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      The 2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale is a confoundingly charming plug-in hybrid

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 27 November - 17:16 · 1 minute

    A green Alfa Romeo Tonale

    Enlarge / Alfa Romeo has a new crossover called the Tonale. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

    I don't believe that Jeremy Clarkson was right when he said that you could only be a true petrolhead once you'd owned an Alfa Romeo, but the oafish TV presenter wasn't entirely off-base. I've just spent a week with Alfa's latest creation, the unfortunately named Tonale, and it has left me scratching my head. Beset by gremlins and not exactly cheap, it nonetheless charmed me in a way that I really don't think would have happened if I'd been driving, say, a Dodge .

    Once upon a time, Alfa Romeo was Ferrari before there really was a Ferrari, building Grand Prix-winning race cars and drop-dead gorgeous road cars. That feels like a very long time ago now. A planned resurgence, set in motion while the brand was under the control of the late Sergio Marchionne , has fallen far short of its original ambitious sales targets— 100,000 Guilias a year , we were told at the time.

    But the brand lives on, and it has an all-new model out. The Tonale is a smaller crossover than the Stelvio, and here in the US it is only available with a plug-in hybrid powertrain. It pairs a 180 hp (135 kW), 1.3 L four-cylinder gasoline engine that drives the front wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission with a 121 hp (90 kW) electric motor that drives the rear wheels, fed by a 15.5 kWh lithium-ion battery.

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      The 2023 BMW XM is purpose-built to get your attention

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 21 March, 2023 - 15:30 · 1 minute

    A blue BMW XM drives down a desert road

    Enlarge / There's certainly no ignoring the BMW XM's styling. But don't let it distract you from a competent chassis and powertrain. (credit: BMW)

    BMW provided flights from LA to Phoenix and back, plus two nights in a hotel, so we could drive the XM. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

    There was a time when "M" cars were lauded not only for the dynamic capability bestowed upon them by BMW's motorsport division but also for their measured aesthetic. Models like the E39-generation M5 epitomized the "if you know, you know" design philosophy, a balanced approach that won the hearts of enthusiasts and mostly flew under the radar for everyone else. But as the new XM plug-in hybrid clearly illustrates, the M Division is undergoing a sea change.

    It has been more than four decades since BMW produced the last M1 , the only other road-going machine developed exclusively by the company's storied performance arm. And much like the M1, the XM serves as a statement of purpose.

    But this is not a limited-production, mid-engine supercar, nor is it a stripped-down homologation specially built to satisfy the stipulations of a racing series, as the first M3 was. Instead, the XM was designed to represent the pinnacle. Not the pinnacle of performance, but the pinnacle of the modern BMW experience. And it resoundingly succeeds in that mission.

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      The 2021 Jeep Wrangler 4xe marries WWII handling with 50 mpg efficiency

      Jonathan M. Gitlin · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 30 August, 2021 - 18:00 · 1 minute

    It is not a hard-and-fast rule, but most cars would be better with the addition of some electric motors. There are always exceptions—heavy batteries and an electric motor would ruin a Caterham 7, for instance—but it holds true for most cars. Consider the Jeep Wrangler 4xe, the new plug-in hybrid variant of the nation's favorite rock-crawler.

    For non-car people, Wrangler might as well be synonymous with Jeep. The current-generation Wrangler only dates back to 2017, but it still carries plenty of styling cues that hark straight back to the original World War II Jeep. Big wheels project out from the body, protected in plastic arch extensions that house the LED daylight running lights up front.

    But it's not a particularly big SUV by the standards of 2021, at 188.4 inches (4,786 mm) long (including the rear-mounted spare tire). The doors signal to you that they're removable by way of large external hinges. The only real clues that this is a plug-in hybrid are some electric blue bits here and there (like the tow hooks) plus the charging port that lives just below the A pillar on the driver's side.

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      Porsche boosts battery capacity by 20 percent for 2021 Panamera hybrid

      Jonathan M. Gitlin · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 22 September, 2020 - 22:01

    It takes a lot of time and money to design and then produce a new vehicle, so the longer the car stays on sale, the more time there is to recoup that investment. Eight years is about the lifespan of a new model, which unfortunately is long enough for customers to get bored.

    Enter the midlife refresh. The idea is as simple as it sounds—halfway through a model's lifespan, it gets treated to a makeover. There are always things that can be tweaked to make production easier, to satisfy customers, or to take advantage of some new gadget or gizmo that showed up in the meantime.

    Such is the case for Porsche's Panamera sedan, which emerges fresh from the styling department with a sharper new face, a subtle tweak to the taillights, and of most interest to our audience, a 27 percent bump in battery size for the plug-in hybrids in the model lineup.

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