#NewCars

Today's drive notes centers around a car I won't review because this loan is short -- just a couple of days, since I am traveling. It's too bad I am not getting a full week with this 2022 Mercedes-Benz C300 4MATIC, but I am enjoying this car. Well, mostly.

Happy holidays! Happy new year! Welcome to 2023! Now fork over more for that BMW you want.

Just the other day, we reported on Mark Reuss's comments suggesting that a new car or crossover was coming and it would be based on the Chevrolet Corvette C8 platform but it wouldn't use the Corvette name.

Now, a new report suggests it's official.

LOS ANGELES – Like a lot of automotive enthusiasts, I’ve always been a little derisive towards Toyota’s Prius, mostly because the car has always been a bit lacking in guts. In fact, a running joke I have with a few other automotive journalists I know involves uttering the words “it’s always a f*cking Prius” when we come upon slower traffic during press drives. That’s because it often actually is a Prius holding up the works. I’ve dropped this line on many a California freeway, from Sacramento on down to San Diego. And, of course, I’ve said plenty of times bopping around my home base of Chicago.

I am typing this from 40,000 feet over the middle of nowhere as I travel to L.A. for the auto show. Sometime tonight I will see the next Toyota Prius for the first time, along with hordes of other shrimp-eaters. Until then, however, I can surf my browser over to the Google machine and find information on the Japan-spec Prius, which has already broken cover.

I suppose I can be an occasional automotive Luddite. I’m mentally throwing wrenches at the twenty-year-old German project car in my garage since it’s not nearly as straightforward to repair as the thirty-year-old Japanese project car right next to it. More than once I’ve pondered the possibility of adapting carburetors to both.

The Toyota Prius may have kickstarted the hybrid revolution, but its star has faded over the years as newer, more efficient hybrids have hit the market with less polarizing style. That’s about to change, though, as Toyota just released teasers for a new model that looks an awful lot like a new Prius. The Prius entered its fourth generation back in 2016, so it was time for an overhaul. Toyota's teaser of the new fifth-generation car appears to show an evolutionary update rather than a radical redesign. 

Volvo is currently launching the EX90 electric SUV -- this may explain a sudden influx of social-media posts I've seen from Sweden over the past few days -- and apparently, the brand snuck a news nugget into its presentation.

Hello there and welcome to the first edition of the TTAC Quick Drive. This is basically a short version of a car review that we will apply either when a test vehicle doesn't really need a full review (perhaps its a mild refresh and mechanically unchanged) or we didn't get a lot of miles on a car (perhaps we drive a vehicle at an event for only 15 minutes). We may also use this to preview the full review of a vehicle that will publish later.

Porsche has already said the 718 Boxster and Cayman are going electric.

Now a prototype has been spotted out on the road.

Chevrolet has been using a "metered" approach for ordering the high-zoot Z06 trim of the 2023 Corvette.

Meaning the order banks were opened and then temporarily closed. Now they're open again. Oh, and deliveries have begun.

The 2022 Los Angeles Auto Show media is about two weeks away. For the most part, there hasn't been a lot of news leaking about planned debuts, though we know Ram has plans for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, instead. That said, Subaru has dropped a teaser of the next Impreza.

Toyota may be one of the largest automakers in the world, but it’s not immune to rising costs and rampant inflation. The Japanese giant is seeing higher costs and shrinking profits and now says that it needs to take action to stem the tide, including raising prices on its vehicles.

In the beginning, God created the dinosaurs. He saw that they would eventually decompose into petroleum, and said this is good. And God said let there be bitchin’ V8 engines.

And God said Oh Crap, I didn’t kill off enough dinosaurs to feed these hungry V8 engines. So on the seventh day, he left it to someone else to create EV charging stations way too far apart in sketchy parts of everything that he had made, and he rested.

We are well beyond the book of Genesis when it comes to electric vehicles - we no longer look to an EV as simply an efficient urban runabout not suited to the open road. Witness the big two-letter badge on the decklid of this 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E GT - yes, there is a healthy dash of grand touring within Ford’s sporty EV. And, should you wish, a touch of sports car joy.

Mercedes-Benz has announced pricing for its EQE EV mid-size sedan.

The base price is $74,900.