Displaying Items By Tag: Auto

The 2020 Nissan Frontier marks the last in a particularly lengthy pickup truck generation that dates all the way back to the 2005 model year. Next year we'll get a completely redesigned model, but before that happens, Nissan is giving the old truck one last "hurrah" with a taste of the new one in the form of a fresh V6 engine and nine-speed automatic transmission, the only choices for this year. And the new combo is a mighty good sign of things to come.

Just on paper, the engine and transmission make strong cases for themselves. The 3.8-liter V8 makes 310 horsepower, which is 49 more than the old 4.0-liter and 158 more than the discontinued four-cylinder base engine. Its 310 horses also make it the most powerful midsize truck in the segment. Its 281 pound-feet of torque is unchanged, but that's still more than what you get from the V6s in the Chevy Colorado or Toyota Tacoma. Only the diesel Colorado and the Ford Ranger's turbo four-cylinder top the Nissan's torque rating. Combined fuel economy of 20 mpg with RWD and 19 mpg with 4WD improves upon its 4.0-liter predecessor by 1 and 2 mpg, respectively. Credit goes to the lighter more efficient engine and the additional gear ratios, however, fuel economy is still dead last in the segment among similar automatic V6 RWD trucks. The 4WD ties the V6 Gladiator and Colorado, and tops the Colorado ZR2 with a V6. Odds are the next-generation truck will improve this further.

The 2020 Infiniti QX50 is a comfortable five-seat luxury crossover that competes with the Audi Q5, Acura RDX, Volvo XC60, Lexus NX and others. If you're interested in a QX50, it's probably got something to do with its impressive, technologically advanced VC-Turbo variable compression engine.

It also has sumptuous swales of bodywork, a long list of driver-assist and safety features, and a solidly luxurious interior with a two-screen infotainment setup. The window sticker for the QX50 we drove recently in Essential trim says the seats were leatherette; if true, it's the most buttery fake leather out there.

Toyota is marking the 20th anniversary of its groundbreaking Prius hybrid by officially announcing a sportier-looking commemorative edition of the car called the Prius 2020 Edition. It'll be a 2021 model, and Toyota will limit production to 2,020 units.

Also, Toyota divulged that it plans to introduce a pair of all-new hybrid models via a livestream unveiling from its North American headquarters near Dallas on May 18. More on that in a moment.

Before you point out that the car industry doesn’t see the Toyota Avalon and the VW Arteon as direct rivals, just ask yourself this: Are they really all that different?

The compact coupe is nearly extinct, and one has to assume that the Honda Civic Coupe is just clawing for its future life somewhere in the depths of product planning. For now though, the 2020 Civic Si Coupe still exists, it's still a barrel of laughs to drive, and after a few choice tweaks for 2020 it even manages to look pretty good. 

Now, the interior is starting to show its age a bit as various new compacts have managed to up the wow factor for the segment — Mazda3, Nissan Sentra and 2021 Hyundai Elantra, just to name a few. Of course, none of those is available as a coupe and when putting aesthetic aside, the Civic still impresses with its quality and versatility. Let's take a closer look.

The new-gen Toyota Supra may have BMW blood running through its veins, but that's not enough to pose a threat to the M4 Coupe in stock form. Add a few aftermarket parts though, and the scale starts tipping, but is that enough?

Nobody is going to buy a 2020 Toyota GR Supra because of its luggage-carrying capacity. However, there is a chance that they may not buy such a car because of its luggage-carrying capacity. For instance, you may actually want to take your fun weekend automotive toy on a fun weekend away, but if it can't fit a simple pair of bags for a pair of passengers, forget about it. It's pretty difficult to tell your significant other that "Sorry, you can't pack that. Won't fit in the R8."

In that light, let's see how Supra would do for such a weekend getaway. It has a hatchback trunk lid, albeit a narrow one, that reveals a shallow, yet long space. At first glance, it seems pretty useful and on paper, Toyota says the space is 10.2 cubic-feet. That's more than double the Mazda MX-5 Miata (stay tuned for that car's luggage test in a few weeks). 

The marriage seems so right you wonder what took so long. Honda's hybrid powertrain is excellent and the CR-V is its best-selling model, yet the 2020 Honda CR-V Hybrid is only just arriving in dealers now. That's four years after this current CR-V generation was introduced, three years after the hybrid powertrain debuted in the Accord, two years after it was applied to the Insight (which is basically a Civic Hybrid) and five years since the first-generation Toyota RAV4 Hybrid was introduced.

The current RAV4 Hybrid is now Toyota's best-selling hybrid, and it would be shocking if this new CR-V Hybrid doesn't do the same trick for Honda. The powertrain is available on every trim level, effectively an option commanding a $1,225 premium over a comparable all-wheel-drive CR-V. That's impressively reasonable given its fuel economy advantage, added performance, agreeable drivability and lack of practical drawbacks.

Full disclosure: I'm a longtime Miata fan. And by longtime I mean since mid-1989, the year I obtained, through a series of fortunate connections, one of the three original Chicago auto show display cars. But this was no blatant attempt to butter up a journalist – I barely knew how to spell the word. At the time I worked for the Department of Defense and was racing SCCA showroom stock on the side.

It was destined to be a racecar. I was assured it'd be quick, but doubts surfaced when I arrived at Mazda's dealer training center to pick it up. "Oh, it's that cute Elan-looking thing," I probably said. But my mind was utterly changed when I eyeballed its double-wishbone suspension and other cleverly engineered features hiding beneath its skin. In subsequent years of racing – and eventually restoring – that car, I spent uncountable hours being impressed by it.

Valencia Red Pearl. That's the story with the 2020 Acura TLX PMC Edition. We got to see this limited edition TLX sedan at the New York Auto Show last year, but now it's in my driveway. The show lights don't do this paint justice. The setting sun reflecting off the deep and vibrant red ... now that's how this car is meant to be gazed upon.

Like I mentioned in the video walkaround above, the TLX PMC Edition is hand-assembled at the Performance Manufacturing Center in Ohio. The body-in-white is trundled across town to the NSX supercar factory where those technicians do the rest to make it road-worthy. All 360 of them are being wrapped in their own special car covers and delivered to dealers on an enclosed truck to make sure it arrives without a single exterior flaw.

Does anyone remember the Willy's Wheeler RC car from the '80s, also known as the Honda City Turbo? The originals are tough to come by nowadays, but luckily, there's a brand new version available with new insides.

The new Tamiya Honda City Turbo RC car sits upon the Tamiya WR-02C chassis. The chassis features rear-wheel 2WD with fully independent double wishbone suspension. It also shares the 185mm wheelbase of the original WR-02 chassis. This is an assembly kit, so don't expect to pick one up and start driving right away, but popping wheelies with one of these (which is totally possible thanks to the model's weight distribution and motor) will be all the more satisfying after putting in a little work to make it happen.

If there's one thing Honda is exceptionally good at, it's packaging. That includes managing to squeeze as much interior space from an exterior footprint as possible, and then from that, as much interior storage space as possible. Cupholders, bins, cupholders that slide to reveal more bins, under-floor storage ... each Honda has some trick up its sleeve to help you store and stuff more stuff inside. 

The 2020 Honda CR-V is one such stuff-stuffing champion. Besides its copious cargo capacity, the CR-V;s front center console is cleverly designed to provide more than just a pair of cupholders and a big covered hole. To test its ability, I grabbed a disparate pair of water bottles that should provide a challenge to cupholders, made off with my wife's purse (she hasn't gone anywhere in days), and of course my iPhone. 

Infiniti is bringing its ProPilot Assist technology to the world’s largest car market, making its debut in the new 2020 QX50 mid-size SUV, on sale in China this month.

Sony is rolling a new firmware update for the Xperia XA2 range (XA2, XA2 Plus and XA2 Ultra) – the first firmware update that the handsets have seen in over five months. The new update moves the build number from 50.2.A.3.22 to version 50.2.A.3.55, adding the 1 April 2020 Google Android security updates. This is a minor update, with no other tangible improvements reported.