for students, and less diesel fuel emissions, the lack of functionality of the buses overshadows potentially positive outcomes. After the five-year grant runs out, he’s not sure whether the district will continue to use them.

“It’ll be interesting to see the metrics and what we get back from ComEd versus what it costs to run these [buses],” he said, adding that the cost of two electric buses “would take my entire bus budget.”

ComEd is prioritizing testing the technology as well as anticipating challenges moving forward. Botero said the goal of the current testing is “making sure that the technology is well understood” and to answer any questions.

The companies are also determining the exact way to compensate school districts before further evaluations and eventual modeling to “see what a program would look like” at a larger scale.

Botero said that they will be getting results from the pilot testing at the end of the year and will design the next phase of the pilot based on those findings.

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.

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Tesla reverses sales decline in Q3, sells 50k more cars than it built

Cars, Tesla deliveries / 9u50fv / October 2, 2025

This morning, Tesla published its production and delivery numbers for the third quarter of the year. We’ve heard the same story for a while, one of diminishing sales as customers tire of a stale product lineup and are repulsed by the politics of the company’s CEO. But Q3 2025 tells a different tale. It’s been a good three months for the beleaguered automaker, one that appears to have cleared out a lot of old inventory.

Tesla built a total of 447,450 electric vehicles between July and September this year. That’s actually a 4.8 percent decrease compared to the same three months last year.

The Models 3 and Y production lines saw less of a slowdown—Tesla built 435,826 of these EVs, a 1.8 percent decline on last year. But the Models S and X, grouped together with the US-only Cybertruck, saw the greatest cutbacks. Just 11,624 of these collected models were produced, a 55.1 percent decrease compared to Q3 2024.

By contrast, Tesla managed to sell 497,099 cars during Q3 2025, a 7.4 percent increase compared to Q3 2024. The Models 3 and Y did all the heavy lifting here, increasing sales by 9.4 percent year over year to 481,166. But the near-antique Models S and X, and the divisive Cybertruck kept playing the old tune: sales of these models dropped by 30.5 percent to just 15,933 units.

That’s well above most analysts’ estimates for Q3, which predicted that the automaker would sell fewer than 450,000. The end of the IRS clean vehicle tax credit in the US is believed to be a significant contributing factor to the sales growth, although registration data from Europe has shown sales growth in France, Spain, Denmark, and Norway.

It’s quite the clear-out of inventory—more than 45,000 Models 3 and Y and more than 4,000 of Tesla’s other EVs have been cleared from Tesla’s books.

Tesla reverses sales decline in Q3, sells 50k more cars than it built Read More »

Hyundai gives the Ioniq 5 a huge price cut for model-year 2026

Cars, Hyundai Ioniq 5 / Beth Washington / October 2, 2025

Earlier today, we wrote about how Ford, General Motors, and Tesla have reacted to the end of the clean vehicle tax credits. Now we know what Hyundai is doing, and the answer is “giving the Ioniq 5 a huge price cut.”

The cheapest Ioniq 5 is still the SE RWD. A model-year 2025 SE RWD cost $42,600; for model-year 2026 it’s now $35,000. The price cuts for other versions are even greater—between $9,150 and $9,800. For example, the Ioniq 5 XRT that you see in the photo above had a starting price of $55,500 for MY25; now it starts at a very reasonable $46,275.

“Hyundai is taking bold steps to ensure our award-winning Ioniq 5 remains a top choice for EV buyers,” said Randy Parker, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor North America. “This pricing realignment reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional technology and innovation without compromise.”

Unlike the tax credit, there’s no income cap applied to Hyundai’s price cut. But the cuts have only been applied to Ioniq 5s built in the US—the Ioniq 5 N, built in Korea, was absent from Hyundai’s press release, as was the Ioniq 6 sedan or the Ioniq 9 three-row SUV. However, Hyundai said that those MY25 cars are still eligible for a manufacturer’s incentive of $7,500.

Hyundai updated the Ioniq 5 last year, adding native NACS ports and other improvements to an already-excellent EV, like adding the missing rear windshield wiper.

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How automakers are reacting to the end of the $7,500 EV tax credit

Cars, EV adoption, Ford, General Motors, IRS clean vehicle tax credit, Tesla / 9u50fv / October 1, 2025

Just after midnight this morning, in addition to getting a federal government shutdown, we also lost all federal tax credits for new electric vehicles, used electric vehicles, and commercial electric vehicles.

Sadly, this was not a surprise. During last year’s election, the Trump campaign made no secret of its disgust toward clean vehicles (and clean energy in general), and it promised to end subsidies meant to encourage Americans to switch from internal combustion engines to EVs. Once in power, the Republicans moved quickly to make this happen.

Federal clean vehicle incentives had only recently been revamped in then-US President Joe Biden’s massive investment in clean technologies as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. To qualify for the $7,500 tax credit, a new EV had to have its final assembly in North America, and certain percentages of its battery content needed to be domestically sourced.

A separate $7,500 commercial tax credit for new EVs was created, which did not require domestic assembly or content and which applied to leased EVs. And Congress finally added a $4,000 tax credit for the purchase of a used EV.

Visiting the relevant IRS page today, though, you’ll see an update declaring that the “New Clean Vehicle Credit, Previously-Owned Clean Vehicle Credit, and Qualified Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit are not available for vehicles acquired after Sept. 30, 2025.”

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Behind the scenes with the most beautiful car in racing: The Ferrari 499P

Cars, Ferrari 499P, racing / Mike M. / September 30, 2025

Form doesn’t always quite follow function in racing. LMP1 died because it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to compete, so the Hypercar rules are designed to keep costs relatively sane. Once your car is designed, it gets homologated, and from then on, hardware changes are mostly limited to things that improve reliability but don’t affect lap times.

Ferrari made a few small changes between the 2023 and 2024 seasons. “After Le Mans 24, now the rest of the car is exactly the same, but we involve many, many parts of the car where we can make a difference because the car is homolgated… But we work at a lot in terms of engine control, for example, in terms of setup, because we discover a lot of new [things] in our car,” Coletta told me, then pointed to his competitors’ hardware changes as evidence that Ferrari got it right from the start.

Does the P stand for pretty?

The rules also hold back the worst impulses of the aerodynamicists. The ratio of lift to drag must be 4:1, with limits on absolute values. And that has freed up the stylists to create a visual link between their brand’s sports prototype and the cars they make for road use.

A Ferrari 499P seen from behind, on track at COTA — The rear wing looks like it came from a superhero cartoon. (This is a compliment.) Credit: Ferrari

I’m not sure anyone has capitalized on that styling freedom better than Ferrari. Other Hypercars have a bad angle or two—even the Aston Martin Valkyrie looks a little strange head- or tail-on. Not the 499P, which dazzles, whether it’s painted Ferrari red or AF Corsa yellow. At the front, the nose calls out current road cars like the hybrid SF90 or 296. The rear is pure drama, with three vertical wing elements framing a thin strip of brake light that runs the width of the car. Behind that? Curves up top, shadowy venturis underneath.

It looks best when you see it on track and moving. As it does, it shows you different aspects of its shape, revealing curves you hadn’t quite noticed before. Later, stationary in the garage with the bodywork off for servicing, the complex jumble of electronics and machinery looks like a steampunk nightmare. To me, at least—to the mechanics and engineers in red fire suits, it’s just another day at work, with almost as many team members capturing content with cameras and sound recorders.

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Burnout and Elon Musk’s politics spark exodus from senior xAI, Tesla staff

AI, Cars, elon musk, syndication, Tesla, xAI / Shannon Garcia / September 30, 2025

Not a fun place to work, apparently

Disillusionment with Musk’s activism, strategic pivots, and mass layoffs cause churn.

Elon Musk’s business empire has been hit by a wave of senior departures over the past year, as the billionaire’s relentless demands and political activism accelerate turnover among his top ranks.

Key members of Tesla’s US sales team, battery and power-train operations, public affairs arm, and its chief information officer have all recently departed, as well as core members of the Optimus robot and AI teams on which Musk has bet the future of the company.

Churn has been even more rapid at xAI, Musk’s two-year-old artificial intelligence start-up, which he merged with his social network X in March. Its chief financial officer and general counsel recently departed after short stints, within a week of each other.

The moves are part of an exodus from the conglomerate of the world’s richest man, as he juggles five companies from SpaceX to Tesla with more than 140,000 employees. The Financial Times spoke to more than a dozen current and former employees to gain an insight into the tumult.

While many left happily after long service to found start-ups or take career breaks, there has also been an uptick in those quitting from burnout, or disillusionment with Musk’s strategic pivots, mass lay-offs and his politics, the people said.

“The one constant in Elon’s world is how quickly he burns through deputies,” said one of the billionaire’s advisers. “Even the board jokes, there’s time and then there’s ‘Tesla time.’ It’s a 24/7 campaign-style work ethos. Not everyone is cut out for that.”

Robert Keele, xAI’s general counsel, ended his 16-month tenure in early August by posting an AI-generated video of a suited lawyer screaming while shoveling molten coal. “I love my two toddlers and I don’t get to see them enough,” he commented.

Mike Liberatore lasted three months as xAI chief financial officer before defecting to Musk’s arch-rival Sam Altman at OpenAI. “102 days—7 days per week in the office; 120+ hours per week; I love working hard,” he said on LinkedIn.

Top lieutenants said Musk’s intensity has been sharpened by the launch of ChatGPT in late-2022, which shook up the established Silicon Valley order.

Employees also perceive Musk’s rivalry with Altman—with whom he co-founded OpenAI, before they fell out—to be behind the pressure being put on staff.

“Elon’s got a chip on his shoulder from ChatGPT and is spending every waking moment trying to put Sam out of business,” said one recent top departee.

Last week, xAI accused its rival of poaching engineers with the aim of “plundering and misappropriating” its code and data center secrets. OpenAI called the lawsuit “the latest chapter in Musk’s ongoing harassment.”

Other insiders pointed to unease about Musk’s support of Donald Trump and advocacy for far-right provocateurs in the US and Europe.

They said some staff dreaded difficult conversations with their families about Musk’s polarizing views on everything from the rights of transgender people to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Musk, Tesla, and xAI declined to comment.

Tesla has traditionally been the most stable part of Musk’s conglomerate. But many of the top team left after it culled 14,000 jobs in April 2024. Some departures were triggered as Musk moved investment away from new EV and battery projects that many employees saw as key to its mission of reducing global emissions—and prioritized robotics, AI, and self-driving robotaxis.

Musk cancelled a program to build a low-cost $25,000 EV that could be sold across emerging markets—dubbed NV-91 internally and Model 2 by fans online, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Daniel Ho, who helped oversee the project as director of vehicle programs and reported directly to Musk, left in September 2024 and joined Google’s self-driving taxi arm, Waymo.

Public policy executives Rohan Patel and Hasan Nazar and the head of the power-train and energy units Drew Baglino also stepped down after the pivot. Rebecca Tinucci, leader of the supercharger division, went to Uber after Musk fired the entire team and slowed construction on high-speed charging stations.

In late summer, David Zhang, who was in charge of the Model Y and Cybertruck rollouts, departed. Chief information officer Nagesh Saldi left in November.

Vineet Mehta, a company veteran of 18 years, described as “critical to all things battery” by a colleague, resigned in April. Milan Kovac, in charge of Optimus humanoid robotics program, departed in June.

He was followed this month by Ashish Kumar, the Optimus AI team lead, who moved to Meta. “Financial upside at Tesla was significantly larger,” wrote Kumar on X in response to criticism he left for money. “Tesla is known to compensate pretty well, way before Zuck made it cool.”

Amid a sharp fall in sales—which many blame on Musk alienating liberal customers—Omead Ashfar, a close confidant known as the billionaire’s “firefighter” and “executioner,” was dismissed as head of sales and operations in North America in June. Ashfar’s deputy Troy Jones followed shortly after, ending 15 years of service.

“Elon’s behavior is affecting morale, retention, and recruitment,” said one long-standing lieutenant. He “went from a position from where people of all stripes liked him, to only a certain section.”

Few who depart criticize Musk for fear of retribution. But Giorgio Balestrieri, who had worked for Tesla for eight years in Spain, is among a handful to go public, saying this month he quit believing that Musk had done “huge damage to Tesla’s mission and to the health of democratic institutions.”

“I love Tesla and my time there,” said another recent leaver. “But nobody that I know there isn’t thinking about politics. Who the hell wants to put up with it? I get calls at least once a week. My advice is, if your moral compass is saying you need to leave, that isn’t going to go away.”

But Tesla chair Robyn Denholm said: “There are always headlines about people leaving, but I don’t see the headlines about people joining.

“Our bench strength is outstanding… we actually develop people really well at Tesla and we are still a magnet for talent.”

At xAI, some staff have balked at Musk’s free-speech absolutism and perceived lax approach to user safety as he rushes out new AI features to compete with OpenAI and Google. Over the summer, the Grok chatbot integrated into X praised Adolf Hitler, after Musk ordered changes to make it less “woke.”

Ex-CFO Liberatore was among the executives that clashed with some of Musk’s inner circle over corporate structure and tough financial targets, people with knowledge of the matter said.

“Elon loyalists who exhibit his traits are laying off people and making decisions on safety that I think are very concerning for people internally,” one of the people added. “Mike is a business guy, a capitalist. But he’s also someone who does stuff the right way.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported some of the details of the internal disputes.

Linda Yaccarino, chief executive of X, resigned in July after the social media platform was subsumed by xAI. She had grown frustrated with Musk’s unilateral decision-making and his criticism over advertising revenue.

xAI’s co-founder and chief engineer, Igor Babuschkin, stepped down a month later to found his own AI safety research project.

Communications executives Dave Heinzinger and John Stoll, spent three and nine months at X respectively, before returning to their former employers, according to people familiar with the matter.

X also lost a rash of senior engineers and product staff who reported directly to Musk and were helping to navigate the integration with xAI.

This includes head of product engineering Haofei Wang and consumer product and payments boss Patrick Traughber. Uday Ruddarraju, who oversaw X and xAI’s infrastructure engineering, and infrastructure engineer Michael Dalton were poached by OpenAI.

Musk shows no sign of relenting. xAI’s flirtatious “Ani bot” has caused controversy over sexually explicit interactions with teenage Grok app users. But the company’s owner has installed a hologram of Ani in the lobby of xAI to greet staff.

“He’s the boss, the alpha and anyone who doesn’t treat him that way, he finds a way to delete,” one former top Tesla executive said.

“He does not have shades of grey, is highly calculated, and focused… that makes him hard to work with. But if you’re aligned with the end goal, and you can grin and bear it, it’s fine. A lot of people do.”

Additional reporting by George Hammond.

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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 »

The SUV that saved Porsche goes electric, and the tech is interesting

Cars, Features, new porsche cayenne, porsche, Porsche Cayenne, Porsche Cayenne Electric / DJ Henderson / September 30, 2025

It will be most powerful production Porsche ever, but that’s not the cool bit.

The next time we see the Cayenne Electric, it probably won’t be wearing fake body panels like the cars you see here. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

LEIPZIG, Germany—Porsche is synonymous with sports cars in which the engine lives behind the driver. From the company’s first open-top 356/1—which it let us drive a couple of years ago—to the latest stupendously clever 911 variants, these are the machines most of us associate with the Stuttgart-based brand. And indeed, the company has sold more than a million 911s since the model’s introduction in 1963. But here’s the bald truth: It’s the SUVs that keep the lights on. Without their profit, there would be no money to develop the next T-Hybrid or GT3. The first Cayenne was introduced just 23 years ago; since then, Porsche has sold more than 1.5 million of them. And the next one will be electric.

Of course, this won’t be Porsche’s first electric SUV. That honor goes to the electric Macan, which is probably becoming a more common sight on the streets in more well-heeled neighborhoods. Like the Macan, the Cayenne Electric is based on Volkswagen Group’s Premium Platform Electric, but this is no mere scaled-up Macan.

“It’s not just a product update; it’s a complete new chapter in the story,” said Sajjad Khan, a member of Porsche’s management board in charge of car IT.

Compared to the Macan, there’s an all-new battery pack design, not to mention more efficient and powerful electric motors. Inside, the cockpit is also new, with OLED screens for the main instrument panel and a curved infotainment display that will probably dominate the discussion.

We were given a passenger ride in the most powerful version of the Cayenne Electric, which is capable of brutal performance. Porsche

In fact, Ars already got behind the wheel of the next Cayenne during a development drive in the US earlier this summer. But we can now tell you about the tech behind the camouflaged body panels.

OLED me tell you about my screens

Although the 14.25-inch digital main instrument display looks pretty similar to the one you’ll find in most modern Porsches, all of the hardware for the Cayenne Electric is new and now uses an OLED panel. The curved central 12.25-inch infotainment screen is also an OLED panel, which keeps customizable widgets on its lower third and allows for a variety of content on the upper portion, including Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. The UI has taken cues from iOS, but it retains a look and feel that’s consistent with other Porsches.

The bottom of the infotainment screen has some persistent icons for things like seat heaters, but there are at least dedicated physical controls for the climate temperature and fan speed, the demisters, and the volume control.

The interior is dominated by new OLED screens. Porsche

New battery

At the heart of the new Cayenne Electric is an all-new 113 kWh battery pack (108 kWh net) that Porsche describes as “functionally integrated” into the car. Unlike previous PPE-based EVs (like the Macan or the Audi Q6) there’s no frame around the pack. Instead, it’s composed of six modules, each housed in its own protective case and bolted to the chassis.

The module cases provide the same kind of added stiffness as a battery frame might, but without devoting so much interior volume (and also mass) to the structure as opposed to the cells. Consequently, energy density is increased by around seven percent compared to the battery in the Taycan sedan.

Inside each module are four small packs, each comprising eight pouch cells connected in series. A new cooling system uses 15 percent less energy, and a new predictive thermal management system uses cloud data to condition the battery during driving and charging. (Porsche says the battery will still condition itself during a loss of connectivity but with less accuracy from the model.)

This all translates into greater efficiency. The pack is able to DC fast charge at up to 400 kW, going from 10 to 80 percent in as little as 16 minutes. Impressively, the curve actually slopes upward a little, only beginning to ramp down once the state of charge passes 55 percent. Even so, it will still accept 270 kW until hitting 70 percent SoC. For those looking for a quick plug-and-go option, Porsche told us you can expect to add 30 kWh in the first five minutes.

An illustration of the Porsche Cayenne Electric battery pack. Porsche

You’ll find a NACS port for DC charging on one side and a J1772 port for AC on the other. Porsche thinks many Cayenne Electric customers will opt for the 11 kW inductive charging pad at home instead of bothering with a plug. This uses Wi-Fi to detect the car’s proximity and will guide you onto the pad, with charging occurring seamlessly. (Unlike your consumer electronic experience, inductive charging for EVs is only a few percent less efficient than using a cable.)

The most powerful production Porsche yet

Less-powerful Cayenne Electrics are in the works, but the one Porsche was ready to talk about was the mighty Turbo, which will boast more torque and power output than any other regular-series production Porsche. The automaker is a little coy on the exact output, but expect nominal power to be more than 804 hp (600 kW). Not enough? The push-to-pass button on the steering wheel ups that to more than 938 hp (700 kW) for bursts of up to 10 seconds.

Still not enough? Engage launch control, which raises power to more than 1,072 hp (800 kW). Let me tell you, that feels brutal when you’re sitting in the passenger seat as the car hits 62 mph (100 km/h) in less than three seconds and carries on to 124 mph (200 km/h) in under eight seconds. This is a seriously quick SUV, despite a curb weight in excess of 5,500 lbs (2.5 tonnes).

A new rear drive unit helps make that happen. (Up front is a second drive unit we’ve seen in the Macan.) Based on lessons learned from the GT4 ePerformance (a technology test bed for a potential customer racing EV), the unit directly cools the stator with a non-conductive oil and benefits from some Formula E-derived tech (like silicon carbide inverters) that pushes the motor efficiency to 98 percent.

A very low center of gravity helps bank angles. Jonathan Gitlin

Regenerative braking performance is even more impressive than fast charging—this SUV will regen up to 600 kW, and the friction brakes won’t take over until well past 0.5 Gs of deceleration. Only around three percent of braking events will require the friction brakes to do their thing—in this case, they’re standard carbon ceramics that save weight compared to conventional iron rotors, which again translates to improved efficiency.

Sadly, you need to push the brake pedal to get all that regen. Deep in the heart of the company, key decision makers remain philosophically opposed to the concept of one-pedal driving, so the most lift-off regen you’ll experience will be around 0.15 Gs. I remain unconvinced that this is the correct decision; as a software-defined vehicle, it’s perfectly possible to have a one-pedal driving setting, and Porsche could offer this as an option for drivers to engage, like many other EVs out there.

While we might have had to test the 911 GTS’s rough-road ability this summer, the Cayenne is positively made for that kind of thing. There are drive modes for gravel/sand, ice, and rocks, and plenty of wheel articulation thanks to the absence of traditional antiroll bars. It’s capable of fording depths of at least a foot (0.35 m), and as you can see from some of the photos, it will happily drive along sloped banks at angles that make passengers look for the grab handles.

A new traction management system helps here, and its 5 ms response time makes it five times faster than the previous iteration.

The big SUV’s agility on the handling track was perhaps even more remarkable. It was actually nauseating at times, given the brutality with which it can accelerate, brake, and change direction. There’s up to 5 degrees of rear axle steering, with a higher speed threshold for turning opposite the front wheels, up to 62 mph (reducing the turning circle); above that speed, the rear wheels turn with the fronts to improve high-speed lane change stability.

The suspension combines air springs and hydraulic adaptive dampers, and like the Panamera we recently tested, comfort mode can enable an active ride comfort mode that counteracts weight transfer during cornering, accelerating, and braking to give passengers the smoothest ride possible.

More detailed specs will follow in time. As for pricing, expect it to be similar or slightly more than the current Cayenne pricing.

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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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 »

Ford decides to run its Le Mans program in-house, racing in 2027

Cars, Ford, LMDh, racing, World Endurance Championship / DJ Henderson / September 25, 2025

Formula 1 might be riding high these days on a wave of interest not seen since the 1960s, but the Drive to Survive effect has been felt elsewhere in the world of motorsport. Endurance racing like the 24 Hours of Le Mans or the Rolex 24 at Daytona has seen record crowds over the last few years, and a large part of that is down to the sports prototype class, exemplified by cars from the likes of Ferrari and Porsche. And soon, we can add Ford to the list.

Currently, eight different manufacturers are competing against each other in the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class: Alpine, Aston Martin, BMW, Cadillac, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche, and Toyota. More are on the way—Genesis arrives next year, and at the beginning of the year, Ford announced that it, too, was joining the fray, in 2027. Today, the Blue Oval revealed some more details about the project.

What’s a hypercar?

Compared to the road car-derived machines that race in the GT3 category, the vehicles that contest for overall victory in the Hypercar class are purpose-built prototypes, just for racing. Because endurance racing often has to be needlessly complicated for the sake of being complicated, the Hypercar class is actually made up of a mix of vehicles designed to two different technical rule sets that are performance balanced to create a level playing field.

You can find a lengthy explanation of the differences between the two sets of technical regulations (called LMH and LMDh) in our previous coverage, but briefly, LMH cars are designed entirely by a manufacturer and can but don’t have to be hybrids—like the V12-only Aston Martin Valkyrie.

LMDh cars, by contrast, must use a carbon-fiber spine from one of four approved race car makers, and all must use the same spec transmission, hybrid battery, and electric motor, with the car companies designing their own bodywork and internal combustion engine. LMH has more technical freedom—you can mount that electric motor to the front axle, for example—but it’s also a more expensive way to go.

Ford decides to run its Le Mans program in-house, racing in 2027 Read More »

Ford F-150 Lightnings are powering the grid in first residential V2G pilot

bidirectional charging, Cars, Ford F-150 Lightning, SunRun, V2G, vehicle to grid / Kelly Newman / September 24, 2025

One of those Lightning owners is Morgan Grove. “As a member of the Baltimore Commission on Sustainability, I’m excited to be an early adopter of this technology and participate in this vehicle-to-grid program with BGE and Sunrun,” Grove said. “I bought the Ford F-150 Lightning for several reasons, one of them being the ability to power our home during an outage. Now, I can also earn money by sending energy directly to the grid.”

A hand holds a smartphone up to a charger wallbox, the screen shows a display of the power flow. — Is this the way to a more resilient power grid? Credit: Sunrun

“This demonstrates the critical role that vehicle batteries can play in powering the nation’s grid, accelerating American energy independence and dominance,” said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. “It’s great to see this partnership with BGE and Ford move to this commercial stage. In addition to showing how electric vehicles can power homes, add electrons to the grid, and help utilities meet peak electricity demand, this program also creates extra income opportunities for customers,” Powell said.

“Enabling customers to not only power their homes but send power directly back to the grid in times of need helps customers with financial incentives, utilities with more power capacity, and society through more grid reliability and sustainable energy practices. It’s a win-win for everyone,” said Bill Crider, senior director, global charging and energy services, Ford Motor Company.

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