MotorTrend March 2022

Can you feel it? We certainly can. What has been a low static hiss with occasional pops and crackles is now building, like the feedback from a wall of Marshall amps. This hum of potential energy, of something big coming, is the sound of everyone going electric—and it’s growing louder every day. But it isn’t music that’s fundamentally changing—it’s the cars we drive, the way we will engage and interact with them, and the automotive world as we know it. This change is unavoidable, which is why we’re launching The InEVitable, a new content series on the future of mobility. Why? Because we’ve been tracking your growing interest in this transition. For many years, the only EV stories that resonated with you were features on Tesla, specifically those involving new vehicle launches…

MotorTrend is adding a new line for EPA Range to all our specification panels. Why now? Beginning with this issue, we’re stepping up our coverage of vehicular progress’ inevitable march toward electrification and autonomy, and range still meaningfully differentiates most electric vehicles from their fossil-propelled competition. Regardless of what fuels a vehicle, the EPA’s long-standing test procedures apply equally to all. For most of MT’s seven-decade existence, vehicles generally went about as far as most bladders would last, refueling them took about as long as a potty stop, and fuel was available just about everywhere. So nobody cared much. The first modern electric vehicles, meanwhile, had pitiful range and took forever to charge, if you could even find a charging station. Electric vehicle progress is closing the gap, but for folks fretting…

Kia is far from the first mainstream brand to the EV party, but after our drive of the EV6, we can confirm this SUV ought to make the teams behind the Ford Mustang Mach-E and VW ID4 quite nervous. The EV6 offers 58.0-kWh and 77.4-kWh battery packs, as well as the choice of either single-motor, rear-drive or dual-motor, all-wheel-drive configurations. The former uses a 226-hp, 258-lb-ft motor, while the latter adds a front unit for a total system output of 321 horsepower and 446 lb-ft. This Kia is bigger in person than it seems in photos; it’s longer and wider than the ID4 and essentially identical in those dimensions to the Mach-E. But it’s a full 3.0 inches lower overall than the Ford and 3.4 lower than the ID4, dramatically changing its…

The RM20e is essentially a Hyundai Veloster turned RWD mid-engine racer with 810 horsepower. That’s a crazy amount of muscle for your average race car, and especially one with a wheelbase this short. Oh, and did we mention it’s purely electric? Yet while most rear-drive EVs have one motor, this car has four. To produce all that power plus 708 lb-ft of torque, the engineers joined two motors end to end and connected that to one rear wheel, then did the same thing on the other side. The motors drive each wheel entirely independently of each other, with control software balancing power output for each and acting as a virtual limited-slip differential. A Rimac-supplied battery pack of unspecified capacity, about the size of a large suitcase, sits behind the seats. At full…

Depending on your point of view, the 2021 Citroën Ami is either a deeply pragmatic take on personal mobility or an idea for a car that should be thrown into the sixth circle of Hell. Whatever your take, this much is clear: The Ami is one of the quirkiest vehicles ever from an automaker whose historical portfolio overflows with quirky vehicles. The Ami weighs just 1,100 pounds and is powered by an 8-hp motor that drives the front wheels. It is not a modern interpretation of the snail-shaped 2CV, the brilliantly utilitarian, two-cylinder Citroën that put France back on wheels after World War II. But in many ways the tiny Ami takes a similarly elemental approach to automobility. It also takes a tiny approach. Four Amis take up little more space…

Let’s be honest: No one who buys a compact SUV cares that much about what’s under the hood. A compact SUV is practical, sensible transportation that will get you and your stuff from A to B in all weather, with little thought or effort. The Mercedes-EQ EQB is a practical, sensible compact SUV. But what’s under its hood certainly makes it stand out. That’s because the EQB is the first compact EV SUV from Mercedes. It shares much of its architecture, body, and interior with the gas-powered GLB, but instead of a 2.0-liter turbo I-4—221 hp in the entry-level GLB 250 and 302 hp in the full-fat AMG GLB 35—the EQB is powered by two electric motors The EQB 350 4Matic we drove crowns the lineup, with a total system output of…