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FUTURE OF MOBILITY

MARCH 2022

WHERE ARE WE GOING ?

AND HOW WILL WE GET THERE WITHOUT A STEERING WHEEL?

APPLE CAR 2.0 PORSCHE’S ELECTRIC RACE CAR YOUR LIFE IN 2037

Downshift to 2nd, flick steering wheel

Gravity goes sideways

Forget previously owned cars

Praise inventor of asphalt

Endorphins throw party

Decide to name firstborn “86”

Master the drive in the all-new GR86.

MARCH 2022

PHOTOGRAPHY: KUNAAL KELKAR/@THEAUTOFOCUS

DEPARTMENTS & FEATURES

26 APPLE CAR 2.0 A fresh look at how Apple might envision the vehicle of the future.

Greg Fink and Duncan Brady

10 EDITOR’S LETTER It’s time to get ready for the inevitable electric future.

32 WELCOME TO 2037 A day in the life of Joe Average, 15 years hence. Alisa Priddle

12 INTAKE This month’s (and next decade’s) hot metal.

38 OUR TOWN A close-up look at Mcity, the University of Michigan’s autonomous vehicle proving ground.

20 TECHNOLOGUE We put predictions from previous columns together to imagine the future.

22 YOUR SAY Readers respond to previous issues.

24 THIS IS OUR FUTURE A look at cars and the ways we’ll get around in the next 20 years.

4 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

Alisa Priddle

42 THE HOLY DRIVER The fine line between simulation and reality. Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Quifan 48 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM China plans to become an industry leader in the EV space as it internalizes the Tesla effect. Mike Floyd

MOTORTREND COVERS THE BLOCKCHAIN Sorta. The cover image is a still from a video NFT called “Sentinel” created by the artist Walter Kim (@walter_kim_213 on Instagram). We bought it on Foundation.app, a popular NFT marketplace, and Walter was kind enough to render stills from it for the cover and the “Holy Driver” story, which starts on page 42.

Look for the video itself in The InEVitable coverage online by pointing your phone camera at the QR code in the lower left corner of the cover.

MotorTrend (ISSN 0027-2094) March 2022, Vol. 74, No. 3.

Published monthly by Motor Trend Group, LLC, 831 South Douglas Street, El Segundo, CA 90245.

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VOL. 74 NO. 3

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50 ELECTRIC RACER Porsche Mission R Concept Think electric race cars can’t compete with their gas-guzzling brethren? Think again. Mac Morrison 58 COMING SOON A timeline of when major automakers and other big players plan to go all-electric and reach carbon neutrality. Greg Fink 60 DESIGN SCHOOL Lincoln and ArtCenter team up to re-envision how we’ll decide what the cars of tomorrow will look like. Aaron Gold 64 ELECTRIC LUXURY Lucid Air vs. Mercedes-EQ EQS Two new luxury EVs show Tesla isn’t the only game in town. Conner Golden 82 THE BIG PICTURE BMW’s new Concept XM is different, but different isn’t always good.

ARRIVAL NISSAN ROGUE UPDATES BMW X7 • CHEVROLET CORVETTE • HONDA ODYSSEY • TOYOTA MIRAI VERDICT MAZDA CX-30

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EDWARD LOH I L L U S T R AT I O N S TIM MARRS

Editor’s Note

WELCOME TO THE INEVITABLE YOUR ELECTRIFIED FUTURE IS COMING. ARE YOU READY?

C

an 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 or significant product updates. We saw this nearly a decade ago, when we awarded the Tesla Model S our 2013 Car of the Year, and with our subsequent exclusives on the Model X, the Model 3, the first Gigafactory, various performance tests, and, of course, the Cybertruck.

But for the first time ever, Tesla is no longer the only EV brand among our top stories for the year. As we closed out 2021, seven EV stories made it into our annual Top 20 list of best performers, and three new EVs broke Tesla’s monopoly on our charts: the Ford F-150 Lightning; our 2022 Truck of the Year, the Rivian R1T; and our 2022 Car of the Year, the Lucid Air. In fact, since 2019 we’ve seen more than 2.5 times the unique visits and a 330 percent increase in page views for our stories on EVs. Factor in that more than 75 percent of this traffic to MotorTrend.com comes from Google and posts across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, and it’s clear people are not just talking about the coming onslaught of EVs but are actively seeking such knowledge.

Our own research bears this out. We recently commissioned a study on car shopping behavior from an independent consulting firm and found some interesting results:

• 42 percent of recent car shoppers hate car dealerships.

• 57 percent find the car-buying process very frustrating.

• 85 percent percent “wish buying a new vehicle was easier and less time-consuming.”

So what are we going to do about all of this? How are we going to help generations new and old navigate all this change and disruption? You’re looking at it. While we’ve always been the leader in covering electric vehicles specifically and future cars in general, we’re expanding to cover where this is all going, going broader into areas including mobility-as-service, alternatives to both gas and electrification, charging infrastructure, and even the latest in last-mile/micro-mobility providers (beyond scooters and e-bikes). We’re going deeper, too, into the technology, from battery chemistry and motor construction to the software, systems, and people that command and control them. And we’re looking farther ahead to what’s coming after the mass adoption of electric vehicles, from how cars will talk to you, your home, and other cars, drivers, and systems to eventually a time when cars will drive (or maybe even fly!) themselves.

But what we’re covering is only half the story, and we’re also changing how we tell the stories of this massive transition in the coming weeks and months.

Some hints: science fiction, The InEVitable podcast, and even NFTs and the metaverse.

When Chuck Berry put it all together and sent rock ’n’ roll around the world, there was no turning back to the era before it filled ears and expanded minds. Rock music was initially hailed by the young and young at heart and vilified by nearly everyone else. But only a few years later, it was an industry of its own, undeniable and here to stay.

Eventually rock ’n’ roll became so popular and pervasive, it achieved its final status: People forgot how revolutionary it was and it just became music.

We’re at that moment in mobility, and electrification is just the beginning. Young people are interested in and embracing electric cars while older folks are slowly coming around. Every traditional automaker and many new startups are rapidly pushing out a dizzying assortment of electric cars, trucks, and SUVs. It’s exciting and occasionally confusing—but we’re here to guide you because we know how this song will play out: Eventually, electric cars will just be cars. Welcome to The InEVitable. Q

PEOPLE ARE ACTIVELY SEEKING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE EV ONSLAUGHT.

• 58 percent of recent EV shoppers cite environmental reasons over practical ones for buying an EV. • Only people who are 55 or older today are skeptical about the future of EVs; 85 percent of 18–34-year-olds and 82 percent of 35–54-year-olds say they expect to consider an EV in the next 15 years, and more than half of each group identify as someone who will “definitely or probably” buy one.

• Range anxiety is no longer the biggest concern when it comes to EV consideration; vehicle cost and charging practicality are cited as the primary and secondary concerns when considering an EV purchase.

10 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

MOTORTREND I 3.22

Intake 3.22 EPA RANGE : The Great Equalizer and the Latest MT Metric

Whether a vehicle runs on fossil or electric energy, it’ll only run so far.

M

otorTrend 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 fossilpropelled 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 about whether an EV can meet their daily driving or frequent vacation-trip needs, please enjoy our new EPA Range spec. Let’s examine where the number comes from; keep in mind that EPA Range starts with fuel economy testing.

NOW, LET’S TALK ABOUT COMPUTING EPA RANGE

Vehicles are parked overnight then run on a dynamometer in numerous prescribed cycles. Miles and fuel use are measured, and a correction factor is applied to bring the results into better alignment with real-world driving. Note for this test, a PHEV’s rechargeable battery starts out fully depleted, resulting in pure mpg ratings like those of a conventional hybrid.

The EPA combined fuel economy in miles per gallon is simply multiplied by the vehicle’s fuel tank volume.

PHEV IN CHARGE-DEPLETING MODE

Vehicles are fully charged, parked overnight, then put through the EPA dyno tests repeatedly until the battery is fully depleted. Total miles are measured, the battery is recharged using the manufacturer’s AC (Level 2 onboard) charger with input energy carefully measured (to account for any charging system losses) and converted to gasolinegallon equivalence (33.705 kWh/gal).

This is added to any fuel that might have been burned during testing, and a correction factor is applied (today this value is usually 0.7). This results in the set of larger “gas+electric” city/highway/ combined mpg-e figures we report.

BATTERY ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Vehicles are fully charged overnight and then tested as above, repeatedly running dyno tests until the battery is depleted. They are then recharged via the manufacturer’s AC charger, measuring energy input, converting it to city/ highway/combined mpg-e, correcting it, and reporting it.

COMBUSTION AND HYBRID (HEV)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

The Multi-Cycle Test is used to determine range, starting as always with a vehicle fully charged and parked overnight. It’s then driven over successive city, highway, and steady-state cycles until the battery is discharged to a point where it can no longer follow the driving cycle. Total mileage is recorded and corrected (today the typical correction is to multiply by 0.7).

PLUG-IN HYBRID (PHEV)

Total electric range is computed as above and reported on the window sticker, as is the charge-sustaining (combustion-only) range, also calculated as above. The total range we report is the sum of these two.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER ALTERNATIVE FUELS?

The EPA has energy conversion factors to report gasoline-gallon equivalence for any other fuel that can be dispensed into a vehicle, which generally allows it to follow the above procedures. Frank Markus

FRITZ JORGENSEN, GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

We’ve come a long way since fifth wheels.

COMBUSTION, HYBRID, AND PLUG-IN HYBRID (IN CHARGESUSTAINING MODE)

2022 Kia EV6

FIRST DRIVE

This EV changes everything—at least for Kia.

K

ia 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 dualmotor, 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 proportions and imparting a sportier stance.

The rear-drive model we drove truly impresses in the twisties—perhaps no surprise given former BMW M boss Albert Biermann oversaw the development of every Hyundai and Kia before his recent retirement. The linear, feelsome steering is sharper than either the Volkswagen’s or the Mustang’s, and it’s neither too heavy nor too light.

Even at 4,400 or so pounds, the EV6 changes direction crisply and consistently, with tautly controlled body motions, and you can use the instant-on torque to transfer weight to the rear axle

and punch the car out of the corners. This Kia has one of the most engaging pure EV chassis in the business.

Eco, Normal, and Sport drive modes are available, as are six regenerative braking levels. We preferred the drive mode in Sport and regen at zero, which enabled the EV6 to flow effortlessly down the road, occasionally flicking the left paddle once or twice to initiate just a hint of regenerative braking into open corners. (The right paddle reduces the regen amount.)

The EV6 earns 310 miles of EPA-rated range with the big-battery RWD model, down to 232 for the RWD model with the small pack. The EV6 also offers 800-volt ultra-fast charging capability that, on a 350-kW fast charger, enables the battery to be boosted from 10 to 80 percent full in just 18 minutes.

Screens dominate the interior, but it retains stalks for the lights, wipers, and turn signals, and the steering wheel has rocker switches for functions such as cruise control speed. The HVAC system has simple dials, and forward and reverse are selected using a rotary controller on the cantilevered center console.

Inside the roomy cabin, rear accommodations are excellent, though you must duck under that low roofline to get in and out. The supportive, wellbolstered front seats are covered in vegan leather and suede. The dash is wrapped in materials made from recycled plastic.

2022 KIA EV6 GT-LINE $45,000 (MT est) Rear-motor, RWD, 5-pass, 4-door SUV

BASE PRICE LAYOUT ENGINE

226-hp/258-lb-ft permanentmagnet-type electric

TRANSMISSION

WHEELBASE

1-speed automatic 4,400 lb (mfr) 114.2 in

LXWXH

184.4 x 74.4 x 61.0 in

0-60 MPH

6.7 sec (MT est) 116-136/94-100/105-117 mpg-e

CURB WEIGHT

EPA FUEL ECON, CITY/HWY/COMB EPA RANGE (COMB)

232-310 miles

ON SALE

Spring 2022

Forget the Stinger—the EV6 is Kia’s new halo. And later in 2022 we’ll see the fastest, most powerful Kia in history in the form of the 576-hp, 546-lb-ft dual-motor EV6 GT, said to be good for 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and a top speed of 162 mph.

That’s more power and performance than a Porsche Taycan 4S, and its chassis will include electronic limited-slip differential software for ultimate agility and traction.

Maybe Ford and Volkswagen aren’t the only ones who should be worried by Kia’s new EV. Angus MacKenzie

Zap this QR code and get a closer look at the EV6 in our expanded photo gallery.

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 13

MOTORTREND I 3.22

Intake Hyundai RM20e EV Prototype FIRST DRIVE

speed, and there’s no falloff in power at any motor rpm. It pulls like it’s using launch control any time you put the pedal down.

Just be sure to warm the barely streetlegal Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires. Heated up, the tires work with the aerodynamics, and the RM20e sticks like glue; when they’re cold, though, anything from trailbraking on the way into a corner to just a hair too much accelerator on the way out will have the car trying to swap ends. It happens quickly, but it’s easy to catch if you know what you’re doing—and your reflexes are good enough. That’s with the stability control in its second-most lenient setting; we also tried the least restrictive mode. If it ever activated in either setting, we weren’t aware of it.

Similarly, we couldn’t tell you how much of the braking was done by the mechanical large suitcase, sits behind the seats. At full he RM20e is essentially a Hyundai six-piston front and four-piston rear race tilt, it can provide approximately 25 Veloster turned RWD mid-engine miles of range; at tricky Sonoma Raceway, calipers and how much was regenerative. racer with 810 horsepower. That’s Whatever balance the N team dialed in that’s roughly 10 laps. Yes, a larger pack a crazy amount of muscle for your was invisible, as was any torque vectoring could provide more mileage, but then you average race car, and especially one with between the rear wheels. get into a battle of diminishing returns a wheelbase this short. Oh, and did we The experience is far from silent, and as weight increases substantially quicker mention it’s purely electric? not just because the interior is stripped than range.

Yet while most rear-drive EVs have one out. The N crew believes sound is integral motor, this car has four. To produce all that We started on an autocross course with power plus 708 lb-ft of torque, the engineers the car detuned to “only” 650 horsepower; to the driving experience and has no compunction about blasting fake motor joined two motors end to end and connected the RM20e was quick, but it didn’t feel that to one rear wheel, then did the same 650-hp quick. Thankfully, there’s a dial that noises inside the car and out. During our thing on the other side. The motors drive takes care of that problem, and we cranked drive, it was set to a sci-fi V-8 sound, which was pretty cool. Who doesn’t want to drive each wheel entirely independently of each it up to full output on the big track. In an something out of Star Wars? other, with control software balancing instant, the RM20e became a supercar. power output for each and acting as a virtual Completely unchained, the RM20e is Our seat time was brief, but it was limited-slip differential. said to hit 60 mph in less than 3.0 seconds enough to convince us that having more and 120 mph in less than 10—and it feels fully electric sports and track cars is going A Rimac-supplied battery pack of like it. Response is instantaneous at any to be awesome. If they’re anything like unspecified capacity, about the size of a this fantastically fun little machine, our electrified future is even brighter. Scott Evans

Badass and straight out of Star Wars.

T

CRANKED TO FULL OUTPUT, THE RM20E BECAME A SUPERCAR IN AN INSTANT.

HYUNDAI RM20e PROTOTYPE BASE PRICE

Not for sale

VEHICLE LAYOUT

Mid-motors, RWD, 2-pass, 2-door race car

MOTORS

4x 198-hp/177-lb-ft AC electric; 799 hp/708 lb-ft (comb)

TRANSMISSIONS

2x 1-speed automatic

CURB WEIGHT WHEELBASE

3,750 lb (mfr) 105.2 in

LXWXH

170.0 x 76.6 x 53.3 in

0-60 MPH

2.9 sec (mfr est) Not rated

EPA FUEL ECON, CITY/HWY/COMB ON SALE IN U.S.

14 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

Never

TO START YOUR FREE TRIAL GO TO: MOTORTREND.COM/MYTHBUSTERS

STREAMING NOW ONLY ON

MOTORTREND I 3.22

Intake 2021 Citroën Ami: Tiny, Electric, and Not Quite a Car FIRST DRIVE

This 8-hp EV city car takes things back to basics.

D

epending 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 than a single Chevy Suburban.

The very physicality of the Ami makes its mission crystal clear: This is not a vehicle for the wide-open spaces of Wyoming.

Top speed is 28 mph. It sounds laughable, but in a place like London, where traffic struggles to average 7 mph on a good day and most roads are limited to 20 or 30 mph, it’s fast enough. More important, the instant-on torque means it has little trouble scooting away from the lights with the rest of the traffic.

A 5.5-kWh battery can recharge in three hours from a household socket. This pack provides 43 miles of range, more than enough for the urban journeys it’s designed for. That’s about as far as you’d want to drive it in a single stint anyway.

The little motor whirrs noisily, and the short wheelbase and narrow track mean the Citroën pitches and rocks over uneven road surfaces, though there’s enough compliance in the suspension and 155/65R14 tires to take the edge off the impacts. At 3.9 turns lock to lock, the steering is geared for slower responses to reduce the likelihood of tipping over.

Plenty of storage room is carved out of the door panels, not the least because the side windows don’t slide up and down.

Rather, the side glass hinges upward if you want cooling air. There are no door handles, either; you open and close the doors using nylon straps, “just like in a Porsche 911 GT3 RS,” Citroën’s PR person

deadpanned. Yes, just like in that firebreathing, track-destroying sports car.

Ah yes, the doors. The left is hinged at the rear, the right at the front. That’s because they are identical. In fact, the bodywork comprises just four unique panels, all rendered in plastic and attached to a light steel frame. It’s a clever piece of industrial design, form driven by a desire to deliver maximum function at minimum cost.

There’s a quirky appeal to the Ami, a boxy, industrial-chic cuteness that leaves folks smiling as you whirr past. And in cities whose narrow streetscapes predate the automobile by centuries, it’s a robustly practical little device, quiet and clean, easy to maneuver and park, and indifferent to the inevitable scuffs and scratches that are the result of close proximity to stone walls and locals who park by ear.

It is, therefore, perhaps the most imaginative vehicle in a long time from an automaker whose imagination once knew no bounds. Angus MacKenzie 2021 CITROËN AMI BASE PRICE LAYOUT MOTOR

8-hp/29-lb-ft permanentmagnet-type electric

TRANSMISSION

WHEELBASE

1-speed auto 1,100 lb (mfr) 68.9 in

LXWXH

94.8 x 54.7 x 59.8 in

0-60 MPH

N/A (top speed: 28 mph) Not rated

CURB WEIGHT

EPA FUEL ECON

16 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

$7,000 (est) Front-motor, FWD, 2-pass, 2-door coupe

EPA RANGE (COMB)

43 miles (est)

ON SALE

Now (Europe)

2023 Mercedes-EQ EQB Want luxury in a small SUV? Add electric power.

L

et’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 288 hp. (There’s also the 225-hp EQB 300 4Matic, and the 187-hp, front-drive EQB 250 will be along shortly.) Although comparisons with Tesla’s Model Y are inevitable, the blocky EQB is 2.6 inches shorter and 3.4 inches narrower, and it has 2.4 fewer inches between its axles.

It is, however, 3.2 inches taller overall, and the roofline runs to a near-vertical backlight rather than swooping down, coupelike, as does the Tesla’s. If you want to carry seven people—or a lot of stuff— the Merc is a more practical design.

That’s right: seven people. The conversion from gasoline to battery power hasn’t compromised the interior packaging at all, which means the EQB is available with a third row. And where

the Model Y’s third-row option places passengers right under the glass of the rear backlight, the EQB’s upright shape puts steel over their heads. (For rollover crash safety reasons, Mercedes considers the EQB’s third row suitable only for those 5-foot-5 or shorter.)

The second row slides fore and aft through 5.5 inches of travel, and in the rearmost position, there’s a ton of legand knee room for 6-footers. There’s plenty of headroom, too, even though the rear seat H-point is higher than that of the front to give rear passengers better visibility. Load space ranges from 16.4 cubic feet with the third row in place to 57.2 cubic feet with the second and third rows folded flat.

Once on the move, the EQB 350 drives like a mini luxury car. None of its internal combustion rivals can match the smooth, silent surge of power from its dual electric motors or the quiet comfort of its ride. Apart from some head toss—a function of its higher ride height and higher seating position—this little electric Mercedes SUV feels almost as calm and relaxing to be in as an S-Class.

In terms of its EV competition, the EQB 350 feels nowhere near as busy on poor roads as the stiffly sprung Volvo XC40 Recharge, and it generates a lot less road noise than the Tesla Model Y. Although the 18-inch wheels and 215/60 Continental WinterContact winter tires fitted to our test car undoubtedly helped iron out any sharp flaws in the road surface, even with the standard 19-inch

FIRST DRIVE

wheels and 50-series tires, the EQB’s well-damped long-travel suspension will still ensure a comfortable ride.

The steering is direct and nicely weighted with decent feedback. Braking is smooth and linear, with a seamless transition from regenerative to mechanical. There’s a ton of traction out of corners courtesy of the well-planted multilink rear axle, with the front wheels playing the perfect supporting role.

Nail the accelerator, and the little SUV scoots briskly away from the apex with surprisingly little understeer. Max-power standing starts on snowy roads saw it leap away straight and true from a standstill with minimal traction control interventions. In sum, it’s brilliantly easy and surprisingly enjoyable to drive.

Figure something like 210 miles of range once the EPA gets around to rating the EQB. That’s far from class leading.

But this EV has other charms. It’s roomy and practical for its size, well equipped, and well finished, and it really does ride and drive like a small luxury car. And Mercedes is aware of the range issue. It’s working on a long-range version of the EQB, which may sacrifice the third row in favor of extra battery capacity—a surefire way to keep it standing out among the compact SUV crowd. Angus MacKenzie 2023 MERCEDES-BENZ EQB-CLASS

WHEELBASE

$44,000-$49,000 (est) 1- or 2-motor, FWD/AWD, 5-7-pass, 4-door SUV 187-hp/276-lb-ft permanent-magnet-type electric; induction-type (front), permanentmagnet-type (rear) electric, 225-288 hp/288384 lb-ft (comb) 1-speed automatic 4,600-4,800 lb (mfr) 111.4 in

LXWXH

184.4 x 72.2 x 65.6 in

0-60 MPH

6.1-8.0 (MT est) Not yet rated

BASE PRICE LAYOUT

MOTORS

TRANSMISSION CURB WEIGHT

EPA FUEL ECON, CITY/HWY/COMB EPA RANGE (COMB)

210 miles (est)

ON SALE

Spring 2022 MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 17

MOTORTREND I 3.22

Intake Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX The establishment strikes back.

The EQXX has the classic teardrop shape of extreme wind cheaters such as GM’s groundbreaking EV1 and the VW XL1 hypermiler.

FIRST LOOK

T

Thousands of localized dimming zones keep power consumption to a minimum despite the huge 47.2-inch screen.

18 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

he Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX is what happens when a leading legacy carmaker turns its focus entirely to designing and engineering a better electric vehicle. In fact, the road-legal EQXX—it meets all crash regulations—may be one of the most consequential concept cars of the early 21st century.

For starters, Mercedes says the EQXX, which has a wheelbase 3.0 inches shorter than a Tesla Model 3’s, will travel more than 620 miles on a charge. And it’ll do so with a 100-kWh battery pack, offering more miles per kWh than either of today’s range kings, the Lucid Air Grand Touring (516 miles per the EPA from 118 kWh) or the Model S Long Range (405 miles from 100 kWh). To reduce size and weight, the EQXX’s pack dispenses with the conventional method of arranging cells into separate modules and has a lightweight cover made from sugarcane waste reinforced with carbon fiber.

Power comes from a 200-hp rear motor, reworked by engineers from AMG’s High Performance Powertrain (HPP) team, which also designs and builds the fiendishly complex and highly efficient Mercedes Formula 1 powertrains. As a result, Mercedes says 95 percent of the energy sent from the battery gets to the driving wheels.

The EQXX is highly advanced in terms of aero, too, with a claimed drag coefficient of just 0.18. Its classic teardrop shape is facilitated by a rear track 2 inches narrower

REAR VIEW than the front, while the cabin tapers dramatically above the car’s voluptuous hips. At the front, air is carefully directed under the car, where shutters allow it to pass over a cooling plate for the motor if needed, and an active rear diffuser helps keep the under-car air speed equal to that streaming from the sides and top.

The structure is ultra-high-strength steel, the doors are made from carbonand fiberglass-reinforced plastics, and the roof is covered with solar panels that feed a 12-volt system to power many of the car’s ancillaries. But the body’s most innovative bits may be among those you can’t see, like the large cast aluminum piece that provides mounting points for the rear suspension and motor. It’s made using a process called Bionicast, which creates a structure that mimics the load and strength paths of natural organisms, reducing excess material to a minimum.

As a result, there isn’t a single straight line or flat surface on the part.

Inside the stunning interior, a curved 8K screen stretches 47.2 inches between the A-pillars and looks like part of the overall design rather than tacked on. It features more than 3,000 local dimming zones, which means it only consumes power when specific parts of the screen are in use. Almost all the fabrics and leathers and carpeting are made of either plant-based organic materials or recycled plastics, including biofabricated silk, bamboo fiber, old plastic bottles, pulverized cactus fibers, and a vegan leather alternative made from mycelium, the rootlike structure of mushrooms.

Underlying the infotainment and artificial intelligence functions, neuromorphic computing, a form of information processing based on artificial neural networks, fires only when certain usage needs and thresholds are reached.

Mercedes says this system reduces energy consumption “by orders of magnitude.”

The Vision EQXX is an intellectual and technological tour de force, a fully functional prototype that explores the outer limits of electric vehicle efficiency, connectivity, and production feasibility.

“The Vision EQXX is how we imagine the future of electric cars,” Mercedes-Benz chairman Ola Källenius says. “It underlines where our entire company is headed: We will build the world’s most desirable electric cars.” Angus MacKenzie

From the MT Archive ...

MARCH 1992 PRICE: $2.95

and opening the throttle wide. We also showed a cutaway drawing of the new Renault 5, predicting MARCH 1972 it would never come PRICE: $0.75 to the U.S., and tested Think automaker Alfa Romeo’s Alfasud, scandals are new? predicting it would.

In ’72 we delved into Wrong on both counts!

Chevrolet’s faulty Meanwhile in our motor mounts, comparisons, Ford’s which had a nasty Torino beat the Chevy tendency to break Chevelle, and GMC’s and allow engines pickup won out over to shift, pinning the Chevy, Dodge, and accelerator linkage International.

Fifteen vehicles faced off for our 1992 Import Car of the Year, and we gave the award to the sinewy Lexus SC 400, calling it “an icon that stirs the emotions.

In virtually every category, the Lexus SC 400 not only excels, it conquers.” The aging but still potent Lincoln Mark VII LSC lost a comparison to the Cadillac Eldorado Touring Coupe, and we got our first taste of GM’s 32-valve Northstar V-8 in Cadillac’s 1993 Allanté.

MARCH 2012 PRICE: $4.99 Ten years ago, we pitted Chevrolet’s new Camaro ZL1 against the Ford Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca at the track (the Chevy won), had our first experience with the promising new Scion FR-S, and cheered Ford’s decision to bring the Euromarket Mondeo to the U.S. as the 2013 Fusion.

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FRANK MARKUS

Technologue THE INEVITABLE FUTURE, AS FORETOLD

BY NOSTRATECHNOLOGUS. his issue is devoted to exploring the increasingly electrified and automated “inEVitable” future of mobility, looking 15 years or so down the road. Because that’s kind of what this page always sets out to do, I’ll spend this month’s word budget on a highlight reel of sorts, describing a future world in which the best concepts explained in previous columns have successfully reached production to keep the world’s inhabitants and goods moving sustainably.

Note that separate online stories (scan the QR code with your phone for more) dedicated to each of these headings will delve deeper into the present status and prognosis of these technologies, without rehashing any of the nitty-gritty science.

T

Carbon-Free Combustion Forever!

Combustion still powers certain vehicles, but running on bio- or e-fuels, they emit no new carbon. Most that are fueled by alcohols burn biobutanol, which nearly matches gasoline’s energy content and octane rating (problems with low vapor pressure were resolved post-Biden).

Most vehicles run on chemically equivalent gasolines assembled from smaller molecules. Nacero Blue and Green gas is built from methane sourced from landfill gases and natural gas that would have been flared, and the rest comes from scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere and combining it with cleanly electrolyzed hydrogen (see Prometheus fuels and Haru Oni/Porsche).

How We Got to Cheap, Long-Range, Quick-Charging EVs

Every aspect of the EV was holistically reimagined, and vehicles with different missions look and drive differently.

Integrating the battery into the structure with carbon electrodes and electrolyte resins makes sense in the smallest cars (and electric planes). Sports cars needing to rapidly store and release energy leverage both ultracapacitors and batteries. Lithium-sulfur chemistry has helped triple batteries’ energy density, and solid-state batteries that can recharge in minutes are now a reality. The lowest-cost EVs use cheap reluctance motors, with torque smoothed by Dynamic Motor Drive tech. Retooling after Chipocalypse brought us better gallium-nitride chips that enabled faster charging, and building on manufacturing efficiencies pioneered by Lucid Motors helped further reduce cost.

Finally, mining the Clarion-Clipperton Zone seabed for polymetallic nodules greatly eased supply-chain pressures for manganese, nickel, copper, and cobalt.

Infrastructure Improvements for Better Driving

All new EVs now support wireless “opportunity charging” when stopped at intersections (a rarity now that vehicles and infrastructure are all connected and smart), or even 20 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

when driving on remote stretches of highway. Some of that electricity is now provided by smaller, more localized pebble-bed nuclear reactors running on thorium or another fuel as easily stored or disposed. Major roadways have all been mapped with ground-penetrating radar for another weatherproof means of geo-locating autonomous vehicles, and most roadways are made of low-CO2 concrete with silica fume particles or magnesium. Bridge supports use carbon-negative algal carbon-fiber panels sandwiching similar concrete incorporating self-healing sodium-silicate capsules to extend the bridge’s useful life.

Life Aboard a Futuremobile

In-car connectivity took a huge step forward when fragmented aperture technology democratized satellite internet, and with so many passengers looking at a phone or tablet, airbags more safely deploy from the ceiling, forcing devices into our laps instead of our faces. Antiodor chitosan seat fabrics and odor-canceling “white smell” dispensers please our noses. A transparent “braille screen” allows blind passengers to “see” the passing scenery, while sighted passengers amuse themselves by watching claytronic “solid holograms” enact miniature 3-D plays. Onboard sensors monitor our health and forecast injury statistics to first responders in the (increasingly unlikely) event of a crash. Alas, Nissan’s proposed “thinking cap” electroencephalography system of controlling the car via brain waves is still on the drawing board.

The Vehicle Itself

As crashes become rare, designers gain some regulatory freedom, and designs once deemed aerodynamically problematic become feasible with low-pressure air nozzles that employ the Coanda effect to keep air attached to curved surfaces, reducing drag. Impossibly thin roof pillars inflate in a crash to increase their strength. Tires feature rubber made from kudzu enzymes, self-healing 3-D-printed seasonal-design treads, and either self-inflating devices (since Goodyear and Coda settled their patent dispute) or airless tech like Michelin’s Tweel. Spherical tires have reached production, but only for very low-speed delivery applications, so don’t hold your breath for Audi’s RSQ I, Robot movie concept. At least not yet. Q

Lamborghini’s futuristic Terzo Millennio (third millennium) concept featured wheel rims that incorporated electric motors powered by supercapacitors.

The carbonfiber body was capable of monitoring itself and even healing small defects. And its autonomous functions could be used to instruct a driver.

THE MOMENTUM OF OUR FUTURE COMES FROM THE SPEED OF OUR PAST. INSPIRED BY OUR WINNING MOTORSPORTS EXPERIENCE AND RACING LINEAGE, THE ALL-NEW NSX TYPE S RETURNS IN ITS MOST POWERFUL INCARNATION. HAND-BUILT BY MASTER TECHNICIANS AT THE PERFORMANCE MANUFACTURING CENTER (PMC), IT FEATURES RACE-SPEC TWIN TURBOCHARGERS FROM THE NSX GT3 EVO AND 600 COMBINED HORSEPOWER FROM ITS POWERFUL ENGINE AND THREE HIGH-OUTPUT ELECTRIC MOTORS. EQUAL PARTS ADRENALINE AND COMPOSURE, THE NSX TYPE S IS THE EMBODIMENT OF PRECISION CRAFTED PERFORMANCE. ©2021 Acura. Acura, NSX, Precison Crafted Performance, and the stylized “A” logo are registered trademarks of Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

MOTORTREND I 3.22

Your Say Rivian’s Pioneer Moment Congratulations on documenting the “Pioneer Movement” Rivian R1T adventure in your January issue. It was an excellent way to highlight/evaluate a product and document a journey. It was the best MT article I have read; more such articles that incorporate product evaluation in interesting historical environments and/ or include personal stories will educate readers and continue to bring in new fans.

Gene Isaman Via email

I really enjoyed your “Pioneer Movement” article, which discussed driving the Rivian R1T on the Trans-America Trail.

I am amazed the article implies the act of finding and charging an EV for such a trip was easy. As a new Tesla owner, I now pay attention to such things. Yet, today, I cannot fearlessly take my Tesla from New Jersey to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, as I would my gasoline cars because there are not yet any charging stations of any kind/ brand near my destination. There are two stations on my trip home eastbound on the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Turnpikes, but there’s nothing westbound.

And nothing for my around-town travels during my visit. Maybe someday—after all, every gas station didn’t pop up overnight.

Bill Reich Shamong, New Jersey

It’s embarrassing how you couldn’t drool enough over the Rivian truck’s capabilities. You drove 7,000 miles across the Trans-America Trail and found charging stations exactly where you needed them.

That was very important; it wasn’t like you could carry and swap out a spare battery along the way. No wonder it took three years to plan the trip. I advise you to avoid the northern end of the Dalton Highway in Alaska. You’ll be out of charge and SOL before you know it.

Skip Gehrke Via email

Finding gas stations exactly where we need them is critical to completing any journey in combustion-powered vehicles, too. We’ll be sure to write you from Prudhoe Bay.—Ed.

OTY: Why Not Included?

I’ve driven Lexus RXs for years and love them. Why wasn’t the RX included in your list of the many SUVs reviewed for 22 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

WRITE US AT: 831 S. Douglas St. El Segundo, CA 90245 Email us at MotorTrend @MotorTrend.com

MotorTrend’s SUV of the Year (December 2021), and where would the RX have landed in your rankings?

Les Hess Apopka, Florida

When it comes to our various MT Of The Year programs, only vehicles that are new or significantly updated for the upcoming model year, start at less than $150,000, and are available in all 50 states by January 1 are eligible for inclusion. The RX did not meet this qualification for 2022. We included the RX in the 2017 SUV of the Year field when it was newly redesigned, and again in 2019 when the L variant joined the lineup. OTY rules aside, we rank the RX No. 6 among luxury midsize SUVs, and you can view all our vehicle rankings at MotorTrend.com/cars.—Ed.

long MT reader and subscriber, I am more interested in vehicles more relevant to my immediate needs. And even if electrics eventually do match internal combustion vehicles in range, reliability, and price, I’d rather hear the sound of a high-performance internal combustion engine any day over the muted hum of an electric.

Lindsay Schieffelin Via email

Ignoring your admitted bias, as with any newer technology, automakers are looking to recoup the costs of developing electric systems by placing them in high-profitmargin (read: expensive) vehicles first.

Vehicles like the Ford Mustang Mach-E and VW ID4 prove the tech is already trickling down to the mainstream, and studies show EVs will cost the same as the equivalent gas vehicle (before incentives) within the next three years—not decades. In other words, Car of the Year It was very interesting reading the January EVs are getting cheaper by the day.—Ed. issue. There are a lot of exciting developYou guys are MotorTrend, so I hope a ments, particularly within the EV arena, 0–60-mph time in your Car of the Year including the GMC Hummer EV with a price exceeding $100,000. Then there’s the coverage wouldn’t be misstated. But it says MT Car of the Year, the Lucid Air, another the VW Golf GTI needed 6.1 seconds to hit the mark, and the Golf R 6.3. I’m sure you game-changer, but with a price tag of almost $140,000. Finally, the truly remark- meant 5.3 or even 4.3. Please fix this.

James Oh Jr. able Rivian R1T, at a $68,645 starting price.

These are vehicles for the well-to-do.

Via email They may portend the future, but they are Fix what? The manual Golf R weighs still decades away from being as inexpenabout 400 pounds more than the Golf GTI, sive as the majority of what America drives negating any horsepower and traction today. If you question the severity of global advantage it might otherwise have. Those 0–60 times are correct.—Ed. warming, the relevancy of these vehicles becomes less compelling. As a decades-

Save the Cows

READER ON LOCATION This month’s reader on location is JERRY PROSPERO of Philadelphia, who wrote to us from a vacation to South Carolina: “After a chilly winter in Philly, my wife and I took a getaway to Hilton Head—no golf, but we enjoyed the Southern charm, hospitality, and cuisine.

However, the search for a rental car for our stay proved challenging. We took the budget-friendly ‘vendor’s choice’ option when booking and ended up with a Ford Fusion with heated/cooled seats and every option imaginable. The car is so nice, we wish Ford didn’t abandon production of it.

Save the turtles and maybe a few manual-transmission vehicles for us old folks!”

As a longtime subscriber, I really enjoyed the article concerning the new Ford Maverick (January). However, I noticed an error. Your article states “... top-tier, leather-lined, and luxury-themed Lariat trim ... ” No model of the Maverick has leather-trimmed seats. For the last couple of years, Ford has used a seating material called ActiveX: It looks like leather, feels like leather, but is it? No. The Lariat trim comes with synthetic seating surfaces made from this stuff, and only one interior color is available. Still, I’m really looking forward to driving a new Maverick.

Mickey Musick Spring, Texas

Fake leather is impressively good these days, isn’t it? You’re correct, the Maverick Lariat uses Ford’s ActiveX material, which looks and feels just like leather.—Ed.

W O R D S : M O T O R T R E N D S TA F F PHOTOGRAPHY: KUNAAL KELKAR/@THEAUTOFOCUS

24 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

THIS IS OUR FUTURE. Our new way of telling stories about mobility’s destiny. Turn the page to begin the journey, to experience our vision of what’s ahead for you, your car, and the way you’ll get around in the next 15 to 20 years. And stay tuned for more stories in issues to come, as well as online . Point your phone’s camera at the QR code below or head to MotorTrend.com/theinevitable to continue down the path.

There you’ll find the latest stories and videos on the automobile’s next big evolutionary step, plus links to our InEVitable video podcast. Welcome to the future.

As the automotive world evolves, we’re committed to evolving with it. This issue serves as a preview of our inevitable electrified future.

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 25

THE INEVITABLE I APPLE CAR 2.0

WE (RE)IMAGINE THE APPLE CAR, WHICH COULD ARRIVE SOONER THAN YOU EXPECT

WORDS GREG FINK, DUNCAN BRADY DESIGN GARRETT DEBRY PHOTOS KUNAAL KELKAR/@THEAUTOFOCUS MODELER ALI HABIBI/ALIAS DESIGN STUDIO

26 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

ou laughed at us when we first imagined the Apple Car in 2016. “It’s too podlike and not exciting enough to wear the Apple logo,” you complained.

But look who’s laughing now. Because the pod, for better or worse, is the future of automotive design. Just peek at the likes of the Canoo Lifestyle Vehicle or the Cruise Origin or the Amazon-backed Zoox, each of which is essentially a stylized passenger cell.

The reasoning is simple: simplification. With compact electric motors instead of bulky internal combustion engines and no need for steering columns or gas and brake pedals, our projected autonomous future strips down the automobile to its most basic elements, a concept Apple has for decades applied to everything from cell phones to wristwatches.

That said, pods need not look boring, which is why we went back to the drawing board and reimagined the Apple Car. Or should we say, cars.

Y

THE APPLE TOUCH It may pain Apple fans to read this, but the company rarely creates truly original pieces of hardware. Its products instead tend to improve on existing concepts.

For instance, Apple’s earliest personal computers—the

In 2016, we had an “exclusive” first look at a potential Apple Car. As Apple continues to work behind the scenes in the automotive space, we reexamine what it might have in the works.

rudimentary Apple I of 1976 and the more familiar-looking Apple II of 1977—were beaten to market by the likes of the Altair 8800 in 1975. Likewise, the first MP3 players and smartphones, the MPman F10 of 1998 and the IBM Simon Personal Communicator of 1994, went on sale years before Apple revealed the iPod (2001) and iPhone (2007).

This is no knock against Apple’s hardware, which with exceptions such as the Apple III is generally competent in its own right, but rather a commendation of the software environment the company created over the years. Credit the late Steve Jobs’ decision to forgo licensing Apple’s operating system to other hardware manufacturers, a strategy the company tried briefly in the mid-1990s during the reign of former CEO Michael Spindler. (Jobs ended this practice upon his return to Apple.)

By maintaining integration between Apple’s software and hardware, the company could “take responsibility for the user experience from end to end,” as Walter Isaacson wrote in his 2011 book, Steve Jobs. Following Jobs’ death in October 2011, Apple’s current CEO, Tim Cook, regularly espouses the same beliefs.

“We love to integrate hardware, software, and services and find the intersection points of those because we think that’s where the magic occurs … and we love to own the primary technology that’s around that,” Cook told

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 27

Kara Swisher of The New York Times in response to a question regarding Apple’s automotive ambitions.

Recent Apple hires provide evidence the company continues to toy with the idea of fully developing its own car. The man said to be heading the program?

Kevin Lynch, the executive responsible for turning the Apple Watch into one of the Cupertino, California, tech giant’s core products. Lynch is much more a software developer than an automotive or autonomy engineer, but worry not.

Over the past few years, Apple successfully recruited automotive industry talent such as Ulrich Kranz, former CEO of Canoo and former head of BMW’s i division; Michael Schwekutsch, who previously served as Tesla’s vice president of engineering; and Anton Uselmann, an engineer whose résumé includes stints at performance automakers Mercedes-AMG and Porsche.

Given Apple’s nearly $2.9 trillion market cap (as of this writing), the company certainly has the means to develop and produce its own car. Nevertheless, developing and building an automobile is not the same as developing and building personal electronic devices such as computers, tablets, and smartphones. Or vacuums, as Dyson discovered when it attempted to mass produce its own electric vehicle.

As company founder James Dyson revealed in his 2021 memoir, Invention: A Life, the company invested $700 million into its stillborn EV project, which it ultimately abandoned. Blame the various costs associated with the production and storage of a “relatively low-volume” vehicle Dyson intended to sell directly to consumers. “[W]e would have [had] to sell the car at $210,000,” Dyson wrote. “There are not many people who will buy a car at [that] price.”

THE APPLE CAR(-SHARE) PROGRAM Rumors persist that Apple plans to partner with an established automobile manufacturer to build its vehicle. Such a move may help Apple keep the per-unit costs reasonably low. How such a business relationship may affect Apple Car consumers is a different story.

Although it’s possible Apple decides to sell vehicles directly to the public, we hear it may ultimately pursue a car- or ride-share model, wherein Apple owns the vehicles and consumers pay to use them, à la Zipcar, with an autonomous twist. In this sense, then, Apple’s model for its car program may more closely mirror Cruise’s or Waymo’s, in that a user schedules one of Apple’s autonomous EVs to take them from point A to point B. We foresee riders being able to schedule recurring rides, too; just imagine an Apple Car showing up outside your door Monday through Friday to waft you off to work or the kids to school. If Apple goes this route, the company will likely—initially, at least— limit its vehicles’ use to metropolitan areas where lower speeds and streets laid out in predictable grid patterns are the norms.

Admittedly, we’re working with an assortment of crumbs we’ve gathered from sources and publicized leaks to come to this conclusion. Apple’s car plans could take an entirely different route from what we hypothesize, or perhaps Cook and company will scrap the program altogether.

TOP-MOUNTED CONTROL ARMS These suspension pieces move the wheels away from the body and enable additional maneuverability via 180-degree wheel rotation, which could simpllify parallel parking in cities or vehicle storage in car-share lots.

IN-HUB MOTORS Propulsion is by electric motors located within each wheel housing, enabling not only this design but also independent control of power at each wheel.

The tires are a massive 40 inches in diameter.

28 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

HOLO PROJECTOR A floor-mounted projector defaults to a seasonally appropriate tree, in reference to the flora found in many modern Apple retail stores. Users would also be able to personalize the imagery via their Apple CarPlay profile, or potentially view holographic games or other entertainment.

EASYACCESS OVAL DOORS Falcon-style glass doors stay tight to the vehicle as they open for maximum utility and to provide easy ingress and egress in crowded urban environments.

APPLE CAR 2.0 I THE INEVITABLE

STEERING COMMITTEE The electric motors located in each upper suspension mount not only provide the ability to rotate the wheels in- or out of phase for increased flexibility or stability, as the situation demands, but are also tasked with steering both the front and rear wheels in the more traditional sense.

However, an autonomous car-sharing service does seem to be the sensible way for Apple to enter the automotive space.

After all, there’s a reason Alphabet created Waymo and why GM, Honda, and others invested in Cruise.

Much like Apple’s electronic devices, the company’s potential crop of autonomous vehicles will likely rely on minimalist design, user-friendly ergonomics, and easy integration with Apple’s various products to create a user experience distinct from those of competitors—and we think the company’s CarPlay interface may play a key role.

THE APPLE CARPLAY PUSH

ALONE TIME The small, single-passenger version will be one of the quickest point-A-to-B options for navigating future cities when car-hailing users have different destinations, thanks to its lane-sharing capability. If just 10 percent of cars on the road can share a single lane—side by side safely with another vehicle—traffic congestion can drop by up to 40 percent.

Today, CarPlay largely serves to display and control Apple devices running certain iterations of the brand’s mobile operating system. But tomorrow, CarPlay could effectively replace the native infotainment systems automakers now use.

Per a Bloomberg report, Apple is looking to take CarPlay to the next level as part of a project the company is working on, dubbed “IronHeart.” If successful, IronHeart will reportedly give CarPlay access to control various vehicle settings, including the host car’s climate, seat, and audio selections.

Apple will likely struggle to convince automakers to let CarPlay control such features, but consumer demand for a more fluid experience between their personal vehicles and mobile devices could ultimately force carmakers to play ball.

Little is known about the IronHeart project to those outside of Apple (and likely to many of those within it, as well), and there’s even a chance the firm has already scrapped IronHeart— assuming the project ever truly existed at all.

Yet it makes sense for Apple to invest in a project such as IronHeart, if only to give drivers a more standardized user experience between the mobile devices they use and the cars they pilot. Cynics are sure to view IronHeart in a darker light as a way for Apple to collect pertinent information to use in the development of its own vehicle.

DOUBLE DUTY This flat, low-mounted battery housing keeps weight near the road for improved stability. It also aids the car’s aerodynamics because it acts as a rear diffuser.

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 29

THE INEVITABLE I APPLE CAR 2.0

For more images of the Apple Car and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this feature, aim your phone’s camera at this QR code.

TOTAL PACKAGE The Apple mobility package we’ve envisioned provides the right vehicle for any purpose, on demand. Offerings will include a cargo carrier, a pickup truck, and the ability to carry multiple passengers in ePods of various sizes.

30 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

This may be the case. Still, if our hunch is correct and Apple’s car program takes on the form of a car-share service, then we think the company’s intentions are far less nefarious. Rather, we wager Apple’s goal for IronHeart is to turn CarPlay into a portable profile, allowing its autonomous cars to preemptively adjust comfort and convenience features to a given passenger’s individual preferences.

THE APPLE CAR EXPERIENCE

Imagine the entirely possible future where, with few exceptions, private vehicles are banned from major metro areas like San Francisco, New York, and Chicago. Sure, you can take public transportation into the city, but you better hope your destination is located close to a train or bus stop.

Alternatively, you can drive your personal car to an Apple Car pickup point just outside the city. Once parked, the Apple Car you scheduled via your phone’s app will whisk you away to your specific metropolitan destination with no driving required.

An array of vehicle-mounted cameras and lidar sensors work with Apple’s Maps app, which includes high-precision mapping of specific metropolitan areas, to help Apple’s fleet of cars react safely to unforeseen obstacles, such as pedestrians and road debris. Additional peace of mind comes courtesy of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication systems, which allow the autonomous cars to wirelessly “communicate” with one another and the surrounding infrastructure. Energy-dense battery packs afford many hours of continuous operation.

Although some users will lease an Apple Car, most will subscribe to the service that allows them to use the company’s fleet of shared autonomous vehicles. Apple Car lessees and subscribers will largely consist of individuals who frequently enter city centers that ban private vehicles.

Those unable to afford or uninterested in justifying the cost of an Apple Car lease or subscription, however, will be able to pay to ride in one of these self-driving EVs on a single-use basis, provided there’s a fleet car available for such use. If none is, then single-use customers may decide to forgo the Apple Car’s familiar interface for a readily available autonomous vehicle from a competitor like Cruise, Waymo, or Zoox.

In this hypothetical future, we foresee Apple introducing its automotive worldview first with two models of autonomous vehicles for its users to catch a ride in: a larger, boxy multipurpose vehicle, dubbed the ePod, capable of carrying multiple passengers and their associated belongings, and a smaller, single-seat option, better known as the ePod Solo. Down the line, there would be a whole fleet of offerings, ranging from eight-passenger vans to open-top sports cars.

No matter the model, Apple Car users will need only to pair their CarPlay profile to the vehicle, which then automatically adjusts the likes of the display interface, climate control, seat settings, and more to the individual rider’s personal preferences.

To increase profits, Apple will offer the option to unlock certain features for a small fee. This includes access to the Apple Arcade collection of mobile games, exclusive programming from Apple TV+, and even in-car workouts and meditations through Apple Fitness+.

THE APPLE CAR TIMELINE

Apple’s automotive doings remain a moving target, and much about what the company intends to produce in this space has changed since we first imagined the tech giant’s four-wheeled machine more than half a decade ago. That said, the rumor mill indicates the company continues to tinker away at developing a vehicle—there’s even chatter Apple targets a launch as early as 2025. In other words, it might not be long until Apple vindicates or disproves everything we think we know about its car program, from the vehicle’s (or vehicles’) potential design to the whole operation’s business model. Q

MOTORTREND APPLE CAR 2.0: HOW WE DID IT peculation can be simple, a few folks gathered at a bar and wondering about the future.

Bringing a physical manifestation of that future to life is much more complicated. Our process began with Garrett DeBry, an ArtCenter College of Design grad, concept artist for BMW and Toyota, designer of the recent Tesla Cyberquad for Radio Flyer, and the man who developed our first Apple Car concept in 2016.

DeBry is a proper futurist, spending hours poring over Syd Mead designs and listening to the Interstellar and Blade Runner 2049 soundtracks while working on sketches. From our side, we looked further into the future this time, which afforded DeBry the freedom to design a vehicle that would fit into an Apple Car ecosystem, rather than a comparatively simple Uber competitor.

His inspirations range from the wraparound corner windows of Apple’s flagship Chicago store to Amazon warehouse robots to the natural materials and organic shapes of the iconic midcentury modern Charles Eames lounge chair. On this project, DeBry worked to minimize automotive design to its core elements. This thought process is how we ended up with the ultra-slick suspended teardrop you see here, but that was only the start.

Once he submitted final sketches, we called on teams from around the globe to lift his design off the page.

Our second take on the Apple Car was painstakingly modeled in CAD so we could provide the files to a local 3-D print shop. After multiple days printing

S

Photographer Kunaal Kelkar constructed multiple sets and setups at MotorTrend HQ in Los Angeles.

the 16-piece scale model you see here and bringing DeBry’s design into the material world, it received countless coats of paint and finishing touches.

Finally, Delhi, India–based automotive photographer Kunaal Kelkar employed his own wizardry. Kelkar’s work first came to our attention in 2020 when he published a shockingly realistic photo set that was in reality a scale Lamborghini Huracán posed on a wet treadmill. For the Apple Car, he built a future city almost entirely out of Apple products found around our offices. The results speak for themselves. Duncan Brady

THE INEVITABLE I A DAY IN 2037

We asked scientists, auto executives, and forecasters what they thought a typical day in the life of a middleclass American would look like 15 years from now. How will they get around and go about their day? How much of what we read about today could soon be reality? Created out of those discussions, this essay explores what the not so distant future—automotive and otherwise—could be ... oe Average finally opened his eyes. His smart house had been trying to wake him for the past 10 minutes: The window shades had opened on cue, and the ambient lighting had been getting brighter to combat the gloomy day outside. He could hear the morning news, the broadcast projected onto the mirror in his bathroom. He thought he heard a faint electric whine coming from outside and the thump of a parcel

J

A

G L I M P S E

32 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

DAY IN THE LIFE being dropped off by a delivery drone.

It had stormed overnight. Joe wondered if his electric pickup in the garage was getting its power from the house, or had the power gone out at some point and the truck was now acting as a generator to keep electricity flowing to his electronics? Either way, it’s nice to never have to experience an

I N T O

O U R

outage again.

Alexa confirmed the power had not gone out. Both EVs, the truck and crossover, were fully charged—the house and cars and grid all talk to each other to ascertain the best time for the vehicles to charge. Home is still the cheapest option, but once in a while a notification says a quick top-off of electrons at

N E A R

F U T U R E

Joe’s favorite coffee bar is the better choice. He can add meaningful range in the time it takes to get his caffeine hit.

Joe smiled as he remembered the days—not so long ago—when drivers worried about when and where they could charge their EVs, checking apps and maps for the location of a charger that would work with a particular vehicle. Today, standardized fast chargers are everywhere and compatible with all models, while modern bridges, parking spaces, and taxi stands serve double duty as wireless

charging pads. Mobile chargers will come to you if the need somehow arises, a concierge service offered by some automakers. Businesses offer free charging to attract customers. Stopping at a gas station and squeezing a dirty nozzle until a tank is full seems almost barbaric now, and the pumps are ever more difficult to find, having been replaced in droves by charging stations.

SHOULD JOE HEAD TO THE OFFICE TODAY? Joe’s schedule shows he can accomplish everything from his home office. But the body scan during his shower, the facial scan of the bags under his eyes in the mirror, and his mood monitors suggest a change of scenery would likely do him some good. His biometric patterns will be cross-checked against weather and traffic to find the best time for him to

head downtown to work.

The trip there could take a number of forms. If Alexa delivers the bright news that traffic is flowing smoothly, he can tap his SUV’s 1,000 lb-ft of torque, and the drive will be worth it. Today’s cars are so intuitive: Like a horse that’s nudged to one side and executes on its own, a car knows how much to brake and steer to follow the driver’s direction for a move such as a lane change.

Or he could switch to self-driving mode and merge into one of the express lanes dedicated to autonomous connected vehicles, allowing him to sit back and finish prepping for his first meeting as traffic keeps moving at a steady pace.

Vehicle-to-vehicle networks enable constant communication between cars while data pours in from the infrastructure:

WORDS ALISA PRIDDLE I L L U S T R AT I O N S T I M M A R R S MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 33

THE INEVITABLE I A DAY IN 2037

“

JOE GREW UP LOVING THE SMELL OF GASOLINE, BUT THIS NEW GENERATION WRINKLES ITS NOSES AT FUMES.

sensors in the road, intersections, signs, and more. It’s no wonder connected vehicles don’t crash anymore. Maybe his next car will be fully autonomous—no steering wheel or pedals, he muses, with an interior setup like an office and functions commanded entirely by voice. In 2037, almost all the completely autonomous vehicles on the road are still operated by fleet and ride-sharing services.

But as cost and safety issues are sorted out, more single-owner consumer models are becoming available, which means Joe could send the car home after being dropped off at work to avoid paying for parking. New zero-occupancy lanes are being designated on main highways, reminiscent of decades ago when HOV lanes were added.

Many of the original HOV lanes are now for automated vehicles only. The new lanes are paid for by fees calculated via vehicle telematics that factor miles driven, time of day, congestion, and vehicle emissions. The itemized monthly bill lays out your driving habits and charges.

Joe’s home tells him when it’s a high energy-demand day, in which case he could save money by leaving the EV at home and selling power back to the grid. With a single voice command, he can summon an autonomous rideshare. Costs aren’t quite down to $1/mile yet, but the hassle-free aspect is inviting. Or he could go old school and take advantage of mass transit, which has become eminently more efficient thanks to fleets of electric buses, trains, and even ferries connecting the different suburbs to downtown. There are about 600,000 hydrogen-powered buses alone in service.

Mass transit had to improve—his parents tell horror stories of long waits, poor conditions, and bad connections in many cities when they were young.

Sometimes Joe wishes he lived in a city with a Virgin Hyperloop high-speed vacuum tube, or that Elon Musk’s The Boring Company had built more underground passages before Musk lost interest in his earthbound ventures while attempting to colonize Mars. Back on Earth, a smattering of flying cars have begun entering the dronefilled skies, but they’ve taken far longer than anyone thought to proliferate.

34 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

own car, they can’t afford the parking.

There are enough mobility choices, though, that people can forgo car ownership altogether. Some prefer paying a subscription fee for access to a stable of vehicles.

Younger motorists tend to love vehicles in a different way. The car is a smartphone on wheels that keeps the driver seamlessly connected, and constant over-the-air updates make it possible to hang onto their cars longer. Customizing a car centers around settings and services—like a personalized playlist. Gamers embrace unwieldy yoke steering wheels. Vegans and environmentalists applaud the non-animal upholstery and sustainable and recyclable materials that are now the norm. It’s all about the features and fun with these rolling modern vehicles.

VISITING THE KICK-GAS RANCH

REMEMBERING THE SMELL OF GASOLINE

Joe marvels at how car culture has changed.

His kids and their friends don’t appreciate cars the way he did growing up. He loved the sound and smell of a gas-fed engine, but this new generation wrinkles its noses at fumes and the impact on the environment. Igniting pistons is old school. The fastest cars today all have electric motors.

Automakers have done a good job of filling their showrooms with electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Entry-level EVs came down in price about a decade ago thanks in part to solid-state batteries that provide more range at a lower cost. Additional battery chemistry breakthroughs are expected soon. In general the cost of owning an EV is much lower now.

The sheer amount of tech in modern cars is off the charts, making it easy for a wellequipped, high-end vehicle to cost about what Joe paid for his first house. The rich are different from you and me, he thinks; there will always be buyers for high-end luxury models and top-tier trims. But despite falling prices for new EVs, first-time buyers can still struggle. Even when they can afford their

But Joe is also nostalgic. This weekend Joe and JoAnne have booked a couple hours of track time at the Kick-Gas Ranch, where they store their 2019 Cadillac CT6-V with the long-since discontinued handbuilt Blackwing 4.2-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine. Like riding horses, vehicles with big rumbling engines are for entertainment and are no longer the primary mode of transportation. Instead, it’s 550 hp of old-fashioned weekend fun, powered by renewable gasoline (see page 20).

The ranch is of course on the outskirts of town. Vehicles with internal combustion engines aren’t allowed in the city center.

If he wanted to go downtown, he would have to leave the Cadillac at one of the parking hubs that ring the city center and jump on the light rail or grab an electric scooter, rickshaw, e-bike, or robotaxi. It’s easy enough: Going from one mode of transportation to the next is all mapped out with times and availability on an app so there’s no waiting. Microdirections take you to the proper side of the street or entrance to a building.

Automakers don’t sell new vehicles with combustion engines anymore. But you can still find hybrids with a gas engine on the used lot and old-fashioned ICE vehicles on the road—like in 2021 when some homes still had landlines. With people holding onto cars for 15 years or longer, vehicles with tailpipe emissions won’t be leaving the roads anytime soon, and there are still mechanics in the service department with the parts and know-how to fix a carburetor. But there are more restrictions every year as to the roads or lanes accessible to

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THE INEVITABLE

vehicles without V2V capability, and that means ever more owners are switching to all-electric, connected transportation out of sheer frustration. The best deals and government incentives are all on EVs, and the government now slaps a 15 percent tax on vehicles that emit carbon.

Joe still loves hitting up an auto show or concours in person. Sure, they’re a throwback. You can see and almost feel everything online with virtual walkarounds nowadays, but it’s fun to stroll the grass, admiring past models like pieces of art, or hit an auto show to kick some tires before buying. And Joe tunes in to E-racing and robo-car races on weekends, in addition to coverage of NASCAR and Formula 1, both of which now deploy advanced electrified power units.

CHANGES TO THE AUTOMOTIVE LANDSCAPE Most of the world’s major legacy automakers still exist, naturally, though many have banded together in some form or another in an effort to help spread out the enormous costs of the shift to electrification, developing autonomous and other advanced tech, and the modernization of plants and infrastructure. Smaller, defiant brands like Mazda and Subaru finally got offers they couldn’t refuse but continue as subsidiaries of larger companies. The former Chrysler now looks back at the merger with PSA as a saving grace given that Stellantis has become a global mainstream powerhouse alongside Volkswagen.

But the real change Joe marvels at is the steady rise of big tech and Chinese players on the global automotive scene. Apple finally got a car on the market—more of a mobile device on wheels, really—and made the big inroads everyone feared, appealing to those more interested in wow-factor tech and personalization than design or driving dynamics. Other new brands on the road today tend to be from Chinese automakers that have the scale to compete with the legacy companies and offer the lowest-cost (despite increasingly competitive quality) entry-level vehicles, a segment that had been getting less love. A long list of startups have come and gone—it’s easier to get into the game when you don’t have to worry about an internal combustion powertrain but harder for niche players to stay there.

Coachbuilding has made a small comeback in the form of creating customized bodies (a.k.a. top hats) to fit a supplied skateboard electric vehicle chassis.

36 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

At the end of a long day, Joe turns on his SUV’s autonomous mode and merges into the express lane for the ride home. He tells Alexa to order dinner. The car says he’ll be home at 7:02 p.m., so he arranges for the food to arrive by drone at 7:15. The Thai place has a drone shortage, so his order might arrive by delivery bot—the sidewalks are littered with food-filled rovers.

Joe settles back in his seat. The monitors in his seat belt can tell he’s a little agitated and his blood pressure is slightly elevated— the perfect time for a health check courtesy of the car. The ambient lighting switches to more soothing colors, and filtered air with jasmine and lemon scent fills the cabin.

The heated seats begin to massage him as Alexa asks which playlist he prefers. It could be a lot worse in 2037. Q

THE FOLLOWING BIG BRAINS CONTRIBUTED THEIR INSIGHTS JEFF ALLEN Executive director, Forth Mobility, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to accelerate the use of smart transportation BETTINA TRATZ-RYAN Vice president of research, Gartner, a research and advisory firm. Tratz-Ryan is based in Germany GILL PRATT Toyota Motor Corporation chief scientist and executive fellow for research and CEO of Toyota Research Institute SAM FIORANI AutoForecast Solutions vice president, global vehicle forecasting GREG MCGUIRE Mcity associate director.

Mcity is a transportation research body, part of the University of Michigan HENRIK FISKER CEO of Fisker Inc., a manufacturer of electrified vehicles

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THE INEVITABLE I MCITY

MCITY EXISTS TO MAKE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES LESS SCARY WORDS ALISA PRIDDLE

38 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

PHOTOGRAPHY STEVEN PHAM, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

THE RESEARCH BODY IS DEVELOPING TESTING PROTOCOLS IN ORDER TO WIN PUBLIC TRUST AND REDUCE CONCERNS ABOUT RIDING IN AVS

I n 2037

when we hop into an autonomous shuttle, our biggest concern is whether our favorite seat is open. The notion this isn’t a safe way to travel never enters our mind. After generations of integrating ever more artificial intelligence into their neural nets, these computers on wheels read their surroundings flawlessly. They react to anything in nanoseconds, and the tech is so advanced that a crash is almost inconceivable.

That’s the possible future the Mcity team has been helping lay the

Mcity is a 16-acre, purpose-built proving ground designed to mimic city streets. The testing complex brings together industry, government, and academia to find ways to ensure AVs are safe.

THE INEVITABLE I MCITY groundwork for. Part of the University of Michigan, the transportation research body is bringing together industry, government, and academia in an effort to help ensure autonomous vehicles (AVs) are proven safe before they make the move to public roads.

The world’s major automakers are working furiously and spending billions to bring autonomous technology to market.

Research facilities like Mcity help do that by accumulating and sharing data and developing future testing protocols.

But like any new technological frontier, today’s guidelines still vary and are open to interpretation, which has led to some high-profile incidents.

In 2018, a pedestrian in Arizona was hit and killed by an Uber vehicle that was testing autonomous technology, the first such incident of its kind. Then there’s Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has pushed boundaries with Tesla’s Autopilot handsfree advanced driver assistance and “full self-driving” systems. Some drivers have taken Autopilot far too literally and abdicated driving responsibilities when they shouldn’t. People have died.

It’s no wonder the public is spooked.

A recent AAA survey showed only 14 percent of drivers would trust riding in a vehicle that drives itself. It’s not a good sign for an industry convinced artificial intelligence algorithms and associated hardware are the keys to removing human error and eliminating collisions that result in death. To build consumer confidence for a future where autonomous vehicles predominate, automakers need to demonstrate they’re developing tech in a safe way. They need to show robots can mix well with humans.

So far one of the major hurdles to building public confidence has been the lack of a unified AV testing standard. It’s a gray area where Mcity—in part through the use of its 16-acre, purpose-built proving ground designed to mimic city streets—believes it can be of help.

According to Mcity associate director Greg McGuire, the Mcity team has created a model for an AV safety test called the Mcity ABC Test, a protocol for evaluating 50 common scenarios that can lead to a crash, such as merging onto a highway, avoiding a deer on a blind curve, or making an unprotected left turn. In essence, AVs would have to pass their ABCs before they could safely move on to public roads. They would also be scored not only on how well they avoid a collision but also on how smoothly they do it without impacting passengers and nearby motorists or violating traffic laws.

40 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

Rigging test vehicles with data-collecting equipment today will help develop the software behind safe autonomous vehicles tomorrow.

mobilism.org

Vehicles would also be judged on how well they adjust to the local driving culture.

The hope is that eventually a thirdparty evaluator, like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, or the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International Alliance for Mobility Testing & Standardization committee, could then turn the data into an industry standard or set of regulations that vehicles rated at the SAE’s Level 4 or 5 of autonomy must meet.

Mcity is also developing a cloud-based operating system that can control variables in a smart city for testing AVs, such as how long a light stays green or when to lower the gate at a railway crossing. An app is being designed to piece together repeatable test scenarios for Mcity or other smart city research facilities. “We need more sophisticated tests and complex software to test vehicles,” McGuire said.

This past fall also marked the launch of the A2GO autonomous shuttle, a free ridehailing service. The yearlong pilot project uses five modified Lexus RX 450h hybrid SUVs and a handicapped-accessible Polaris GEM EV. All can be hailed to go to one of about 10 stops in Ann Arbor, Michigan, including bus stations and the University of Michigan campus. The pilot program with May Mobility is gathering survey feedback from riders, as well as motorists who interact with the shuttle on the road.

Hopefully we’ll look back on what Mcity and other research and development teams are doing now to move the autonomous ball forward as the pioneering days, when the tech we will almost certainly take for granted in a generation or two still had to be proven. For now, though, we’ll simply settle for making things a little less scary. Q

“

These are the pioneering days: Developing the technology, repeatable testing, standards, and regulations for an autonomous future is crucial if self-driving cars are ever to become the norm.

WE NEED MORE SOPHISTICATED TESTS AND COMPLEX SOFTWARE TO TEST [AUTONOMOUS] VEHICLES.”

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 41

THE INEVITABLE I A FICTIONAL FUTURE

A TALENTED YOUNG GAMER EVENTUALLY LEARNS THAT THE DRIVING SIMULATION HE’S PLAYING HAS BECOME ALL TOO REAL, WITH LIFE-AND-DEATH CONSEQUENCES

THE HOLY W O R D S : K A I - F U L E E A N D C H E N Q I U F A N R E N D E R : W A LT E R K I M

42 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

“

T

he Holy Driver,” chapter six from the book AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan, tells the story of Chamal, a talented and cocky young gamer from Sri Lanka who is recruited to take part in a mysterious Chinese project. At first, the game he’s been tasked with playing is like other driving simulations he’s mastered, but soon it begins to dawn on Chamal that something is very different—very real—about the game’s increasingly more difficult scenarios. Set roughly two decades in the future, “The Holy Driver” examines the various ethical and moral issues around artificial intelligence and autonomy that are sure to arise as the world and technology move forward. The following is an excerpt from the chapter.

DRIVER

W H E N V I RTU A L M E E T S R E A LITY MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 43

THE INEVITABLE I A FICTIONAL FUTURE

ust as he had at the VR Café, Chamal made it to the top of the training center’s ranking list in no time.

He was no longer the beginner who panicked at the sight of traffic and pedestrians. And it wasn’t just driving for driving’s sake. Chamal began receiving missions, with instructions from the technicians in the training center. The missions were always similar in terms of structure, but with variations in story line. Sometimes they were outlandish, like an alien invasion. Sometimes they were chillingly realistic, like a terrorist attack that caused roads to crumble and cars to crash into one another.

Complex landscapes, erratic drivers ... nothing could ruffle Chamal. He quickly tallied the most points among the group of gamers that Yang Juan had recruited from all over Sri Lanka.

The young drivers became fast friends during their daily training. Still, his cohorts watched Chamal with jealous eyes as he swaggered out of the room each day—everyone knew that more points meant more money.

Other drivers tried to pry tips and tactics out of him. Chamal tossed his hair. “I was born to drive,” he said, a little too cockily.

J

Chamal had discovered that

the game did not give him infinite routes. The landscapes that came up the most frequently were primarily replicas of real-life cities, spanning the Middle East to East Asia: Abu Dhabi Satellite City, Hyderabad, Bangkok, the Singaporean man-made island, the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, Shanghai Lingang, Xiong’an New Area, Chiba of Japan—places that, until now, Chamal had only read about online.

One day Chamal received instructions to complete a mission on the Singaporean man-made island. A disturbance on the ocean floor in North Java had triggered a tsunami and the infrasound completely paralyzed the island’s automated smart transportation system. A ten-meter tsunami would hit the island in exactly six minutes. Over a hundred dysfunctional autonomous cars and their passengers were careening down the roadway, likely to crash or, like sitting ducks, be washed away.

Chamal and the other racers were instructed to seize the wheels of these vehicles, turn on manual control before more accidents could happen, and help connect the cars to the emergency network infrastructure. The network would then take over, directing the cars to the nearest evacuation zone, saving the passengers’ lives.

It was the most difficult and thrilling game Chamal had ever played.

His virtual avatar hopped from one driver’s seat to another, taking control of the wheel in mere seconds, evading fallen debris as he sped to safer ground. Jump. The procedure was

simple and natural, as if it was a part of his nerve reflex. Jump again. As the blood-red countdown was rapidly approaching zero, a shimmering white line emerged in the gray-blue horizon on the periphery of Chamal’s view, and it advanced toward the shore, thickening and rising every second.

Chamal had no time to appreciate the sublime violence of nature, nor feel any fear. He was like a ghost that possessed those massive, sturdy bodies of steel and iron, connecting them to the network, and sending them on a path to safety. The delightful sound of coins clinking against one another rang on incessantly as his score rocketed at the top edge of the screen. The corners of his mouth twitched. He could feel the flow returning to his body.

The fatal Java tsunami was closer now. Faster. Chamal wanted to earn as many points as possible before the game ended. Every millisecond that slipped through his fingers meant less tuition money for his younger siblings and less living budget for his entire family. The world—and his family—depended on the speed of his mental and physical reactions.

As Chamal was about to leap into an SUV, the roaring wall of water and foam finally caught up to him. The graphics of the game were not the best; he could even see the jaggies and pixelation as the tide swallowed him whole. Before the screen went dark, he caught a last glimpse of a few cars in the near distance that were washed away instantaneously by the merciless wave. He let out a heavy, regretful sigh. Every car he didn’t save meant fewer points.

Game over.

Chamal, now back to reality, found himself drenched in sweat.

He was so exhausted that he couldn’t even climb out from the cockpit. Two staff members had to carry him.

Alice told him to take some time off. In the days that followed, even tasks as simple as eating with a spoon gave Chamal trouble. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The great, ferocious tide haunted him in his dreams. That mission seemed to have deprived him of all of his energy, creating a void in his mind and body.

Chamal normally had little interest in the news, but as he lay in his bedroom recovering, he overheard a report coming from the television in the kitchen, where his parents were sitting with Uncle Junius. The newscaster was talking about a tsunami that had occurred in Kanto, Japan.

Slowly, Chamal got up from the bed and staggered to the kitchen. On the TV screen, he watched surveillance footage recorded during the final moments before the tsunami hit the coastal highway. Cars, as light and powerless as toy figures made from paper and clay, were overturned and devoured by the waves, disappearing into the dark water.

Chamal’s heart raced. The scene before his eyes was uncannily familiar. The status of the roads, the position of the cars, the scattered debris ... it was an exact replica of the final scene in the game, which had been imprinted into his mind that day.

神圣车手 No! That’s impossible! I only played a game!

“Uncle, that was only a game, wasn’t it?”

Junius was silent a moment. “Chamal, I want you to meet someone.”

“You mean driving in China?” Chamal frowned. “If that’s the case, then I’ve been to many places in China already.”

It was Yang Juan’s turn to be stunned. It took her a few seconds to realize that Chamal was talking about virtual reality.

“I’m not trying to trick you.” Yang Juan laughed. “I meant going to China for real. You will physically take a plane and go to China, breathe the air, eat the food, and test out the landscape with your own feet. Do you want to go?”

Chamal lowered his eyes and contemplated. Finally, he looked up at Yang Juan, nodded his head, and gave the woman a dignified smile.

Back at the training facility in the ReelX Center, Uncle Junius led Chamal through a door and down a corridor that Chamal had never seen before. At the end of the hallway, they entered an office decorated lavishly with local folk art and ornaments, resembling an absurdly large collection of holiday souvenirs.

“Dear Chamal, we meet at last.”

A woman dressed in all white stood from the sofa, bent down, A strong vibration woke Chamal from his sleep. and reached for Chamal’s hand. Shyly, Chamal offered his own.

Thinking he was still in the game, he instinctively reached for his helmet, but there was nothing on his head. He opened his The woman’s grip was sturdy and her palm warm.

She motioned for them to sit. eyes and squinted at the bright morning sun coming in through “My name is Yang Juan. You can call me Yang, or Jade. I the porthole-shaped window. Outside were endless rows of understand they call you ‘the ghost,’ Chamal.” sleek jumbo jets.

Chamal blushed as Yang Juan continued speaking.

The plane had arrived at the Shenzhen Bao’an International “I am in charge of ReelX’s Sri Lanka branch. I’ve seen all of Airport. As Chamal and his uncle walked down the jet-bridge your game data. Without doubt, you’re born to be a driver.” and into the terminal, he marveled at all he was seeing. EveryBy now Chamal’s cheeks were burning. thing here was colossal and brand-new; rays of sunlight shone “Well, your uncle told me you might have some questions. through the hexagonal carve-outs on the white ceiling like a I’ll do my best to answer them.” heavy meteor shower, illuminating the travelers hurrying from Chamal bit his lip. What should I say? How can I sound one destination to another. respectful, polite, and dignified, like the way Mother taught Zeng Xinlan, a talkative, cheerful young employee from me? He wanted to choose his words carefully, but he was too ReelX’s Shenzhen headquarters, picked them up at the airport. worn out to think straight. “The tsunami ... it was real.” Words Upon meeting Chamal and Junius, she put her hands together slipped out before he could contain them. “All of this is fake,” and said “Ayubowan,” greeting her Sri Lankan visitors in their Chamal stammered. native language. Junius returned the blessing and Chamal “This isn’t exactly a question, is it?” Yang Juan winked. copied his uncle.

“You’re expecting a certain kind of answer from me. You want They walked to the autonomous vehicle pickup zone together. me to tell you that the game is either real or fake—choose one Almost as soon as they arrived, a white SUV glided into the lane or the other, right?” and came to a stop before them. Its doors swung open. Chamal Chamal’s head began to spin. “Is there a third possibility?” climbed into the spacious back seat with Junius. The cool breeze “Let me ask you first: Do you think the tsunami was real?” of the car’s air-conditioning relieved the stickiness from the “Of course.” humid outside air almost instantaneously.

“Was the tsunami in the game real?”

The car took off. Unlike the cars Chamal was used to, the “That was fake.” engine of the SUV was nearly silent, and the acceleration was “How about the cars?” so smooth that he barely felt anything.

“The landscape seemed real and the course of action they “Most of the roads and vehicles in Shenzhen support L5-level took seemed real, but the cars themselves were fake.” autonomous driving now. With the driver’s seat no longer “Then, do you think you really helped save those cars and exclusive to the driver, not only can we fit more people into a people?” car, but everyone can sit more CHAMAL’S HEART RACED. comfortably as well. Minicars “I—I—” Chamal stuttered. “I don’t know.”

THE SCENE BEFORE HIS reserved for one or two passenYang Juan shrugged, but her expression was EYES WAS UNCANNILY gers are also available.” Zeng sympathetic.

FAMILIAR. IT WAS AN Xinlan smiled. “The smart “But I know you’re lying!” Chamal blurted out.

EXACT REPLICA OF THE control system decides which “If the tsunami happened in Japan, why did you have to tell us it was Singapore? If our actions FINAL SCENE IN THE GAME. available car to send and calcuaffected reality, why did you have to tell us it was a game?” lates the optimal path to take based on the passengers’ location Yang Juan sat silently, letting the question hang in the air. and walking speed, to maximize airport efficiency and reduce Finally, she spoke. “Before I answer, I need to ask you somepassengers’ waiting time. The road we’re on right now is specifithing first. Only answer with yes or no.” Squatting, Yang Juan cally designed to accommodate autonomous vehicles. The smart lowered her body to the ground, so that she could look directly sensors installed along the road communicate in real time with into Chamal’s eyes. the control system on every car and the traffic management “Do you want to go to China?” infrastructure in the cloud, to ensure safety and orderliness.”

“What?” Chamal was taken by surprise.

Chamal thought she sounded a bit robotic, as she recited “Remember, this is a yes or no question.” Yang Juan grinned this explanation. upon seeing the look of astonishment and awkwardness on Junius pressed his face against the window. “Shenzhen the boy’s face. “You are our best driver. A trip to China is the looks so different from the last time I visited!” he exclaimed. bonus reward for your work. I think you’ll find the answer to “You’ve been to Shenzhen before?” asked Chamal, surprised. your question there.”

“Many years ago. I remember seeing a construction team MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 45

神圣车手 working on the first of these ‘smart’ roads—they’re everywhere now!”

“Typical Shenzhen development speed,” Zeng Xinlan said with a grin. “Wait till you see more!”

Chamal stared out the window at the foreign city, dazed.

Skyscrapers extended upward as if they were infinite, their tips disappearing into the clouds. The outer walls of the buildings were made from smooth, shiny material that reflected sunlight, making them seem as if they were wrapped in cloaks of light that changed patterns and design when the sun’s angle shifted.

Shenzhen was pristine and orderly. He couldn’t figure out how this was possible. It was as if millions of invisible puppet strings were hanging from heaven, controlling every road, every car, and every person in this enormous city, weaving them into an all-encompassing web.

But who’s pulling those strings?

“Look!” Zeng Xinlan shouted.

Chamal and Junius looked in the direction her finger was pointing. In the lanes of opposing traffic, the vehicles suddenly parted. One by one the cars glided to the sides of the highway, creating an empty lane in the middle. A faint siren grew louder as an ambulance suddenly sped through the gap in traffic. As soon as it had passed, the cars slid back into their original positions, as if nothing had happened. The entire process took mere seconds, and, apart from the siren, was nearly silent, without so much as a single honk.

“How is this possible?” Chamal was nearly speechless.

“Think about it this way. We humans don’t crash into one another when we run, because our eyes observe, our brains calculate distance, and our legs adjust speed and posture. The same goes for these cars,” said Zeng Xinlan with a shrug. “The sensors, camera lens, and LiDARs are its eyes; the control system is its brain. All of the above are connected to the engine and gears, the car’s legs.”

“Chamal, imagine if this technology were available in Sri Lanka,” muttered Junius. He remembered what had happened to his mother. She could’ve been saved from her heart attack if only the ambulance had been able to get her to the hospital in time. It was not the heart attack that killed her, but the traffic.

A new message alert popped up on the dashboard, and the message was broadcast in flawless standard Mandarin through the speakers.

“Oh, it’s the marathon,” Zeng Xinlan explained.

Before Chamal could press for details, their car changed direction, rerouting toward the nearest off-ramp. In fact, all the cars on the highway seemed to have received the same alert at once: Like a squadron of fighter jets changing formation, the traffic dispersed into new formations as the vehicles headed to the exits.

Chamal was stunned when his gaze landed on Zeng Xinlan, who had assumed the driver’s seat. The autonomous vehicles back home in Sri Lanka, despite how widely they were deployed these days, were unable to shift around with such precision without the aid of human drivers. However, Zeng Xinlan, with her hands off the wheel, was obviously not operating the car.

46 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

“What’s happening now?” asked Chamal.

“Aha! It’s your lucky day. You’re just in time to see the upgraded city traffic system in action. The city’s annual marathon will soon begin, and we’re all being rerouted.”

Chamal stared dazedly at the traffic, trying to digest all that he was seeing and hearing. He felt immersed in a dream world.

Before they visited ReelX’s headquarters, Zeng Xinlan took them to a Cantonese restaurant in Qianhai.

Chamal stuffed his face with the foreign yet delicious cuisine, while Junius stared fixedly out the window.

“What’s so interesting out there?” asked Zeng Xinlan as she picked up a shrimp dumpling and put it down on Junius’s plate.

“Even ... even the horizon has changed,” murmured Junius, bewildered.

“Well, land reclamation is one of Shenzhen’s long-term projects. I heard the same is happening in Sri Lanka?”

Every time Chamal passed by the coastal road in Colombo, he would catch a glimpse of the trailing suction hopper dredgers near the coast of Port City. Those behemoths lifted their long snouts and spat out arcs of mud and sand, which glistened like gold in the sun. All the dredgers came from China; they were helping Sri Lanka with the colossal feat of creating new land and reshaping the sea horizon.

“Sri Lanka, a bright pearl of the maritime silk road,” Zeng Xinlan commented, mocking the tone of Chinese news broadcasters.

Chamal put down his chopsticks. “Are there any cars left for humans, then?” he asked, timidly voicing the question that had been on his mind for hours.

“Not all cars can be switched to manual mode,” said Zeng Xinlan. “We have human drivers, too, but they are limited to human-only roads and they are required to use a complementary AI device while driving. It’s so much more difficult to pass the driver’s license exam these days. No place for hooligans.”

“If that’s the case, why are we needed?” Chamal turned to Junius, gazing directly into his eyes.

Junius and Zeng Xinlan exchanged glances. “Of course you’re important,” replied Zeng Xinlan. She looked at Chamal, her face solemn. “Even the most advanced AI makes mistakes. What if an explosion destroys a road, making it impossible to follow the digital map, or there’s a natural disaster that suddenly creates chaos? This is when people like you come in—a hero to save the day.”

“But I don’t want to be a hero,” Chamal blurted out. “I only want to play games, earn some points, and help out my family.”

Junius evaded Chamal’s gaze.

All of a sudden, Zeng Xinlan let out a giggle and broke the awkward silence. “Look at you two! Like uncle, like nephew.

Chamal, when your uncle first joined our project, he told us the exact same thing! Am I right, Junius?”

Junius, now blushing, poked at his soup with his spoon.

“Wait, you also ... ?” Chamal’s eyes widened.

“He never told you?” Zeng Xinlan shot Junius a surprised look.

Chamal shook his head.

A PIERCING PAIN SHOT DOWN JUNIUS’S LEFT LEG; IT WAS THE FORCE FEEDBACK AT WORK. HE KNEW THAT HIS PHYSICAL BODY WAS UNHARMED. IT WAS SYNESTHESIA.

“I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression,” whispered Junius, finally finding the right words. “I know what other people say behind my back. They think I’ve been helping ReelX do bad things, so the Buddha decided to punish me by crippling my leg.”

Chamal was not a stranger to the gossip, but he had never imagined the truth.

“Your uncle used to be our best driver. Before he retired from the injury, he saved many lives.”

“So you used to be a ghost driver, just like me,” Chamal repeated. “But how can ghosts get injured?”

“This was a decade ago, Chamal. It was an earlier version of the program, a more primitive version,” Uncle Junius said. “There have always been risks, but they are smaller now.”

“That’s why it’s necessary we call the procedure a game,” interjected Zeng Xinlan, her tone serious again. “The human species is far more delicate than machines. A human driver’s reaction time and performance level can be affected by even the most insignificant emotional response.”

“So that’s why Uncle lied to me, telling me that I was only there to play a game,” muttered Chamal. I used to believe that Uncle would never lie to me.

“Chamal,” Junius said, letting out a sigh. “Let me tell you a story.”

would only spin uselessly. With every passing second, hope grew dimmer. He was overwhelmed with guilt and despair. I failed them. His injured leg felt numb now, as if it were no longer a part of his body.

In the end, the military was able to pull drones from other sectors and send out an emergency deployment.

The medical supplies reached the people in need, after all. However, ever since that day, Junius’s leg had been stuck in a limbo between the real and the virtual, as if time had forgotten it, freezing it forever in that moment of pain and regret.

“If we think of it as a game, we’ll feel less pain,” said

A decade ago, Junius was conducting a mission in the Sichuan-Tibet region after a major earthquake. His objective was to transport emergency medical supplies to the trapped victims. The aftershocks were relentless; GPS was failing due to roads blocked by landslides. Ghost drivers were the only option. At first, Junius managed to evade danger, but after an especially powerful aftershock, debris began pouring down the mountain like a deadly rain. Struggling to dodge rocks and mud while maintaining control on the winding road, Junius failed to notice a giant boulder plunging down from his left. It landed on his car hood, smashing the car’s left side into the ground.

A piercing pain shot down Junius’s left leg; it was the force feedback at work. He knew that his physical A B O U T T H body was unharmed. It was synesthesia. A healthy amount of body synesthesia—simulation of real senses through virtual reality— was beneficial to virtual rescue drivers, because it stimulated cognitive capacity and produced adrenaline, enhancing their performance level. However, what constituted “a healthy amount” varied from driver to driver, mission to mission. Upon seeing the disaster-stricken Sichuan-Tibet region, Kai-Fu Lee the CEO of Junius had deliberately pushed the synes- is Sinovation Ventures thesia values up. So many lives depended and New York Times bestselling author of on him; he could not bear the thought of AI Superpowers. Lee was the president of letting them down.

Google China and a With his leg screaming in pain, Junius senior executive at SGI, and tried different ways to get the car moving Microsoft, Apple. He is based again, but it wouldn’t budge; the wheels in Beijing.

E

Chamal, after Junius had finished talking. He could understand where Junius was coming from now, yet there was still one thing he just couldn’t wrap his head around. “But why? Why do we have to endure all this?”

“To make a living, I guess, and save some lives along the way. It’s important to invest in our karma,” said Junius with a self-deprecating smile. “One day we may need saving, too.”

After lunch, they visited ReelX’s headquarters. While they were in the lab, Chamal couldn’t tear his eyes away from the newest force-feedback suit and brainwave-connected helmet displayed in the window. Zeng Xinlan, noticing the boy’s widened eyes, promised him a set of tailor-made equipment—as long as he was willing to stay and complete ReelX’s missions.

Chamal, caressing the graphene fabric that was as light as silk yet as impenetrable as steel, silently mulled over all that he had learned that day.

Indeed, Chamal felt that he’d witnessed the future in one afternoon—although he wasn’t sure whether it was the same future that Junius had mentioned. The future, in his eyes, was foreign, grandiose, and immensely confusing. The autonomous cars and smart roads that he had seen on the trip were only the tip of the iceberg. Chamal used to think that technology was like Father’s car, in which straightforward, countable components like bearings, gears, and cords had been assembled piece by piece, and everything was clear-cut and apparent A U T H O R S to the eye. Now he realized that technology was more like Mother’s favorite sari: The drape was delicate gossamer, embroidered with a variety of patterns, yet when Mother folded it and wrapped it around her body, the sari looked different, like layers of hazy clouds bundled together and solidified into a definite, concrete shape. Q Chen Qiufan (Stanley Chan) is an award-winning author, translator, and producer. He is the president of the World Chinese Science Fiction Association. He lives in Beijing and Shanghai.

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 47

THE INEVITABLE I GLOBAL ECONOMY

IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES/XH4D

ichael Dunne can pinpoint the moment when the Chinese auto industry’s electric vehicle revolution began in earnest, and credit is due the same company that spurred a similar EV awakening in America.

“Ever since Tesla got there in January 2020, we’ve seen an explosion of demand for electric vehicles,” says Dunne, a 30-year Chinese market specialist and the CEO of ZoZo Go, a San Diego–based consultancy that advises automakers and other industries on Asia. “For the first time, here comes a product that really checks all the boxes. It’s aspirational, it’s attractive, it’s high tech, it’s exclusive, and you have affluent, educated urbanites in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and the big cities on the coast saying, ‘Yes, we want one.’”

According to Dunne, it led to a “Tesla effect,” a surge in interest in domestic Chinese automakers who were producing EVs—companies such as Nio, Xpeng, and Li Auto—with similar technology and attractive designs at a slightly lower cost.

48 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

When interest in Tesla spiked, suddenly those companies and others saw sales and stock prices soar.

The numbers from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) bear it out. CAAM estimates sales of new electric vehicles in China (NEVs include plug-in hybrid, all-electric, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) should hit some 3 million units by the end of 2021, more than double the number from 2020. In the first nine months of 2021, that equated to around 11.6 percent of the overall Chinese domestic market.

As for Tesla, while it’s benefited from the initial hype surrounding its vehicles, it also received a fair bit of help getting to its position of EV dominance in China. It garnered substantial assistance from the Chinese government to get its Shanghai facility, known as Tesla Giga Shanghai, off the ground, and it is the only foreign automaker to date that wasn’t forced to partner with a Chinese counterpart.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, Tesla also received the highest subsidies on its vehicles of any NEV automaker in 2020. It’s the type of white-glove treatment foreign automakers have rarely—if ever—received.

But the bulk of such subsidies and incentives (estimates place the aggregate at more than $100 billion thus far) have been reserved for Chinese

domestic automakers and the broader transportation sector as a whole. It’s part of a program commonly known as Made in China 2025, in which the Chinese government actively works with its domestic industries to achieve a dominant position in future technologies—everything from building smart roads to new-generation vehicles and from infrastructure systems to 5G-enabled transportation. It has led to external criticism at times, especially when things start getting too cozy. Take Nio, for example, which recently received a billion-dollar lifeline from a government entity in south central China to help keep its operations afloat.

It’s that type of assistance, paired with the explosion of consumer demand for NEVs, that has executives like He Xiaopeng, the CEO of Xpeng, bullish on the future. Xiaopeng, whose company is considered Tesla’s main rival in China, recently said he believes NEVs could account for as much as 35 percent of the Chinese domestic market by as soon as 2025. “Given the current sales performance, I’m actually more confident about the industry’s NEV penetration rate growth in 2025,” Xiaopeng said at a recent Reuters Events Automotive Summit. If today’s trends hold, Dunne estimates as much as 75 percent of new vehicles sold in the Chinese market could be NEVs in as little as 15 to 20 years.

While Tesla has found itself in a unique position to reap success from this demand, the rest of the world’s automakers have been caught on their back feet and are scrambling to catch up. Volkswagen, which has traditionally been one of the strongest-selling global brands in China, recently launched its ID4 EV to a tepid response thus far.

Many industry insiders also believe General Motors’ recent announcement

IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES/GORODENKOFF PRODUCTIONS OU

HOW CHINA’S AUTOMOTIVE FUTURE WILL DRIVE THE WORLD

WORDS MIKE FLOYD

China. I think China will move ahead in the race for autonomous vehicles, not so much because it’s ahead on the technology front but because it’s quicker to commercialize.”

Xpeng CEO Xiaopeng is aiming even higher—to the skies. At a recent company tech day, he announced the sixth generation of Xpeng subsidiary HT Aero’s flying car, a vehicle designed to autonomously drive on the ground or in the air thanks to flight control algorithm assistance.

“We never make concept cars or cars just for show,” Xiaopeng said at the event. “All the exploration is to bring them to mass production.”

For all of the bold pronouncements and government investment, companies like Xpeng and others still face daunting obstacles to achieve dominance in China—not to mention any hopes of becoming a player on the global stage—as the early success of Tesla has demonstrated.

But just as crucially, pitfalls remain for foreign companies doing business in China. Despite the unprecedented welcome Tesla received, it has run into a spate of bad publicity and in June 2021 was forced to recall all 285,000 vehicles it sold in China to fix a software issue.

Unlike Tesla’s defiant stance with U.S.

regulators over similar issues here, there was no such pushback with Beijing. As others have learned, if you want to play in China, you either play by China’s rules, or you won’t play at all.

China has historically referred to itself as “Zhōngguó,” which roughly translates to “the Middle Kingdom,” a notion that the Chinese are in essence at the center of the world. As it has ascended on the global stage, the country has been forced to reconcile with that sense of self, of how to grow internally and externally amid the geopolitical realities of working with and sometimes against other world powers like the U.S. No matter how China navigates its own future—whether it turns inward or if the Middle Kingdom continues to find a middle ground—what happens there will inevitably help shape how the world moves as it progresses forward. Q

IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES/YAORUSHENG

that it would dramatically accelerate its electrification plans was a realization that it needs to speed things up in China, which accounts for as much as 40 percent of GM’s total sales.

Although the hot EV market is forcing domestic and foreign automakers to react quickly to what the Chinese consumer is demanding in the near term, the development of fully autonomous vehicles (and the artificial intelligence algorithms and software needed to run them) remains a nascent sector in which Chinese companies have largely been playing catch-up.

The stakes are enormous. According to a recent McKinsey study, “Winning the Race: China’s Auto Market Shifts Gears,” autonomous vehicles could make up as much as 40 percent of new vehicle sales in 2040, a number that would potentially make China the world’s largest market for them. As is the case with NEVs, the Chinese are in it to win it.

“Officials at the central government and local levels want success, and they’re going to pave the way on the regulatory front for that to happen quicker rather than slower,” Dunne says.

“So they’re already getting licenses, not only to test [autonomous vehicles] but actually to begin to commercialize them on a limited basis in several cities around

The first assembled Model 3s were delivered a little more than a year after Tesla broke ground on its Shanghai factory in December 2018.

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 49

FIRST DRIVE I PORSCHE MISSION R

N A

A week before Porsche let us behind the wheel of its Mission R race car concept, it mandated we partake in “high-voltage” training via video conference with the company’s engineering team in Germany. The gist of the call: green lights good, red lights bad. If the relevant red lights illuminate inside the cockpit, stay in the seat and wait for help. If you’re outside the car and see red glowing from the roof-mounted module, hang back and don’t touch the Mission R. The exception: If the steering wheel display goes full DEFCON red, stop immediately.

50 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

mobilism.org

ON ORRIS MAC M WORDS TOGRAPHY PHO NDAL DIMAA RENZ

FIRST DRIVE

That red message on the wheel indicates a disastrous battery pack thermal meltdown, so undo your safety harness, get out, and run away, hopefully before the car is reduced to a spectacular multimillion-dollar fireball. Porsche values the Mission R at something like $10 million because this is a one-off concept, and automaker bean counters tend to assign astronomical figures to such things, just as they do to development mules.

Receiving these instructions reminded me of a time more than a decade ago when I took a back-seat ride in an aerobatic plane as part of a Red Bull Air Race promotion. As a stranger strapped a parachute to my body, the pilot said

‘‘

52 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

something like, “This is never going to happen, but if it does and you hear me say, ‘Eject!’ three times, undo your belts, stand up, jump out, wait five seconds, and pull that ripcord. If you’re still in the plane after the third ‘eject,’ don’t look for me, because I won’t be.”

Receiving safety protocols is standard procedure whenever you’re about to drive a race car for the first time. Taking care to avoid coming out looking like fried jerky, however, is for most people a new experience about as familiar as hearing tips on how to best execute a parachute punch-out at 5,000 feet. Likely sooner than later, though, it will be more common in racing series this side of

already-hybridized Formula 1 cars and the all-electric machines campaigned by professional drivers in the Formula E and Extreme E racing categories.

From what Porsche reps told us, you shouldn’t quite expect to see a field of Mission R’s on racetracks any time soon, if even by decade’s end, at least not in this exact form. (More on that in a bit.)

The company’s first intention with the car was to present a compelling vehicle during September’s Munich auto show.

You could say, “Mission R-complished,” if you’ve desired to see an eye-grabbing example of what electrically propelled GT racing might look like. A team of about 30 people—a mixture from the manufacturer’s

This is the spiffiest interior we’ve seen in a race car, with safety solutions such as the “monocoque” seat and integrated carbon rollcage both serving important purposes and looking stylish.

concepts group, styling department, and motorsports division—turned the concept into a running prototype on a relatively short nine-month timeline.

If you’re unfamiliar with GT racing and need a little context here, it’s important to know Porsche is the world’s most prolific supplier of customer race cars, with 30 different one-make (Porscheonly) series operating around the world, in addition to the customer-run teams that campaign various 911 competition models in every big-time global sports car racing series. In the bigger picture, Stuttgart is working with ExxonMobil on “green” fuel (see Frank Markus’ December “Technologue” column), and it plans to be carbon neutral by 2030, with 80 percent or more of its production cars by then featuring some type of electric motor. It naturally has at least one eye on where, when, and how it will plot a

similarly electrified course within the GT motorsports realm that is so important to its identity. And don’t downplay the customer racing business’ contribution of more than a few bucks to Porsche’s bottom line, making the entire enterprise relevant well beyond brand image and on-track wins.

The Mission R is intended to equal the performance of the 992-series 911 GT3 Cup, the car used in the well-known Porsche Supercup and Carrera Cup series. It features 900-volt fast-charging architecture, an 82.0-kWh battery pack, and modularly integrated front and rear motors with single-speed transmissions featuring straight-cut gears (typical in racing) and mechanical differential locks. The front and rear motors thus provide all-wheel drive and are identical; in Qualifying mode, they produce a total output of 1,073 horsepower, whereas Race mode delivers 671 total horsepower.

In Race mode, the front motor produces up to 429 horses, the rear 644. The car is theoretically capable of a best 0–60 time of 2.5 seconds or less and a top speed of 186-plus mph.

More notable is the power unit’s in-house-developed cooling system.

Rather than using a “jacket” wrapped around the motors’ stator that allows cooling fluid to flow through it, the Mission R boasts direct oil cooling of the motors and battery, which Porsche says provides “very high peak and continuous power output levels … in addition to delivering a very high level of efficiency.”

With oil carrying heat away from the stator’s copper windings and the battery’s cells, the system is simply more effective than the jacket solution.

Porsche also says its direct oil-cooling means its “concept battery” located

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 53

FIRST DRIVE I PORSCHE MISSION R

We heard rumblings that the Mission R would appear in an upcoming video game, perhaps Gran Turismo 7, but Porsche says that’s not the case. After driving it, we think the company should reconsider.

54 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

transversely behind the driver can last for 30 to 40 minutes of hard racing without suffering performance degradation. (That duration is in line with a lot of GT racing series’ typical sprint format.)

Thanks to its 900-volt architecture, DC fast chargers can juice the Mission R from 5 to 80 percent state of charge in about 15 minutes, providing drivers just enough time for a bathroom break and a drink before heading out for another session. The peak allowable charging charging rate is 350 kW. What’s it like to drive? Easy, really.

Granted, the Mission R’s top speed was

‘‘

restricted to about 80 mph during our two four-lap stints around the Porsche Experience Center Los Angeles’ 1.3-mile handling circuit, and we were required to follow an instructor-driven 911 Turbo S. But the top-speed restriction was of little consequence, as we only hit the limiter on short straights that would’ve allowed perhaps another 20 mph, give or take, of top end. The lead car drove through the corners with enough pace that we could get a decent feel for the Mission R. The steering is surprisingly light; you might call it delicate, even, but it transmits a useful amount of information about the

DEVELOPMENT BEGAN WITH A 718 CAYMAN, BUT THE CAR EVOLVED INTO A CUSTOM PIECE.

front tires’ behavior. That was crucial on this day, as renowned Porsche development driver and racer Lars Kern told us he dictated a setup for the car—which carries an approximately 40/60 front/ rear weight distribution—with more torque from the front electric motor.

This gave the Mission R understeer-biased handling, just to better the odds none of the journalists allowed to drive it would get into trouble with an edgy rear end, and it explained why we felt the front Michelin slicks sliding a few times as we got on the power. But even with the instant-on torque (something like 740-plus lb-ft) generated by the motors, the pick-up behavior from the “throttle” was predictably, surprisingly linear. So much so, after only a few laps of the tight circuit, we wished we could dial more mojo to the rear end and really let it rip. Put another way, the lack of a steep learning curve or any intimidating dynamic characteristics came as a welcome trait.

Other than the intentional understeer, the Mission R felt alive and eager to respond to commands. Porsche claims a curb weight of 3,300 pounds and change, with the battery pack accounting for approximately 1,100 pounds of that mass.

A larger battery pack might yield more laps between recharges, of course, but it would also carry a further weight penalty.

As it is, this race car changes direction quickly and without drama, and it puts its significant torque to the road easily.

In terms of the chassis, the development team began with a

present-generation 718 Cayman, but by the end of the build the car evolved into a mostly custom piece. With that in mind, it’s impossible to draw any real parallels with an existing production model or to give such a car credit for the concept’s handling characteristics. Indeed, the Mission R uses a combination of 911 RSR and 911 GT3 R suspension parts, along with pieces from the 718 Cayman GT4 and a bespoke rear suspension subframe.

It also features the RSR’s steering wheel because the concept wheel shown on the car in Munich doesn’t function and would’ve required more money and time to make work.

With that RSR wheel in our hands, the Mission R’s composure around the track was notable, getting a bit out of shape only when braking over or accelerating through bumpy sections. However, the accelerator’s linear tuning made a nearly thoughtless enterprise of manipulating power delivery to account for imperfect

Along with the fact the Mission R actually runs, the attention to detail found throughout the car sets it apart from a typical concept vehicle.

sections of road, allowing for a smooth driving line into and out of corners.

The brakes feel remarkably natural, especially when you learn they do the majority of their work through energy regen. We couldn’t feel such an effect, though, nor could we tell when the braking system switched from mechanical braking to regen mode. The pedal feels reasonably firm except for its initial range of slightly squishy travel; it reminded us of some of the load-cell

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 55

braking setups we’ve experienced when using racing simulators. For the record, we never used the stoppers hard enough to experience their feedback during lockup, so we can’t comment on how natural it might or might not feel to control the tires’ rotation at the ragged edge of longitudinal grip. The Mission R features neither antilock brakes nor traction control.

One cool item of note: A driver could change the regen level front to rear on the fly, effectively serving as the brake-balance adjustment commonly seen in all manner of race cars.

Another thing: It’s loud inside this car. Like, stunningly loud, and most of the noise is gear whine from the drive system. Conventional race cars make these types of sounds, too, but usually their engines and exhausts mitigate how obvious it is. Not here. Without ear plugs and helmet, we would’ve gone migraine-mad within minutes. Mind you, this isn’t really a complaint, and after a few laps, you simply feel like you’re driving a race car—you don’t think for long about what type of race car it is.

Were the Mission R essentially silent like some people might expect all EVs to be, we’d sing a different tune in this regard.

What’s the overall “so what,” you ask?

This is where the Mission R’s future gets

a little murky. As Kern and Porsche GT race car boss Matthias Sholz told us, the concept car features many things in addition its steering wheel that probably wouldn’t be put into practice on a real Porsche Motorsport offering. Examples include the integrated carbon-fiber rollcage (FIA GT rules don’t allow for carbon-fiber cages), flashy external lighting solutions, polycarbonate roof panels, and a beautiful interior that’s far nicer than it needs to be in a race car.

On the other hand, customers and drivers would love solutions like the monocoque-style, partially 3-D-printed racing seat—one of the most comfortable we’ve experienced—and the rear wing’s drag-reduction system, along with the concept of featuring OTA updates and real-time trackside data transfer to Porsche Motorsport in Germany. Have a problem with the car? Plug in and see what the factory can help you with.

Regardless, Porsche insisted any future “real” electric GT racing model is likely five or so years away. The company also said it is far more likely to evolve what the Mission R has put in motion here, as opposed to turning up at racetracks with a car that looks like a true rendition of it.

Oh, and Kern and Sholz also insisted this is not the next 718 hiding in plain sight, despite rumors the coming generation of Cayman/Boxster will be electrified.

Then again, Porsche design boss Michael Mauer is quoted in official Mission R media materials as saying the car “is packed to the gills with signs that hint of a future production model.”

Our interpretation of all this: It’ll be no surprise if the next 718 models, whatever their powertrains, share some obvious and strong styling elements with the concept. We also know Porsche isn’t prone to producing GT racing machines that aren’t based on its production cars.

So it seems reasonable to think we’ll look back at this car not too long from now and credit it with being the progenitor, or at least the basic seed, of something—or some things—Porsche offers at the time.

The only thing we know for sure is we’d be thrilled to have a seat in a Mission R, or cars like it, for a race tomorrow. Despite missing the sounds of a high-performance combustion engine and of a multispeed gearbox downshifting in braking zones, our drive of Porsche’s electric concept revealed one thing for sure: Despite all its electric whizbangery, the Mission R was about 100 times less jarring to experience than the thought of jumping out of a plane, pulling a ripcord, and hoping for the best. It’s simply a race car any competitive driver would relish taking to the limit, and it seems Kern at some point will get such an enviable opportunity: Keep an eye out for the Mission R on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Q

Porsche Mission R Concept BASE PRICE

$10,000,000 (est)

LAYOUT

Front- and rear-motor AWD, 1-pass, 2-door race car

MOTORS

2 x 336-536-hp/370-lbft permanent-magnettype electric, 671-1073 hp/740 lb-ft (comb)

TRANSMISSION

1-speed auto

CURB WEIGHT

3,300 lb (mfr)

WHEELBASE

100.8 in

LXWXH

170.3 x 78.3 x 46.9 in

0-60 MPH

2.5 sec (mfr est)

EPA FUEL ECON

Not rated

EPA RANGE (COMB)

30-40 minutes of GT-series racing (est)

ON SALE

No production plans

If the LEDs in the roof module behind the air-flow/ speed-measuring pitot tube are red, that’s bad.

Only high-voltage-trained personnel should approach the car in such instances.

Focus on this code with your smartphone camera to see a video featurette on our Mission R experience.

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 57

>

2008 Tesla enters

A TIMELINE OF MAJOR BRANDS AND THEIR PLANS TO GO ALL-IN ON EVS AND/OR REACH CARBON NEUTRALITY

>

the market as an all-electric automaker.

2021 Rivian enters the

THE INEVITABLE I EMISSIONS TIMELINE

market as an all-electric automaker.

THE EV AND CARBON-NEUTRAL ACCOUNTABILITY INDEX W O R D S G R E G F I N K / M O T O R T R E N D S TA F F

as- and diesel-swilling internal combustion engines are dirty things, which is why automakers are introducing electric vehicles as emission-free alternatives. Admittedly, “emission-free” is a relative term, as the complexity of manufacturing a vehicle—electric or otherwise—is far from the most environmentally friendly process.

Nevertheless, the automotive industry has taken and continues to make steps to lessen the negative environmental impact its processes and products create. Many companies are preparing to ditch the internal combustion engine entirely, while others are committing to a carbon-neutral future to reduce or offset their carbon emissions, which contribute to Earth’s warming environment.

When exactly will the entire automotive industry say goodbye to gas and diesel engines or reach carbon neutrality? It’s difficult to say, as only some brands have “committed” to a timeline for achieving one or both goals. It’s not just the automotive complex that understands the importance of going carbon neutral; practically every major industry is taking similar steps, as evidenced by some of the major non-automotive players included in the timeline here.

With 2021 marking the Polestar 1 PHEV’s final model year, Polestar begins building electric vehicles exclusively.

>

2025 Jaguar becomes an

2027 > 2030 Fiat begins Alfa Romeo aims

all-electric brand.

to sell only electric vehicles in China, Europe, and the U.S.

58 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

>

Lucid enters the market as an all-electric automaker.

>

G

selling only electric vehicles.

2030 Mercedes

> Bentley begins

> Volvo begins

commits to selling EVs exclusively “where market conditions allow.”

selling only electric vehicles.

selling only electric vehicles.

> Mini commits to

> > Apple aims for total Porsche aims for total

selling only electric vehicles in the early 2030s.

carbon neutrality.

carbon neutrality.

2033 > 2035 > 2039 > Mercedes aims Audi pledges to General Motors for total carbon neutrality.

sell only electric vehicles in most markets, excluding China.

pledges to sell only electric vehicles— unless the market demands otherwise.

>

> 2040 Honda intends to sell FedEx plans to replace

Jaguar Land Rover aims for total carbon neutrality.

> General Motors

aims for its global products and operations to be carbon neutral.

its entire gas- and diesel-powered delivery truck fleet with electricpowered models.

only electric vehicles in North America.

> 2050 Amazon aims for total carbon neutrality.

Ford, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and the Volkswagen Group aim for total carbon neutrality.

THE INEVITABLE I THE FUTURE OF DESIGN

WORDS AARON GOLD IMAGES ARTCENTER COLLEGE O F D E S I G N , B R A N D O N L I M , E M I TA N I G U C H I ( S K E T C H E S )

n 2040, multidisciplinary collaboration will give us car designs that serve us better. The Lincoln concept you see here, created by a group of students from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, is the result of an experiment, one that Lincoln and ArtCenter consider a success not because it produced a full-scale concept car, but because it proved a whole new concept about how cars can be designed. Lincolns of 2040 may or may not look like the ArtCenter concept, but the 2040 design process will likely resemble this new approach.

Four teams of ArtCenter students were charged with creating a concept for a 2040 Lincoln. Collaboration between ArtCenter and the car industry is nothing new, but three elements set this project apart: First, the students didn’t just come from ArtCenter’s transportation design program; instead, they included film students, entertainment designers, illustrators, and animators. Second, their brief was to design not just a car but also a short film showing the people who would use it and the world in which it would exist. And third, because of the pandemic, the students would not be able to collaborate in person.

The time frame was one element that didn’t change: The students had just one 14-week term to complete their vehicles and their films. Jay Sanders, executive director of ArtCenter’s Transportation Design Department, explained the genesis of the project.

“This started a few years back when Kemal [Curić, Lincoln’s design director and the driving force behind the project] met with Stewart Reed, chair of [ArtCenter’s] Transportation Design Department, and myself at a show where our graduating students were presenting their work,” he said. “‘We’d like to do a project, but we’d like it to be broader than just transportation design.’”

Curić recalled seeing the work of students from disciplines outside the department. “I was impressed at how far they stretched,” he said. “It was outside the normal automotive design world. We started thinking, ‘What if we put all of these departments together? What would the result be?’”

The result was a brand-new design process. “Everything was online, and the deliverable was a video,” transportation design professor Allen Pinkerton said. “In the past, the students would have made a clay model, but now the focus was to bring in students from film and illustration to help create these videos in addition to the

I

NEW

LINCOLN AND ARTCENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN ARE TAKING A FRESH APPROACH TO IMAGINING CARS

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 61

Interior design student Xiaoyu “Shawn” Zhang, ArtCenter’s Jay Sanders, and Lincoln design director Kemal Curić with Team Anniversary’s winning concept.

actual design of the car. Very different from just creating a car, this project was very much about people and their personal life experiences.”

Fellow professor Marek Djordjevic explained the potential of this new method of working. “What’s the story you’re going to tell with this design? That’s how you need to approach this project,” he said. “Because every piece of design speaks, communicates. You’re embodying messages in that design, and you need to be clear about what those messages are.

“Students come in saying, ‘I know what kind of a car I want to do,’ but to be a truly effective and successful designer, you have to know who you’re designing for,” he continued. “Getting the students to understand that, to get into the shoes of their customer, their wants and needs, both practical and emotional, calls for a great deal of empathy. One of the highest virtues a designer can have is a sense of empathy.”

Xiaoyu “Shawn” Zhang, the student in charge of interior design for Team Anniversary, talked about how this project differed for him. “If I’m only paired with an exterior designer,” he said, “we spend more time on the vehicle itself. But the involvement of filmmakers and illustration artists really forced us to think about the concept, the story, and especially the user. How will they use this vehicle? How can we make a strong and romantic story that’s matched to Lincoln’s brand values? It made us think about that user in everything we designed.”

Team Anniversary’s exterior designer, Emi Taniguchi,

further explained the process. “We started with the keywords Lincoln gave to us,” Taniguchi said. Using Lincoln’s Quiet Flight design buzzwords like “beauty,” “human,” “gliding,” and “sanctuary,” the team “came up with the concept of turning digital life into a physical experience with unique sensorial experiences.”

Team Anniversary imagined a couple setting off on an anniversary road trip, their Lincoln accessing their social media feeds to take them on a guided tour of their past.

“The vehicle needs to bring the outside into the inside to stimulate memories,” Taniguchi said. “How can we do that without making them uncomfortable?” The answer was a series of movable gill-like vents that let outside air into the car but not rain or blowing sand. “They feel the same air, smell the same smells, hear the same sounds as when they were at that same place, years ago.”

Team Anniversary’s movie is beautifully rendered and surprisingly emotional, as are the other students’ films.

Team Amongst the Stars showed a family on vacation, their Lincoln prompting them with information about their surroundings as the young daughter, an aspiring astronaut, learns her way around the constellations through projections on the car’s glass roof. Team Ensemble illustrated the gathering of six musicians on their way to a concert, their autonomous Lincoln serving as a quiet retreat as it rolls through the streets of a future Manhattan.

Perhaps the most emotionally charged film was that of Team Now You Drive, which shows a Lincoln designer flashing back to his youth, when his father would take him for rides in his classic Lincoln convertible—until disability renders Dad unable to use the pedals. “Hey, Dad? Now what?” the son asks. Dad says, “Now you drive.” Back in future-present, the designer shows up to his father’s house with a new Lincoln equipped with semi-autonomous functionality that allows his father to take the wheel again. “Hey, Dad,” the son says, “now you drive.”

That film “was one of my favorites,” Pinkerton said.

“It really drove home the story between a child and his father. Sometimes it’s difficult, as a designer, to come up with a new idea or concept or inspiration when you’re just drawing four wheels and some shapes. The films and illustrations were really driving a lot of the concepts, which

Team Anniversary designed its concept around an experience—specifically, a couple revisiting the places they went early in their relationship, and how the car could heighten the memories.

was helping the designers in their path, helping them bring it all together.”

Team Anniversary’s job was complicated not just by the pandemic but also by exterior designer Taniguchi living in Japan while the rest of her team was in L.A. “It was far less challenging than we were expecting,” Zhang said. “We are able to communicate design without sitting face to face, and that saved us time. We don’t have to drive to one spot and wait for someone to arrive before starting the conversation. We can just do a Zoom meeting at 3 a.m. Trust me, that happened a lot.”

At the end of the term, the teams presented to a group from Ford and Lincoln, including design director Curić, Lincoln president Joy Falotico, marketing and sales director Michael Sprague, and Ford CEO

Jim Farley. Team Anniversary’s concept was chosen to be built as a full-scale model.

“It was an emotional decision,” Curić said. “[Anniversary] was just a beautiful story. You go into a restaurant, you might not remember the food, but you will always remember the experience, the way it made you feel. That’s the same with Team Anniversary’s vehicle. That experience was so incredible. We all felt it went beyond the aesthetics of the vehicle; there was a really emotional connection.”

Karen Hofmann, ArtCenter’s provost, sees the project as a turning point in how the school teaches design. “The approach, multiple disciplines, the ability to work digitally, the narratives, how they weaved stories around their projects—this is a benchmark, where it is all about the human narrative first and then the experience and the product to follow,” she said. “This project has gone to the next level, and it’s something I’ll certainly hold as one of the silver linings of the pandemic.”

“When I’m designing a car,” Zhang said, “I talk about the form, how to make the car beautiful, how to make the use of space more sophisticated. This process really made us talk about the user. We are designing a lifestyle unique to Lincoln, and vision drives us instead of the traditional process, where the physical appearance drives us. This was an eye-opening experience that really changed my design process.”

Djordjevic is still amazed with how quickly it all came together. “Fourteen weeks, it’s still hard for me to believe that,” he said. “This is one of the most ambitious endeavors we’ve had students undertake.” Said his colleague Pinkerton: “I was blown away. It was one of the highlights of my teaching career.” Q

Team Anniversary wanted to find a way to bring the outside environment into the car. Movable gills enable occupants to hear and smell the outdoors but still keep rain, blowing sand, or other undesireable elements outside.

NEW SCHOOL

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 63

COMPARISON TEST 2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring vs.

2022 Mercedes-EQ EQS 580 4Matic WORDS CONNER GOLDEN PHOTOGRAPHY DARREN MARTIN

THE HOTTEST NEW TESLA-BAITING LUXURY SUPER SLEDS GO HEAD TO HEAD TO DETERMINE THE BEST OVERALL EV PACKAGE

HOW DID THE EQS DO IN OUR CLOSED-COURSE TESTING? PEEP THIS CODE TO FIND OUT.

READ OUR INSTRUMENTED TEST REPORT ON THE LUCID AIR BY HITTING THIS QR CODE.

COMPARISON TEST 2022 LUCID AIR GRAND TOURING VS. 2022 MERCEDES-EQ EQS 580 4MATIC

egardless of whether you plug in or pump up, let’s collectively revel in just how far this industry has come in a scant five years. It’s not outlandish to say the pace of innovation from 2016 through late 2021 easily outstripped gains made between 2005 and 2015. Moore’s Law? Never heard of him—and furthermore, he sounds like a punk. We’d pay good crypto for a glimpse at our own faces if we warped this duo back to 2016’s MotorTrend office and gave each of our past selves a scoot.

Speaking of 2016, that was an auspicious year for both parties involved here.

Atieva rebranded itself as Lucid Motors that October, which quickly followed by breaking ground on a $700 million production facility in Arizona. A continent away at the 2016 Paris show, MercedesBenz revealed its Generation EQ concept SUV, an electric study that would soon evolve into the production EQC and launch the titular Mercedes EQ subbrand.

R

66 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

This brings us neatly to the EQS. Thanks to model hierarchy developed over, oh, just about half a century, it doesn’t take much critical thinking to suss out the EQS’ place in the greater Mercedes sphere. It’s right there in its alphanumeric name—third letter from the left. Yes, it’s best to think of the EQS as the S-Class of EVs, both spiritually and dimensionally.

Those are big wheels to fill; what the S-Class represents for Mercedes, the automotive industry, and the buying public could fill enough pages to choke a Unimog, so it’s safe to say our expectations for Benz’s icon-adjacent EV were sky-high.

We can’t say the same for the 2022 MotorTrend Car of the Year–winning Lucid Air. Prior to our first cruise in it at Car of the Year, our exposure to the nascent automaker was limited to what we’ve seen and heard at auto shows and what senior features editor Jonny Lieberman wrote in our world-exclusive first drive of the car just a few months before (MT, December 2021). Despite a successful IPO, multiple showroom “studios,” and a semi-tangible production model, many of us had no idea what to expect from an EV startup with a C-suite roster populated by the Tesla Model S’ former chief engineer and Mazda North America’s ex–director of design.

We certainly didn’t expect the Air. Born from the snowy-white page of a ground-up, clean-sheet design, Lucid’s first outing is an engineering and aesthetic powerhouse, incorporating incredible electric drivetrain technology we’ve yet to see from a major automaker, including Tesla.

So consider this faceoff a meeting between Old World 2.0 and New World 1.0. Check your expectations at the valet, as there’s quite a bit to extrapolate from this pairing. If you’re one of those enthusiasts who fears the looming ubiquity of the electric experience, wait until you get a load of

the disparity in both form and function between these two cars.

Let’s start with the Merc’s aesthetics.

Quite the lozenge, isn’t it? The EQS is rolling proof those with the reins at Mercedes are guiding us subtly toward the interaction-free pod transportation model many of us DIY drivers fear and public transportation/infrastructure enthusiasts dream of. Forget the future-forward Model S; by appearance, the EQS is the closest thing to a driverless car we’ve seen thus far. With its aggressively anodyne styling by way of Beluga whale and a garish nu-tech light-up grille, you’re almost surprised to find a steering wheel and a set of pedals when you slide inside.

We’re still coming to terms with the idea that luxury today means screens— and lots of them—so the EQS’ displayloaded space was a bit of a shock. In place of the familiar iPad-duct-tapedto-console aesthetic we’ve come to know and tolerate, this is the debut platform for Mercedes’ wild Hyperscreen. That

impressively named bit of infotainment tech refers to a full-dash panel carrying a pair of 12.3-inch displays, with one sitting in front of the driver and a touchscreen unit plastered ahead of your lucky front passenger. Between those two, a center 17.7-inch touchscreen dominates the dash’s main portion, offering the full treatment of entertainment, climate, and comfort controls for both driver and passenger.

The rest of the cabin is relatively straightforward and familiar, though if we hold fast to the idea of this serving as the S-Class of EVs, the interior is the largest MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 67

disconnect. There’s plenty of limo-esque legroom, but thanks to battery packaging and overall odd proportions creating a high floor, rear passengers have a tall knee angle that could prove uncomfortable. Still, both the front and back seats are large and very comfortable, lending a loungelike feel to the whole experience.

Finish, fitment, and quality is typical Mercedes perfection, but materials are good, not great. There’s a marked use of plastic where its traditional gas-powered analogue uses metal. Whether it’s the result of weight savings or a move to amortize the inherently high cost of

developing this new platform, it feels insubstantial and noticeably cheaper to interact with than the new S-Class. Add to this poor visibility, a high front cowl, acres of LED accent lighting, and the slab of infotainment screen, and this is one of the most inelegantly presented non-AMG Mercedes we’ve interacted with in some time. As more than one of our staffers noted, if this is supposed to be the S-Class of electric vehicles, it’s simply not there yet. The car lacks the solidity and quality feeling the S 580 has; there’s something toyish, almost cheap about it.

Hokey, even.

Mercedes bills the EQS as the S-Class of electrics, but we found some materials lacking.

68 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

We’ll say this: Those who enjoy Mercedes’ modern LED-washed cockpits will be very much at home here, so it’s obvious real-world reactions to the EQS will be measured by personal taste.

Things are different with the 2022 Lucid Air, a common theme. Although it’s not a

COMPARISON TEST

future contender for a concours win on design alone, the Lucid presents itself as simultaneously simplistic and complex.

Lieberman nailed it in his first drive, describing the Air as “a Citroën DS redesigned for Blade Runner.” It’s subtle, without a whiff of boring, all with a heaping side order of “the future,” whatever that means. The metal-colored roof is elegant, as is the truly stunning amount of glass used in the structure; the whole package is so sculptural, it feels somewhat inappropriate to park the Air anywhere

other than the driveway lawn of an ultramodern travertine art cave.

Ah, now this is how you do a nextgeneration interior. Screens are here, of course, but in place of the EQS’ max-attack hyper-billboard, you have a simple floating display cluster ahead of the driver. The standard infotainment screen is mounted on the dashtop, and another large screen takes up space where the transmission tunnel would be and handles vehicle, climate, and comfort controls. In contrast to the EQS’ corporate switchgear, what few hard buttons there are in the Lucid appear entirely bespoke;

we’ll give a particular shoutout to the sharp, finned scroll wheels mounted on either side of the steering wheel that operate infotainment and driver display functions, respectively.

The glass roof is particularly trick from the inside, with a nearly unbroken sweep of windshield from the hood to the center of the roof, where it meets a structural “T” junction. Compared to the cushy, cloistered VIP room vibe of the Mercedes, the Lucid is, well, airy. There is so much shoulder and legroom, with excellent visibility. Finish and attention to detail is stellar, even compared to cars carrying a

Lucid doesn’t offer a “black and tan” interior; instead it has proper color schemes like “Tahoe.”

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 69

COMPARISON TEST 2022 LUCID AIR GRAND TOURING VS. 2022 MERCEDES-EQ EQS 580 4MATIC

similarly hefty price tag; little touches like the individual chrome letters in the horn cap, frosted metal surfaces, and premium leather and stitching in unexpected places all add up. Our favorite bit of finery, which is likely to go unnoticed, is the stitched pull-loop for the underfloor storage area in the trunk. Stowing groceries never felt so classy.

Things continue to diverge on the performance and drivetrain front, but each for its own purpose. The EQS 580 4Matic shuttles silently via dual motors— one front, one rear—fed by a battery with 108 kWh of usable power, offering a stellar combined 516 hp and 631 lb-ft of torque. These twin spinners have more than 5,800 pounds to scuttle, but there’s enough shimmy between them to slingshot the EQS 580 from 0 to 60 mph in

70 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

3.7 seconds and down the quarter mile in 12.2 seconds. It’s no Tesla Model S Plaid, but who gives a hoot? This is more speed than anyone remotely interested in the type of drive the EQS offers will ever need.

If the Mercedes is a Germanic bullet train, the Lucid is the Concorde. In the as-tested Grand Touring trim, it has a twin-motor setup like the Mercedes’, only with 800 hp and 885 lb-ft from its 113-kWh battery pack. This predictably leads to a low, low 0–60 time of 3.0 seconds and a quarter-mile run in 10.8.

Again, neither of these large luxo sleds is a sport sedan, so any time quicker than 5.0 seconds is just icing.

Well, at least, neither is supposed to be a sport sedan, but both possess a backroad hustle that belies their significant mass. The Mercedes is the less athletic of the two, but that’s all right; hummingbirdquick steering and rear-wheel steering meant the big bubba changed direction easier than you might expect. Grip from the standard all-season tires was OK—again, not especially important for a big luxury sedan—but body composure and ride quality over any surface was spectacular. It wasn’t quite as marshmallow soft as a Bentley or Rolls-Royce would be, but if you plopped us blindfolded in those plush back seats and took us for a ride, we’d emphatically

believe we were cocooned in some sort of next-generation Mercedes-Maybach.

On the all-important subject of driving range, it’s a total bloodbath. The most careful EQS 580 drivers will manage a strong 350 miles before plugging in, a figure that pales in comparison to the Air Grand Touring’s record-setting EPA-certified 516-mile capability. You don’t have to spring for a bigger battery, either; all Air Grand Tourings come packed with this capacity, and even the wheeziest, weakest of the Lucid lineup covers a stonkin’ 406 miles between charges.

When we weren’t floating on Cloud EQ, we did our best to drain the battery as quickly as possible, which meant exploring the depth of the stupefyingly long throttle pedal. As we said, acceleration is fab for the intended purpose, though the school-bus dimensions go a long way in considerably damping the sensation of speed. The brakes, on the other hand,

were jarring. The EQS has two levels of regenerative braking: The Normal drive mode delivers reduced off-throttle resistance, allowing the driver to mete out the desired level of braking through the brake pedal, the first third of which is obviously a lever for pure regen.

Toggling the one-pedal drive mode physically sucks the brake pedal down to its mechanical brake setting, siphoning off the pedal’s regen portion for the familiar off-throttle resistance mode. So when you hit the brake in one-pedal form, you’re getting just the standard discs. Weird, but OK. Adapting to one-pedal mode was intuitive, and most of us floated around the test loop with the mechanical brakes left almost untouched.

Ever the foil to the EQS’ couchlike character, the Lucid proved quite capable as an off-season sport sedan.

Skinny tires and a 5,266-pound bulk meant it would never be a BMW M5, but it pulled a phenomenal impression of an electric M550i. Like the Mercedes’ Eco, Sport, Comfort, and Individual drive modes, the Air’s fancifully named Smooth, Swift, and Sprint unlocked different levels of performance, with Sprint uncorking the full 800 hp.

The car’s mass mutes some of its accelerative pressure, but not by much.

There’s surely a day somewhere on the horizon when electric insta-torque won’t shock us silly, but we’re still starstruck for the moment. The Lucid’s forward pace in Sprint feels every bit as supercar as the test numbers suggest, contrasted perfectly by the mega-plush ride and excellent massaging seats just a screen tap away. We’re not so much floored by how light the Lucid is on its wheels as we are with how nicely it manages the bulk.

In some ways, it feels much how we’d imagine Bentley’s first electrified Flying Spur Speed might feel on the charge. A forward charge, that is.

When we weren’t pancaking our faces on entry ramps, a few miles spent calmly cruising impressed with the adaptive air suspension absorbing lumps, bumps, and humps with the viscosity of hot caramel. The Air’s dual regen modes were a bit too aggressive even when toggled for the least resistance, but on-throttle coasting offered close to the same pillowy roll as the Mercedes.

See? Our electric future is more than just a single shade of blue. You’ll find more differences between the 2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring and the 2022 Mercedes-EQ EQS 580 4Matic than you would in an S-Class and BMW 7 Series faceoff. There’s enough variance between the two that picking a winner was almost as easy as it is getting comfortable in these leather-wrapped railguns.

Second place falls to the EQS. As a sublimely cosseting sensory deprivation tank on wheels, it excels. It’s when you read between the stitching that it falls apart a bit, particularly on value, amenities, styling, and materials. The S-Class of EVs, it is not. Ignoring the sheer size, it feels a bit more adjacent to a CLS or even a standard E-Class than Mercedes’ Grand Poobah gasolinepowered sedan.

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 71

COMPARISON TEST

2022 LUCID AIR GRAND TOURING

POWERTRAIN/CHASSIS

Front- and rear-motor, AWD Permanent-magnet-type electric 800 hp 885 lb-ft 6.6 lb/hp 1-speed automatic 7.00:1 Multilink, coil springs, adj shocks, anti-roll bar; multilink, coil springs, adj shocks, anti-roll bar 13.0:1 2.1 14.9-in vented disc; 14.7-in vented disc 8.5 x 21-in; 9.5 x 21-in, cast aluminum 245/35R21 99Y; 265/35R21 103Y Pirelli P Zero LM1 Elect

2022 MERCEDES-EQ EQS 580 4MATIC SPECS DRIVETRAIN LAYOUT MOTOR TYPE POWER (SAE NET) TORQUE (SAE NET) WEIGHT TO POWER TRANSMISSION AXLE/FINAL DRIVE RATIO SUSPENSION, FRONT; REAR STEERING RATIO TURNS LOCK TO LOCK BRAKES, F; R

WHEELS TIRES

Front- and rear-motor, AWD Permanent-magnet-type electric 516 hp 631 lb-ft 11.3 lb/hp 1-speed automatic 9.72:1 (front)/9.64 (rear) Multilink, air springs, adj shocks, anti-roll bar; multilink, air springs, adj shocks, anti-roll 13.8:1 2.0 14.9-in vented disc; 14.9-in vented disc 9.5 x 22-in cast aluminum 265/35R22 102H Pirelli P Zero MO-S Elect

Of course, this makes the Air our winner. It doesn’t so much feel like EV 2.0 as it does Car 3.0, replete with cuttingedge tech, effortless elegance, and supreme attention to detail. It presents one of the biggest threats to both legacy automakers and Tesla; we’re excited to see how the Lucid Air changes the game, and we’re even more excited to see what the company’s second effort looks like. Q

2ND PLACE 2022 MERCEDES-EQ EQS 580 4MATIC PROS • Extraordinarily comfortable • Wonderful fit and finish • If you like screens, this is the car for you

DIMENSIONS

116.5 in 65.7/65.5 in 195.8 x 76.2 x 55.6 in 39.3 ft 5,266 lb (50/50%) 5 39.5/38.3 in 45.4/35.8 in 58.2/54.5 in 10.0 (frunk); 22.1 (trunk) cu ft

WHEELBASE TRACK, F/R LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT TURNING CIRCLE CURB WEIGHT (DIST F/R) SEATING CAPACITY HEADROOM, F/R LEGROOM, F/R SHOULDER ROOM, F/R CARGO VOLUME

126.4 in 65.6/66.2 in 207.3 x 75.8 x 59.6 in 35.8 ft 5,822 lb (50/50%) 5 40.4/37.0 in 41.7/39.1 in 59.5/57.3 in 22.0 cu ft

CONS • Styling isn’t for everyone • Rear knee angle is a smidge too high • Not quite the S-Class of EVs VERDICT It rides on a pile of quintuple-ply tissue and is loaded with amenities, but the EQS doesn’t come off as being the best Mercedes can do.

TEST DATA ACCELERATION TO MPH

1.3 sec 1.8 2.4 3.0 3.7 4.4 5.2 6.2 1.2 10.8 sec @ 130.1 mph 115 ft 0.91 g (avg) 24.6 sec @ 0.83 g (avg) 5,250 rpm (fr), 5,150 rpm (rr)

0-30 0-40 0-50 0-60 0-70 0-80 0-90 0-100 PASSING, 45-65 MPH QUARTER MILE BRAKING, 60-0 MPH LATERAL ACCELERATION

MT FIGURE EIGHT TOP-GEAR REVS @ 60 MPH

1.6 sec 2.1 2.8 3.7 4.8 6.1 7.5 9.3 1.8 12.2 sec @ 113.3 mph 115 ft 0.88 g (avg) 25.2 sec @ 0.76 g (avg) 6,950 rpm (fr), 6,900 rpm (rr)

CONSUMER INFO

$139,000 $139,000 8: Dual front, front side, f/r curtain, front knee 4 years/50,000 miles

BASE PRICE PRICE AS TESTED

$119,110 $125,310

10: Dual front, f/r side, f/r curtain, driver knee, rear belt BASIC WARRANTY 5 years/60,000 miles 5 years/60,000 miles, POWERTRAIN WARRANTY 8 years/100,000 miles 8 years/80,000 miles (battery) ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE 4 years/50,000 miles 5 years/60,000 miles BATTERY CAPACITY 108 kWh Li-Ion 113 kWh Li-Ion 121/122/121 mpg-e EPA CITY/HWY/COMB ECON Not yet rated EPA RANGE (COMB) 350 miles 469 miles 240-volt electricity, 240-volt electricity, FUEL 480-volt electricity 480-volt electricity ON SALE Now Now AIRBAGS

1ST PLACE 2022 LUCID AIR GRAND TOURING PROS • A revolutionary next step in the automotive timeline • Effortlessly elegant design • Incredible 516-mile range CONS • Production quality not quite dialed in yet.

• Some features, such as the door handles, are needlessly frustrating VERDICT Style, luxury, speed, and world-owning range make the Lucid Air virtually unbeatable right now.

There’s a reason it won our 2022 Car of the Year award.

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UPDATES ON OUR LONG-TERM FLEET

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ARRIVAL: 2021 Nissan Rogue SV AWD EPA City/Hwy/Comb Fuel Econ 25/32/28 mpg “The Nissan Rogue makes a solid first impression, but is it really as good as we think it is?” Kelly Lin Base Price $30,090 As Tested $33,530 any of Nissan’s SUVs rank midpack or lower in our buyer’s guide segments, but that’s not the case with the Rogue, one of our favorite compact SUVs. Fresh off a full redesign, the Rogue advanced to the finalist round of our 2021 SUV of the Year competition thanks to its practical, spacious cabin and solid road manners. It also won a comparison test against the hot-selling Toyota RAV4.

We’ve spent our fair share of time in the Rogue, but we’ve yet to live with it through the seasons. Now that we have one in our long-term test fleet, however, we’ll learn about its reliability, maintenance costs, and competence as a daily driver. Will the Rogue lose its luster after a year?

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74 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

Previous 2021 Rogues we’ve spent a lot of time in have been top-grade Platinum models, but this time around we’re driving a less expensive version, choosing instead to hop behind the wheel of the Rogue SV, just one step up from the base model. The SV is the volume player in the lineup; buyers have flocked to its sub-$29,000 starting price compared to more than $37,000 for the Platinum.

Despite falling lower on the trim ladder, the SV still comes standard with a full suite of safety equipment, including blind-spot warning, rear crosstraffic alert, rear automatic braking, and automatic high-beams.

So far, we’ve enjoyed the Rogue SV’s standard

360-degree camera system.

ProPilot Assist, Nissan’s semiautonomous driving system, also comes in handy. ProPilot Assist combines adaptive cruise control with lane centering; essentially, it helps you with accelerating, braking, and steering within a single lane on the highway.

Front and center inside the cabin, an 8.0-inch screen offers both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. You won’t encounter quilted leather seats like you would on the Platinum, but our test SUV features soft faux leather, part

of the SV Premium package.

This $2,660 package also adds heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, a panoramic moonroof, and a power liftgate. After tacking on more extras, including AWD,

VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door SUV ENGINE 2.5L direct-injected DOHC 16-valve I-4 POWER (SAE NET) 181 hp @ 6,000 rpm TORQUE (SAE NET) 181 lb-ft @ 3,600 rpm TRANSMISSION Cont variable auto CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 3,571 lb (58/42%) 0-60 MPH 8.4 sec QUARTER MILE 16.5 sec @ 85.8 mph BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 120 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 0.84 g (avg) MT FIGURE EIGHT 27.8 sec @ 0.60 g (avg) HEIGHT 66.5”

106.5” 183.0”

72.4”

KIA SELTOS

NISSAN SENTRA

KIA SORENTO

LAND ROVER DEFENDER

VERDICT MAZDA CX-30

RAM 1500 TRX

RAM 2500 HD

TOYOTA GR SUPRA

MERCEDES-BENZ E 450

MERCEDES-BENZ GLE 450

ARRIVAL NISSAN ROGUE

TOYOTA MIRAI UPDATE

TOYOTA VENZA

VOLVO XC40

2020 BMW X7 Service Life 8 mo/11,698 miles Average Fuel Econ 17.2 mpg “A long drive up the West Coast reveals where the X7 stands out—and falls flat.”

William Walker floormats, and premium Scarlet Ember paint, our SUV rang out to $33,530.

So what’s under the hood?

The 2021 Nissan Rogue comes standard with a 2.5-liter four-cylinder and a CVT automatic. At 181 horsepower and 181 lb-ft of torque, output is less than thrilling. We’ve complained in previous reviews about this engine’s slow power delivery, though we haven’t had much trouble so far merging with traffic in our SV. We’ll soon learn if the Rogue’s powertrain is something we can live with in the long term.

A similar dearth of power didn't doom our 2014 Rogue long-termer, however. After driving that previous-gen model for a year, we found it worthy of recommendation, “in a heartbeat.” Although that Rogue wasn’t quick and maintenance costs

were higher than many competitors, it excelled at hauling people and cargo.

Of course, the automotive landscape has changed since then. Today’s Rogue is a big improvement from previous iterations, especially in terms of interior and tech offerings, but others in the segment have made major strides, too.

Some things I’m eager to find out: Will the Rogue haul all my family’s baby gear?

Is the touchscreen reliable?

How will maintenance costs compare to our previous longterm Rogue?

So far, the Rogue has done its job. I already appreciate the extra cargo space it provides compared to my previous long-term vehicle, the Hyundai Sonata midsize sedan, the verdict for which is forthcoming. Stay tuned as we explore all the Nissan Rogue has to offer.

Unresolved problems None Maintenance cost $0 Normal wear $0 Base price $74,895 As tested $96,895 EPA City/Hwy/Comb fuel econ 20/25/22 mpg

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here is no better way to kindle the flames of love or stoke the fires of hate toward a vehicle than by hitting the open road.

Most of my family lives in the Pacific Northwest, about a 1,200mile drive from our home in L.A. On a recent trip, we drove countless hours on the freeway, on damp and twisty mountain and coastal roads, and in the scorching heat in the lowlands. We ate meals, took naps, and chauffeured family to fancy restaurants in the X7. Here’s what I learned.

The X7’s Coffee Merino leather seats look good and are also unbelievably comfortable. Overall, the interior is very well executed.

Although aesthetics and roadtrip functionality aren’t the same thing, riding in a beautiful, comfortable, luxurious cabin can make endless hours on the highway a little more enjoyable.

Although the trip’s main objective was to visit family, my wife and I planned an additional few days in Bend, Oregon. With the rear cargo area chock-full of toys for my three nephews, we attached our trusty Thule bike rack to the X7’s tow hitch and loaded up our two-wheelers.

Unfortunately, the rack renders the backup camera and sensors useless, but the X7’s split rear hatch’s upper portion is short enough to open and allow access

to the rear cargo area with the bikes mounted.

The X7’s air vent layout, however, left me wanting. We saw temperatures as high as 114 degrees, and although the A/C blew as cold as you would expect in most modern cars, the front passenger compartment only has four “dash-level” vents, two for each side. This is fine when you’re driving solo—or when it isn’t 114 degrees outside—but we would’ve appreciated an extra vent or two.

The heated and ventilated seats are also lackluster. I like heated seats that make you sweat and ventilation that makes you feel like you’re sitting on an air hockey table. I enjoy that the heated portion also includes the armrests, but you have to turn the temperature gauge up to its max to feel anything.

My final complaint is about the cut-glass shifter. It’s very classy. It also acts like a prism during parts of the day and throws a spectrum of colored light around the cabin.

I resorted to putting a hat over it when the sun was in an unfavorable position, lest I be blinded.

This is obviously one of those form over function features, but maybe the cut of the glass could have been adjusted to counteract this?

Or maybe BMW should offer a velvet booty to slip over the shifter when you drive at certain times of the day, like when the sun’s out.

MARCH 2022 THE INEVITABLE 75

MT GARAGE

2021 Toyota Mirai

2021 Honda Odyssey

Service Life 5 mo/5,896 miles Average Fuel Econ 66.0 mpg-e

Service Life 6 mo/9,815 miles Average Fuel Econ 20.7 mpg

“A bad week for hydrogen shows just how fragile the infrastructure can be.”

“Our staff road warrior finds many things to love in our long-term Odyssey.” Ed Loh

Aaron Gold Unresolved problems None Maintenance cost $0 Normal wear $0 Base price $50,495 As tested $52,330 EPA City/Hwy/Comb fuel econ 76/71/74 mpg-e

Unresolved problems None Maintenance cost $92.52 (oil change, inspection, tire rotation) Normal wear $0 Base price $39,635 As tested $39,635 EPA City/Hwy/Comb fuel econ 19/28/22 mpg

t’s been a difficult month with our Mirai—not because of the car, which remains comfortable and reliable, but because of the hydrogen fueling infrastructure. The network is still being developed, and more hydrogen-powered cars are pouring onto California roads every day. That all finally came to a head.

It started when several of the nearby stations went offline.

No problem—we start thinking about fueling when the car is down to 100 miles range so we have a comfortable cushion.

But this week, there were problems with most of the stations in our corner of Los Angeles. That meant more cars descending upon the stations that were working, which in turn caused those stations to either run out of fuel or drop from exhaustion. With heavy usage, the stations don’t have time to repressurize. They simply can’t cope with such high demand.

Our range dwindled, but the stations weren’t coming back online. With a plane trip coming up and 41 miles of range remaining, we had to park the Mirai and find an alternate way to the airport, hoping the situation would be better upon our return three days later—but it wasn’t. All of the nearby stations were still having problems.

Late that evening we ventured to a station 10 miles away, knowing it shut down promptly at 10 p.m. but not knowing there’d be six cars lined up ahead of us. We didn’t stand a chance. We drove back home, having wasted 20 miles of precious range.

Now we were in a pickle: We didn’t have enough fuel for our usual Plan B, the pipeline-fed Shell station 30 miles away in Torrance, which never runs out of fuel. No matter; the station was having pressurization problems due to big demand, so we would’ve had to move on to Plan C anyway. We kept our eyes glued to the station-status app, and when the nearby Studio City station popped online again, we zipped over and lined up.

It took more than an hour and three attempts, but we eventually got a full tank.

We talked to True Zero, which owns most of the stations we use.

It’s still perfecting the equipment, and with more Mirais and Hyundai Nexos hitting the road, True Zero is struggling to keep up with demand.

We know hydrogen-powered cars like the Mirai are still considered cutting edge; we just didn’t expect the cuts to hurt quite so much.

round the office, photo department manager and MT veteran Brian Vance has been anointed (perhaps by himself) KOTH—King of the Highway. The regal moniker is appropriate; he’s not only been one of our lead road warriors, shooting photos, scouting locations, and generally providing logistical support for our content creation, but he also spends much of his personal time on the road in search of fun.

When I took the keys for our Honda Odyssey long-termer, Vance tapped me early on; he’s a big fan of minivans for their ability to eat up the miles while carrying all the cargo required by his two little ones, Princess Neva and Prince Luca. He told me he had a “a few trips” planned, but I wasn’t prepared for such a king’s ransom.

In the span of a few weeks, KOTH borrowed the Odyssey for a total of seven road trips, mostly with his family of four, except for a long guys’ weekend in Tucson.

The Princess and Prince still ride in child seats, which Vance tried in both the second and third rows. “The third row tilts backward toward the open rear hatch, which allows for easy access to the LATCH system,” Vance said. “Removing the middle section of the second row makes it easy to separate the children with physical space.” He also noted the ability to slide the second row fore and aft, which helped “keep my kids’ dirty shoes off the back of the front seat.”

He appreciated how easy it was to get both the kids and their stuff out of the vehicle—so easy a child can do it. “My 2-year-old, Luca, figured out how to open the sliding doors via three methods: interior handle, exterior handle, and the button mounted on the inside of the B-pillar,” Vance said. “Luca can load and unload his balance bike because the sill is so low. He can’t do that in an SUV.” Regarding giddyup, no complaints from KOTH. “Even with four adults and two kids, there is lots of power from the V-6,” Vance said.

“It moves quickly when the pedal is juiced and the transmission grabs lower gears.” Add more grownups, however, and the story changes a bit. “It was sagging on its rear springs with eight adults and their stuff; it was more sluggish but not slow. The engine is so strong, and all those gears make it very versatile.” He then, naturally, shared exactly the kind of story you’d expect from a guys’ weekend.

“In Tucson, we pulled up next to two college girls who wanted to show us their new tattoos (bandages still on). Then they asked me if that was my mom’s van. I said, ‘Let’s race, and then we’ll talk about whose van it is.’”

I

76 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

A

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UPDATES

Important Legal Notice from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida

2021 Chevrolet Corvette

If you are a current or former owner or lessee of certain Volkswagen or Audi vehicles, you could get cash and other benefits from a class action settlement.

Si desea recibir esta notificación en español, llámenos o visite nuestra página web.

Service Life 6 mo/10,293 miles Average Fuel Econ 16.8 mpg “A simple—and thankfully uneventful—malfunction sent the C8 to the shop.” Scott Evans Unresolved problems None Maintenance cost $0 Normal wear $0 Base price $67,295 As tested $80,420 EPA City/Hwy/Comb fuel econ 15/27/19 mpg ith its engine moved behind the passenger compartment, the C8 Corvette gains extra storage space where the V-8 used to be. We find the front trunk is useful—at least it was until it stopped opening.

Out of the blue, the electronic release mechanism just wouldn’t release. Whether you pushed the button on the key fob, inside the cabin, or under the headlight, the turn signals would blink in acknowledgment, but the hood wouldn’t budge.

Luckily for us, it happened right around the time the car asked for its first service. With 8,817 miles on the Corvette’s clock, we dropped it off at the local dealer, where we were informed it also had two outstanding recalls in need of correction. The first was a software update to address an issue with the infotainment screen failing to come on in cold temperatures, a problem we’d only noticed once or twice, as L.A. rarely gets that cold. Easy fix, covered under warranty.

Neither the front trunk lid nor the other recall, for the fluid reservoir cap on the front lift system, could be fixed that day, unfortunately. The cap was on backorder (apparently, it leaks sometimes, though we never had this issue), and the latch actuator in the front trunk needed to be replaced. That, too, had to be ordered.

On the plus side, we did get the first oil change and general service out of the way. Eight quarts of synthetic oil, a new filter, and a billable hour of the tech’s time set us back $183.04. The dealer called us back 12 days later when the parts arrived and fixed both the front trunk and the reservoir cap under warranty.

W

A settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit alleging that consumers sustained economic losses because they purchased or leased vehicles from Volkswagen AG, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., VW Credit, Inc., Audi AG, or Audi of America, LLC (collectively “Volkswagen”) containing allegedly defective airbags manufactured by Takata Corporation and its affiliates (“Takata”). The Settlement includes certain vehicles made by Volkswagen (the “Subject Vehicles”). Volkswagen denies any and all allegations of wrongdoing and the Court has not decided who is right.

If you have already received a separate recall notice for your Volkswagen or Audi vehicle and have not yet had your Takata airbag repaired, you should do so as soon as possible. When recalled Takata airbags deploy, they may, in very rare cases and under certain circumstances, spray metal debris toward vehicle occupants and may cause serious injury. However, some Volkswagen and Audi vehicles may be recalled for repair at a later date. Please see www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/takata-recall-spotlight#for-consumers-overview for further details about whether your vehicle is recalled and, if so, what you should do.

Am I included in the proposed Settlement? The Settlement includes the following persons and entities: • Owners or lessees, as of November 10, 2021, of a Subject Vehicle that was distributed for sale or lease in the United States or any of its territories or possessions, and • Former owners or lessees of a Subject Vehicle that was distributed for sale or lease in the United States or any of its territories or possessions, who, between February 9, 2016 and November 10, 2021, sold or returned, pursuant to a lease, a Subject Vehicle.

A full list of the Subject Vehicles can be found at www.AutoAirbagSettlement.com. The Settlement does not involve claims of personal injury.

What does the Settlement provide? Volkswagen has agreed to a Settlement with a value of approximately $42 million, including a 20% credit for the Enhanced Rental Car/Loaner Program. The Settlement Funds will be used to pay for Settlement benefits and cover the costs of the Settlement over an approximately four-year period.

The Settlement offers several benefits for Class Members, including (1) payments for certain out-of-pocket expenses incurred related to a Takata airbag recall of a Subject Vehicle, (2) a Rental Car/Loaner Program while certain Subject Vehicles are awaiting repair, (3) an Outreach Program to maximize completion of the recall remedy, (4) additional cash payments to Class Members from residual settlement funds, if any remain, and (5) a Customer Support Program to help with repairs associated with replacement airbag inflators. The Settlement Website explains each of these benefits in detail.

How can I get a Payment? You must file a claim to receive a payment during the first four years of the Settlement. If you still own or lease a Subject Vehicle, you must also bring it to an authorized dealership for the recall remedy, as directed by a recall notice, if you have not already done so. Visit the website and file a claim online or download one and file by mail.

The deadline to file a claim will be at least one year from the date the Settlement is finalized.

All deadlines will be posted on the website when they are known.

What are my other options? If you do not want to be legally bound by the Settlement, you must exclude yourself by February 14, 2022. If you do not exclude yourself, you will release any claims you may have against Volkswagen and the Released Parties, in exchange for certain settlement benefits. The potential available benefits are more fully described in the Settlement, available at the Settlement Website. You may object to the Settlement by February 14, 2022. You cannot both exclude yourself from, and object to, the Settlement.

The Long Form Notice for the Settlement available on the website listed below explains how to exclude yourself or object. The Court will hold a fairness hearing on March 7, 2022 to consider whether to finally approve the Settlement and a request for attorneys’ fees of up to 30% of the total Settlement Amount. You may appear at the fairness hearing, either by yourself or through an attorney hired by you, but you don’t have to. For more information, including the relief, eligibility and release of claims, in English or Spanish, call or visit the website below.

1-888-735-5596

www.AutoAirbagSettlement.com

MT GARAGE I Verdict Mazda’s latest design language is old hat by now, but it still looks sharp on the CX-30.

Verdict: 2020 Mazda CX-30 “Mazda’s latest luxury turn is a passable effort in some ways, but the effort leaves us cold after a year of driving.”

Christian Seabaugh Base Price$30,700 As Tested $31,625

Options Frameless auto-dim rearview mirror ($275), wireless charging pad ($275), cargo cover ($150), all-weather floormats ($125), cargo tray ($100) Problem Areas None Maintenance Cost $143.18 (oil change, inspection, tire rotation) Normal Wear $0 3-Year Residual Value* $26,600 (84%) Recalls Bose audio system glitch, adaptive cruise control software *IntelliChoice data; assumes 42,000 miles at the end of 3 years

Service Life 15 mo/19,163 mi EPA City/Hwy/Comb Fuel Econ 25/32/27 mpg e started our 15 months with our long-term 2020 Mazda CX-30 Premium AWD wondering if the handsome new subcompact SUV could convince us Mazda is truly on the march upmarket. Now 19,163 miles later and with our CX-30 departing the MotorTrend garage, we feel safe saying although Mazda has made serious strides in some areas, the overall CX-30 experience left us cold—a new feeling for us, considering how much we loved our old CX-5, CX-9, 3, and 6 long-term cars.

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78 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

The CX-30 has had an admittedly weird stay in our long-term fleet, with more than half of year overlapping with saferat-home orders. But despite sticking close to home base in Los Angeles for the first six months or so of its loan, our CX-30 got some meaningful road trip time in, including long stretches up to northern Oregon and shorter stints to San Francisco and out to the Mojave Desert in support of our Of The Year programs.

Over that time, we got to know the CX-30 quite well. We really appreciated our

CX-30’s premium styling. Although the swooshy waveform on its flanks is controversial among staff (some think the reflections make it look like the SUV was sideswiped), the CX-30 has a distinctive and unmistakably Mazda look. The interior styling won high praise, too, outdoing segment rivals such as the Buick Encore GX and Lexus UX in design and material choice. We were also charmed by the engaging steering feel, which is usually something of an afterthought in the subcompact SUV segment.

But despite the bright spots, the CX-30 wore on us over the months. Its styling promises luxury, but the drive experience doesn’t deliver. We grew tired of apologizing to passengers for the buzzprone powertrain, the transmission’s sloppy shifts, and inconsistent stops due to a mushy brake pedal. The standard 186-hp, 186-lb-ft 2.5-liter I-4 also felt a bit underpowered when loaded with four people—an impression that the hunthappy six-speed automatic didn’t help.

Mazda now offers a 250-hp turbo I-4 on the CX-30, but it’s still saddled with the increasingly dated six-speed auto.

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MT GARAGE I Verdict

The Mazda CX-30’s interior looks appropriately upscale when brand new, but the white leather seats quickly picked up signs of wear. We recommend caution if going with white.

The cabin also wasn’t as nice to spend time in as it first appeared. Passengers frequently complained of claustrophobic vibes, a result of the stylishly high beltline. (The driver’s seat is thankfully height-adjustable.)

We’ve also found Mazda’s infotainment system difficult to use while driving, requiring far too much time looking at screens and twiddling a knob than is safe to do while on the road.

Although the CX-30 was mechanically trouble-free over its time with us, its cabin showed signs of wear and tear early on. The white leather seats started to

80 THE INEVITABLE MARCH 2022

The faux carbon fiber surrounding the shifter picked up a lot of ugly scratches. A more durable material for a high-touch area would work better.

stain from sliding across them in jeans, and the bolsters were marred from rubbing up against the SUV’s B-pillar. We were also disappointed to see the CX-30’s faux carbon-fiber plastic trim quickly become an ugly rainbow of scratches, especially in high touchpoint areas around the shifter and cupholders. We had identical issues with our 2020 Mazda 3 long-termer.

Mazda’s failure to improve materials quality is disappointing. However, we continue to be pleased with the dealer experience. For a mainstream automaker on the march upmarket, Mazda’s dealership fell squarely on the luxury side of the spectrum, impressing us with the swiftness of its service and the attention to detail. Granted, we didn’t spend much time at the dealership during our loan.

Our sole visit to the dealer was for a routine service (an oil and filter change, tire rotation, and inspection) and recall work (one for a Bose audio system glitch, the other to improve the spotty adaptive cruise control).

We spent just $143.18 maintaining our Mazda. That’s less than we spent on our long-term 2020 Kia Soul ($198.19 for two services) and 2018 Subaru Crosstrek ($281.85 for three services). It’s also about half what we spent maintaining a 2020 Mazda 3, though on a per-service basis, the two Mazdas were nearly identical. All of these vehicles covered about 20,000 miles.

The EPA rates the CX-30 AWD at 25/32/27 mpg city/highway/combined, and in our time with it, which heavily skewed toward urban driving, we netted

25.8 mpg. Unsurprisingly, that’s worse than our Mazda 3 hatchback (28.8 mpg), but it’s about dead even with our old Crosstrek, which achieved 25.9 mpg in our hands.

Overall, Mazda has made notable strides with both design and the dealership experience. But if we’re looking at it as a luxury SUV, its lack of polish and drivetrain refinement seriously detract from the ownership experience. At the same time, the compromises resulting from Mazda’s move upmarket make the CX-30 less enjoyable to drive day to day. As a result, this is probably the least engaging Mazda we’ve experienced in a decade; improvements in design and dealerships don’t outweigh that.

Ultimately, the CX-30 is less a jack-ofall-trades vehicle than a master of none.

We won’t miss this Mazda, but there’s always the next one.

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ANGUS MACKENZIE

The Big Picture HAS THE ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINE RUN OUT OF ROAD? automotive design studio. It is meant to be confronting, meant to be a concept that signposts a bold new direction for BMW. But this agglomeration of aggressive lines, contrived details, and tortured surfaces looks about as sophisticated as a Toyota RAV4.

I’m not sure that’s the takeaway BMW intended. But then, even BMW itself doesn’t seem entirely sure about the Concept XM. In the 110-second Concept XM video published on BMW’s website—a surreal Game of Thrones meets Mad Max vignette—the MW began making cars in 1928, but it wasn’t until car itself appears for little more than 30 seconds, utterly 1966 that the marque figured out what it stood devoid of context or explanation. for. That was the year it launched the first of its 02 There are of course those who will argue BMW Design Series models: compact, rear-drive cars that were light, has been here before, notably during the Chris Bangle agile, and enjoyable to drive. The 02s, particularly the era. But the majority of Bangle’s BMWs, challenging as 2.0-liter 2002, helped define the E21 3 Series launched they seemed at the time, have since proven to have been in 1975. And that 3 Series became the foundation upon hugely influential. Bodyside sections that undulate off which BMW built a singularly successful brand mantra a crisp boneline, trunklid bustles, swept-back headlight as “the ultimate driving machine.” graphics—these Bangle design signatures were subseThe ultimate driving machine powered a company that quently subtly appropriated and reinterpreted by autowas essentially bankrupt at the beginning of the ’60s—and makers as diverse as Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Toyota, and Chevrolet. reduced to building tiny bubble cars with The Concept XM looks more influenced 250cc motorcycle engines—into a global THE CONCEPT luxury brand whose cars delivered bench- XM LACKS THE than influential.

COHERENCE mark levels of performance and handling.

Others will applaud BMW for daring to EXPECTED OF be different. But as GM’s famously acerbic Cars that were precisely engineered and beautifully built and that, even in their A MAINSTREAM design chief Bill Mitchell is alleged to have most basic trim levels, celebrated the driver. DESIGN STUDIO. once observed back in the 1960s: “Walking Current BMW AG chairman Oliver Zipse was 2 years through the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel with your old when the company launched the 02 Series. He’s grown fly undone is different. But it isn’t good.”

In truth, the Concept XM is symptomatic of the exisup with the ultimate driving machine. But instead of gunning it down the autobahn, he’s sitting at a T-junction, tential crisis BMW faces. Just as Jaguar for years made wondering which way to turn. The ultimate driving wood and leather interiors the default solution for brands machine has run out of road. For evidence, just look at that wanted to be perceived as premium or luxury, BMW the BMW Concept XM. set the performance and dynamic benchmarks against The Concept XM’s brutalist exterior has the naiveté which whole generations of rivals were judged. of a design school freshman project rather than the But the very characteristics that once emphatically set fully formed coherence expected from a mainstream BMW apart are now pretty much regarded as the price of entry into the premium and luxury vehicle segment, to the point, I’d argue, where brands like Jaguar and Lexus have abandoned what made them famous—ride quality in the case of Jaguar sedans, refined silence in the case of Lexus—in pursuit of making their cars drive like BMWs. It’s hard to hang your whole raison d’être on being the ultimate driving machine when pretty much everyone else in the segment now builds vehicles that perform and handle about as well as yours, and in some cases better.

BMW knows it needs to be defined by something else, something different.

Unfortunately, the Concept XM isn’t the answer. As Mitchell might have said, it’s different. But it’s not good. Q

B

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