Car and Driver January 2023

THE NEWEST IN NEW Having zoomed right through the presentation of the new vehicles, I find it curious that there are hardly any photos of about 90 percent of said vehicles [October 2022]. Could it be that most are boring SUVs that all look pretty much alike, so why bother? I guess we’re supposed to imagine what they look like, or maybe that doesn’t matter. The descriptions all sound the same too. It’s painful to see what is becoming of the automobile as we hurtle toward vehicles that drive themselves while we fall asleep or drink coffee or look at our phones. So maybe it doesn’t matter how these things drive either because we’re not going to be driving them anyway. —Wil House Media, PA I just received the brochure for your October…

In your test results for the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning, you indicated that the interior sound level at idle was 29 decibels [“Silent and Violent,” July/August 2022]. Please explain. —Richard Maelhorn, Internet City, Earth What do you call a motor that’s not doing any work? That’s right, idle. Just want to get that out of the way if your question involves using that term in conjunction with an EV. More specifically, that result is an average of two 15-second measurements taken with a Brüel & Kjær 2250-L Class 1 hand-held sound meter (list price, roughly $9000) at either end of the straightaway we use for acceleration testing. We do this test with the vehicle in neutral and the climate control off. While electric motors are silent in this scenario, an EV’s pedestrian-warning…

I’ve been accused of altering the world to suit myself. A fair assessment of the evidence: disabling a Glade PlugIn stinking up my building’s mailroom, traveling with tools to remove flow restrictors from hotel showers, asking for a TV-B-Gone for Christmas, and adjusting the steering column and display on my beloved’s Ford Escape whenever I drive it. I’m not alone. In fact, carmakers tap into our innately human desire to customize things. A typical ’23 model has a dizzying number of settings. My basic pre-flight checklist goes something like this: Pair the phone and pray for wireless CarPlay, or add “jam frayed USB cord from depths of backpack into slot” to the list. Find the chassis and primary-controls setup. Go soft on the dampers (adaptive dampers do just that, adapt). Lighten…

Slow and ugly no more, the Prius emerges as a stylish hybrid hatch with up to 220 horsepower while still promising the big mpg figures that made it famous. Every new car aims to be quicker and better-looking than its predecessor, a low bar for the new 2023 Prius. Being unattractive and underpowered was always the Prius’s thing. That’s not even meant as a knock against it—this car’s priorities have been all about efficiency. The Prius was a sales hit for many years and even won a C/D 10Best award in 2004. But with green-minded buyers now able to choose gasoline-free EVs, many of which are also fast and pretty, the quintessential mass-market hybrid needed a serious makeover. Toyota has responded with a thoroughly reworked fifth-generation Prius that offers significantly more power,…

London is a tourist’s delight, but we aren’t just any old travelers. Send the rest of the family on the “Palaces and Parliament” walking tour. We’re going to drive. ACE CAFE: Located on the North Circular orbital road in Wembley, the Ace became a popular hangout in the ’50s and ’60s for youthful motorcycle gangs (think the Who’s Quadrophenia). Motorcycles congregate there, but cars are welcome too. The Ace does a superb breakfast; order the bubble and squeak. TOWER BRIDGE: Next to the Tower of London, this neo-Gothic Victorian suspension bridge is one of the few places where vehicles can cross the river Thames without paying the congestion charge. It is often gridlocked, but the views from the queues are spectacular. KNIGHTSBRIDGE: London is a terrible place to drive, but it has plenty…

Back when cars only had three manual speeds and reverse, the possibility of mixing up the gears was minimal. At least you had a one-in-four chance of getting it right. But after the popularization of the automatic transmission in the 1950s, the controls for gear selection became a question of both design and ergonomics. In 1971, the Department of Transportation mandated automatics use the PRNDL—say “prindle”—layout. The impetus of this law, like so many automotive regulations, stemmed from the 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, in which Ralph Nader called out General Motors, Studebaker, and Rambler for using confusing transmission designs that put Reverse after Drive. Nader cited crashes resulting from drivers missing the intended gear and accelerating in the wrong direction. The PNDLR pattern was dangerous, he asserted. Plus, it’s…