2021 Chevrolet Corvette Z51 Yearlong Review Verdict: If You Need Only One Car...

It's never a bad day when an automaker announces that a vehicle will be manufactured here in the U.S. for American consumers. But that's only part of the story of the 2023 Volkswagen ID4, the compact electric SUV that's seeing production expanded from Germany to the United States, as it's also coming in with new pricing and a new entry-level battery pack to price it under $40,000. It also gets some new standard features, updated exterior colors and trim, and a new interior design.American MadeAs part of its $800 million investment in Tennessee, Volkswagen will begin assembly of the 2023 ID4 at its Chattanooga factory, not far from its recently built battery lab for EV battery production and research. Unfortunately, despite being assembled in the U.S. (and no longer requiring a long boat trip to reach our shores), the ID4 retains its destination charge for the 2023 model. That charge has recently risen from $1,195 to now $1,295. Not a huge increase, sure, but disappointing to see that not go down given how the VW is now locally sourced.Four New TrimsIn addition to the ID4 Pro and Pro S in RWD and AWD, there are now a few new trims. First is the ID4 Standard (yes, that is its trim name) that comes with a smaller 62 kWh battery. This is the new entry-level ID4; above it sits the also-new S trim, which gets the same 62 kWh battery. There also is a new Pro S Plus trim that slots above the Pro S, replacing the Gradient package that was offered in 2022 and bringing a suite of unique features. All Pro models will get the larger 82 kWh battery pack along with the 170 kW DC Fast Charge rate. At the time of writing, VW did not state what the DC Fast Charge rate would be for the 62 kWh battery pack.Prices Have Gone Up, But You Do Get More for Your ID4While the new Standard is cheaper than last year's least-expensive ID4, the $42,525 Pro, there are a few price increases on the carryover trims (Pro included). A 2023 ID4 RWD Pro costs $1,365 more than the 2022 model, while the AWD Pro $1,485 more, the RWD Pro S costs $1,865 more, and the AWD Pro S sees a $1,985 increase. (Those price hikes include the $100-pricier destination charge, too.) Those extra dollar signs are at least offset by some new features and technology. Plug&Charge, the bi-directional J1772 CCS socket that both charges the ID4 and can power other EVs, is now standard across the line.All ID4 trims come with dashboard stitching, leatherette steering wheels and seat features; heated seats; forward collision with emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection; active blind spot assist, high beam light assist, parking assist with memory parking and distance assist; LED lighting with auto headlights that come with rain sensing wipers; and IQ.Drive that features lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition and Emergency Assist 3.0. For your advanced driver assist needs, the ID4 also has Travel Assist 2.0 on all trims that features stop-and-go cruise control and driver-initiated lane change functionality. On top of all that, owners will get three years of free 30-minute DC fast charging sessions at Electrify America stations.What Separates Each ID4 Trim?While the Standard and Pro are rather basic (when compared to S trims) with their features and 19-inch wheels, they do feature their own unique interior colors and melange fabric and leatherette heated manual seats. The two interior treatments are Stone (gray and black accents) and Nutmeg (brown hues). The rear seats are a 60/40 split design with no other features. Going with the Pro model, you get the option of AWD which nets you a 2,700 lbs towing capacity and a heated front windshield. The Pro models are also the only way to get the 82 kWh battery pack, as mentioned earlier.Stepping up into the S trims, you get leatherette seat seat inserts rather than the cloth, but the inserts have a design perforated into the material and are 12-way power with a memory function. Color options for the inside are Galaxy where its leatherette inserts are black with platinum gray bolsters, door inserts, dash, a black leatherette heated steering wheel, and a black display. Cosmic features gray leatherette inserts with blue bolsters, door inserts, and dash with a white leatherette heated steering wheel, and a white display. You also get a 30 color ambient lighting rather than the multi-color ambient lighting system. For the rear seats, S trims get a 60/40 split seat with pass-through and a folding center armrest with cupholders. You and your passengers are also treated to a panoramic roof with an electric sunshade. The LED lights on the S Trims feature VW's AFS adaptive front lights and a lighted front and rear "VW" emblem and grille accent. The non-Pro S trim also only gets the 62 kWh battery pack and RWD but it and the Pro versions get 20-inch wheels.Want an ID4 with the most stuff? Look at the Pro S Plus in either RWD or AWD. Along with the S and Pro features, you also get unique 20-inch wheels, a three-zone climate control with rear passenger controls, and digital sound package that includes a subwoofer. The 60/40 passthrough seats are also heated (outboard positions only). Silver accents replace gloss black trim on both the front and rear bumpers; the mirrors feature accent lighting that are both power folding and heated; and this is the only trim to get a surround view camera over the standard rearview camera.How Much is a 2023 Volkswagen ID4?While the price increases year-over-year for the carryover ID4 models are expected, the cost of the 2023 ID4 is still relatively affordable when compared to new crossovers and other EVs of its size. The ID4 Standard will run you $38,790 (again, thousands less than last year's cheapest ID4, albeit with less battery) while stepping up to the ID4 S jumps up to $43,790. The RWD version of the ID4 Pro is $43,790 while the AWD version is $47,590. The Pro S RWD is $48,790 and the AWD version is $52,490. The top-of-the-line ID4 is the Pro S Plus, which runs $51,490 with the RWD and $55,290 with AWD. And remember, the ID4 still qualifies for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, in addition to any local EV incentives a full battery-electric car might qualify for. Below we've gathered every 2023 ID4 trim level's price, range, and battery size for comparison: Battery / Motor Range Price ID4 Standard 62 kWh / single motor 208 miles $38,790 ID4 S 62 kWh / single motor 208 miles $43,790 ID4 Pro 82 kWh / single motor  275 miles $43,790 ID4 Pro AWD 82 kWh / dual motor  255 miles $47,590 ID4 Pro S 82 kWh / single motor  275 miles $48,790 ID4 Pro S AWD 82 kWh / dual motor  255 miles $52,590 ID4 Pro S Plus 82 kWh / single motor  275 miles $51,490 ID4 Pro S Plus AWD 82 kWh / dual motor  255 miles $55,290 Show All

Modern-day Lamborghini has a habit of milking the underpinnings of its series-production cars for all they're worth in the shape of rebodied and somewhat mechanically upgraded (to varying degrees) ultra-limited editions. If you're unfamiliar, see examples named Reventón, Centenario, and Veneno, for starters, and the most recently controversial and maligned Countach LPI 8004. So it's not terribly difficult to sometimes take a cynic's view that says the company relishes finding relatively easy ways to convince its richest clients to tap further into their hedge funds or throwaway crypto profits rather than developing truly new machines—you know, the type of series-production cars we might decades from now remember just as vividly as we do the revolutionary ones Lamborghini earned its reputation on in the first place. So we were thrilled to discover after a recent drive of the Lamborghini Essenza SCV12 that this offering occupies a different strand on the company's genetic spider graph.What Is the Essenza, Anyway?The Lamborghini Essenza SCV12 is indeed another limited toy for car-crazy moguls, and it carried a starting price of 2.2 million euros. "Carried," because Lamborghini already sold all 40 of them. For the record, U.S. buyers paid whatever the dollar-to-euro exchange rate was on the day of their transaction; at this moment, the price would be nearly $2.5 million if you could still get one from the factory.The "SC" in the Essenza's name stands for "Squadra Corsa," which is the Italian manufacturer's motorsport division. ("Essenza" translates to "Essence" in English.) Squadra Corsa is responsible for developing Lamborghini's GT3 race cars, as well as running the Super Trofeo one-make series that exclusively features Huracán Super Trofeo Evo race cars competing in 50-minute sprint races. Like those Huracáns, the Essenza SCV12 isn't street legal, making it a hugely expensive track-only car aimed at wealthy gentleman racers, track-driving enthusiasts, and gotta-have-everything collectors.Other than the car, the purchase price includes two years of storage at Squadra Corsa's facility in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy, with oversight from technicians and 24-hour-a-day video surveillance for owners to look in on their cars whenever desire or paranoia takes hold. One bright spot: Unlike Ferrari and its FXX-K, for example, Lamborghini will allow Essenza owners to take their cars home or wherever they desire, rather than making it such an ordeal owners just leave their cars at the factory.Squadra Corsa does organize and support several arrive-and-drive outings per year at circuits around the world; simply show up, and your baby is there, prepped and waiting to rip. The 2022 schedule features 11 dates between February and December, with stops at famous U.S. road courses including Laguna Seca and Watkins Glen, and contemporary Formula 1 venues Barcelona and Abu Dhabi. Essenza SCV12 owners also get track time during Lamborghini's annual Super Trofeo World Finals event, scheduled in 2022 for early November at Portugal's Portimão circuit. The World Finals entry and accommodations are included in the car's purchase price for three years; other events carry additional entry fees plus the cost of consumables such as tires, fuel, brakes, etc. Lamborghini offers participants driver coaching from its stable of pros, though all Essenza lapping sessions are conducted in a track-day format, without actual racing.Owners also pay extra for any private track time they wish for themselves; the bill depends on the scope of the program but typically falls in the $50,000-$100,00-plus range. Another bright spot: You'll write the check, but one call to Squadra Corsa's concierge yields a proposed itinerary within 48 hours, covering everything you want to do on- and off-track, plus track rental, car shipping (if necessary, including overseas), meals, and anything else you need.Notable Chassis ConstructionHere's where the Lamborghini Essenza SCV12 gets good: This car is a long way from simply being a rebodied and retuned production model. It's effectively a purpose-built race car, though it isn't homologated for competition in any actual racing series. But that was the point: to build a track car unrestricted by the typical performance-limiting rules that govern global GT racing.Lamborghini did, however, pay big attention to safety, working with the FIA—the governing body of international motorsports—to develop the Essenza's safety technology beyond what GT rules require today. In that sense it's a bit of a rolling laboratory, a GT-style race car with a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis built to existing Le Mans Prototype safety standards. But where typical GT race cars use a steel roll cage, the SCV12's carbon cage is integrated within the monocoque structure, a solution you'll see down the road on actual racing-homologated GT contenders.Whereas the Essenza's carbon chassis is based on that of the Lamborghini Aventador, only the lower part of the monocoque is similar, the company says, with 60 percent of the chassis redesigned to hit the safety targets and comply with FIA standards. The front and rear frames, suspension, gearbox, and electronics were developed specifically for this car.What's It Like to Drive?Lamborghini let us behind the Essenza SCV12's Formula 1-style wheel for 16 laps of Las Vegas Motor Speedway's 1.1-mile road-course configuration. The nine-turn circuit is more club track than proper race course; most of it is taken in second or third gear, but the front straight allowed for an extra gear or two and speeds in the 140-mph ballpark before a reasonably challenging-to-nail heavy braking zone for the second gear Turn 1 lefthander. The venue, and the fact Lamborghini let us run whatever pace we wanted, was enough to demonstrate the Essenza's intriguing package of thrills combined with approachability for non-pro drivers.You get a kick out of the experience before you're even out of pit lane. Strapped into the five-point harness, the starting procedure is simple but fun, especially for motorsports enthusiasts: Flip on the master switch and briefly let the electronics boot up, then push the ignition button followed by the start button. Once the 6.5-liter V-12 thumps alive, hold the car on the brakes (left foot preferred), punch and hold the blue button on the steering wheel for neutral, and click the right-hand shift paddle once for first gear in the Xtrac-built six-speed sequential manual racing 'box. Foot off the brake, hit the throttle, and the automated clutch (there is no pedal) engages, and you're off.You bounce around as you trundle down pit lane, typical race-car behavior thanks to a limited-travel pushrod suspension that doesn't like painfully slow driving. The rear suspension is mounted straight to the gearbox, which serves as a stressed structural chassis element (common race-car architecture that's rare in production vehicles).Kill the pit-speed limiter by clicking a button on the wheel, and bam! The Essenza howls like only a naturally aspirated Italian V-12 does, noises exaggerated by the SCV12's unique and unrestricted Capristo exhaust system. The engine is the same as the Aventador's, but thanks to a less restrictive exhaust, a bespoke air-intake system that makes use of ram effect via the engine-feeding roof scoop, and a Motech motorsports ECU, it produces 820 hp at 8,500 rpm and 568 lb-ft at 6,000. That's a 60-hp and 37-lb-ft increase compared to the stonking Aventador SVJ road car. Gulp.But within a few laps, even once we turned the power all the way up—a mode switch on the wheel offers five settings beginning at 695 hp and ramping up in 25-hp increments with each click of the dial—the nuclear straight-line speed isn't what got us. Rather, with bespoke Pirelli slick tires and monster downforce from the aero package, the car's grip and handling have you shaking your head and giggling even on a slow track like the one we drove. For perspective, Lamborghini claims 2,645 pounds of downforce at 155 mph, with even more at higher speeds; that exceeds the downforce of a true GT3 race car. It's darn near almost enough to theoretically allow the car to drive upside down without falling off the ceiling, if the track allowed it.The LVMS road course didn't let us get near what the Essenza's aero and tire package can really do, but we still felt the massive grip, especially through a flat-out third-gear kink toward the end of the lap, and also in how late we could brake into Turn 1. (The steel brakes are by Brembo, with carbon-ceramics also available.) Braking-marker boards on the side of the front straight served as guides; Lamborghini pro drivers present during our test drive suggested braking at the third board from the end as we learned the car, and then suggested working our way down to braking between it and the second board. But after a few laps of feeling what the car was capable of and finding our confidence buoyed, we rocked the Essenza down the front straight past the third board, past the halfway point, and nearly all the way to the second marker before crushing the pedal.Holy Ferruccio, did it ever work. The brake pedal feels softer than you might expect in its first bit of travel then firms up significantly and provides outstanding modulation and control. There are no latency issues with the pedal, and that fact allowed us to bleed massive speed immediately, then remain easily in control as the back end wobbled before gripping back up through the middle of the braking zone. Finally, downshifts completed with a few satisfyingly solid clicks of the left-hand paddle, we trailed off the pedal at the turn-in point and the Essenza dug in, nailed the apex, and tracked out the other side with what we swear was a yawn. We're convinced we could have gone another 20 feet deeper into the braking zone—and we also weren't stupid enough to try it. But the fact we believe it after such a brief experience of the Essenza SCV12 says a lot about how much confidence the car inspires. We didn't bother recording lap times on this day, but Lamborghini told us the Essenza is some 3 to 4 seconds quicker than the Huracán GT3 race car around medium-to-high-speed tracks in the hands of pro drivers, despite it weighing a few hundred pounds more. We have little doubt this is accurate.Odds and EndsThe car's overall setup during our drive was tuned toward understeer just to keep things manageable for the amateur drivers Lamborghini invited to sample it, but there's a huge amount of adjustability in the Essenza. Even with this setup, we discovered we could rotate the chassis somewhat into the corners using the brakes and then confidently go to the power. One thing for drivers to keep in mind is that this is a heavier, long-wheelbase (114.4 inches) car compared to most racing models, so it's a bit more deliberate, relatively speaking, in its responses to inputs. Some people might even initially find it counterintuitive if they get into it with only the eye-catching power and torque specs in mind while expecting the knife-edge, snappy reactions of a car boasting a smaller footprint.With more time, we would have found a slightly more comfortable position for the steering wheel, which, just like the pedals, is easily and quickly adjustable to accommodate a range of driver sizes and preferences, and we disliked the screen mounted in the center of the roof above the dash. The latter is for displaying data to technicians after on-track sessions, but its location impedes your field of view somewhat when you try to look ahead through corners like you should always do. To its credit, Lamborghini says it has heard the same comment from some owners and is working on a better solution.Our biggest gripe, though, is we didn't have time to run another 50 laps. Not only for fun and to increase our speed and adapt ourselves more to what the car likes, but to also explore deeper into exactly what it can do when you make adjustments. Along with the power/engine map, the trick steering wheel (which we didn't mess with outside of the power settings) allows you to tune the differential, clutch, traction control, ABS, and power steering to your preferences depending on the circuit and the specific corners you're driving. There are also controls for brake bias, throttle behavior, and more. The total package makes for a mighty engaging and pure race car experience, even though this isn't technically a race car. Well, at least not a homologated one you'll ever see in true competition.In a way, then, you could call the Lamborghini Essenza SCV12 a car without a home, except Lamborghini and Squadra Corsa have created a community around it for the 40 owners who understood the vision and what the Essenza offers. But because of the car's limited numbers and track-only usability, there's a good chance you'll never see one in the wild, let alone running in anger. From that perspective, it's massively tempting to lump it in with those other rare, virtually one-off modern Lamborghinis that have come and gone and are now distant memories mentioned only occasionally by diehard hypercar nerds. And that's a shame, because after driving the Essenza SCV12 as it's made to be driven, we suspect we'll forever remember this one as being in an entirely different league.Lamborghini Essenza SCV12 BASE PRICE $2,488,357 (est) LAYOUT Mid-engine, RWD, 2-pass, 2-door coupe ENGINE 6.5L/820 hp @ 8,500, 568 lb-ft @ 6,000 DOHC 48-valve V-12 TRANSMISSION 6-speed sequential CURB WEIGHT 3,230 lb (est) WHEELBASE 114.4 in L x W x H NA 0-60 MPH 2.8 sec (est) EPA FUEL ECON NA EPA RANGE (COMB) NA ON SALE Sold out Show All

You have the right to remain electric. Anything you put in the bed or rear seat can be used against your driving range. You have the right to a charger. If you cannot find one, one may be installed for you. Consider these the new Miranda rights for police forces across America, which soon will have access to Ford's new F-150 Lightning Pro SSV police truck. The new cop pickup is spun off the all-electric Lightning, and while that part is novel, the package is, for the most part, modeled after the regular F-150 Police Responder rig.One thing the Lightning Pro SSV is not is pursuit-rated. This is purely a patrol and response vehicle, even though the standard-range battery version's dual electric motors combine for 452 hp and 775 lb-ft of torque, and the big-battery, long-range model gets 580 hp and the same mighty torque figure. In that latter configuration, Ford claims the Pro SSV (that's Special Service Vehicle) can hit 60 mph in under four seconds, a claim largely backed up by our test figures for the new Lightning. In extended-range battery form, but without the range-topping Platinum trim's bigger wheels and extra equipment, an F-150 Lightning Lariat model scooched to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds.Okay, so "technically" the police Lightning won't be used for chases or other action. For those tamer missions, it's well equipped. Take the "Pro" part of its name. That's a reference to the entry-level Pro trim level on the civilian F-150 Lightning, which already is geared toward work duty with vinyl seats and flooring and a more basic interior layout. Ford swaps in cloth-wrapped front seats for the SSV, which also include steel "anti-intrusion" plates in the seatbacks and slimmer bolsters to make it easier for cops and their nifty tool belts to slide in and out.And then there is the frunk, which offers 14.1 cubic feet of space under the power-opening hood in the truck's nose for storing cop things. There also is a 220-amp DC-DC power source under there, which any number of upfitter attachments can be wired to. Oh, and the top of the dashboard is reinforced so it can withstand use as a mounting point for various add-ons.Ford also will install the requisite red-and-blue or white-and-amber roof lights for departments that request it. And beyond the lighting on the truck itself, Ford points out that the ProPower Onboard power sources in the frunk and bed can be used to power accident-scene lighting, emergency equipment, or mobile doughnut makers just as easily as the welders, fridges, and other stuff ProPower can handle for civilian Lightning customers.So far, the police Lightning's range figures are TBD. Regular Lightnings can travel between 230 and 320 miles on a charge, depending on which batteries they come with. We've found that that range can vary wildly depending on what the truck is being used for (i.e., just noodling around, or towing a heavy trailer). More details will arrive later this summer, both for the Pro SSV and, it seems, the 2023 model-year Lightning generally. That gives you a few more months of police vehicles that can't sneak up on you silently.