Why Hyundai Must Build the N Vision 74, the Greatest Concept Car in a Generation

WHAT IT IS: A sibling to the Ford F-150 Lightning full-size electric pickup truck, expanding the Ford F-Series family with a new electric Ranger pickup.WHY IT MATTERS: Demand for the Ford F-150 Lightning has exceeded the automaker's wildest dreams, with demand far outstripping supply. Not surprisingly, Ford CEO Jim Farley said there is another electric truck planned. When you strike gold, it makes sense to mine a similar vein. High-volume vehicles are key to Ford's aspirations to become the leader in EVs and scale will also help to reduce cost.PLATFORM AND POWERTRAIN: Farley and his team are not sharing details of the EV addition to the F-Series family, but Farley ruled out an electric F-250, F-350, or F-450 for now, and has also said it the truck is different from the next-gen Lightning. Which means Ford is most likely going smaller.Recent trademark filings for Maverick Lightning and Ranger Lightning may reveal Ford's hand. A Ford Ranger Lightning is the most logical next move, and would give the company a fresh EV in a segment that continues to gain popularity. Ford has said the new, next-gen, electric pickup will be made at the new Blue Oval City plant in Stanton, Tennessee, which will also make next-gen Lightnings, starting in 2025.We can't rule out a performance F-150: an electric Raptor, on the new, dedicated EV platform for the next-generation Lightning, which would mean more than the 580 horsepower and 775 lb-ft of torque already available on the current Lightning. But that will probably come down the road, after the smaller trucks.As the trademark filing and previous speculation indicate, at some point there will also be an electric version of the Ford Maverick, the car-based small lifestyle pickup that is currently available with a hybrid powertrain. But we think this is further out, given its role as an affordable, entry-level vehicle for the brand that no longer has entry-level cars. The Maverick has the least in common with the body-on-frame full-size F-Series family; the car-based truck uses the same platform as the Ford Escape. While Ford is protecting the trademark now, that's not necessarily an indication that it's imminent.ESTIMATED PRICE: $35,000EXPECTED ON-SALE DATE: 2025

It's time to present the finalists for the inaugural MotorTrend Performance Vehicle of the Year. Yes, after running through our contenders—those rides that missed the cut for the final round of voting the PVOTY honors, we're introducing those that did make the finalist cut. One of these vehicles earned our Golden Calipers, having excelled in all six of our criteria (safety, value, advancement in design, engineering excellence, efficiency, and performance of intended function). The weighting of some of those criteria may differ slightly from our Car, Truck, and SUV of the Year competitions—after all, when outright performance is our focus, efficiency is perhaps graded on a curve—but every single one is considered when choosing our winner.Read on to meet the first four members of our finalist field—the rest will be unveiled tomorrow—to represent the cars that made it out of our initial round of voting following evaluations at Hyundai's Proving Ground outside of Los Angeles. The finalists then went on to road drives on Angeles Crest Highway and, later, grueling track tests at Willow Springs Raceway. Come back on Monday, February 14 to see which one emerged with the title!

People blow up expensive cars with surprising frequency, for various reasons. Some are mad that the car exhibits problems, while others just blow up fancy rides to dunk on haters, exhibit wealth, or for no good reason. One artist who goes by the name "Shl0ms" just blew up a Lamborghini Huracan, and is now selling highly detailed videos of 888 of the supercar's remains as individual NFTs via auction. Pricing starts at 0.01 Ether, or roughly $26 apiece, per Fortune.Another 111 so-called "$CAR" NFTs exist, for a total of 999, but they're being held for the team behind the elaborately choreographed explosion, as well as the investor behind the whole project.At first blush, the whole thing feels like a cunning, slickly marketed missile aimed at the intersection of crypto, NFTs, and a host of other recently gold-rush-generating buzzwords. Maybe that's because many of us are conditioned to think of NFTs and crypto as some kind of bad-faith gold rush.The Exploding Lamborghini VideoA visit to Shl0m's Twitter account is a seeming immersion into the sort of pump-'n-dump hype machine you'd expect to find behind many other cryptocurrency or NFT opportunities of the moment.Though, a closer look a Shl0ms reveals that atmosphere comes from other Twitter users excitedly sharing news coverage of the Lamborghini explosion and feverishly pinning that exposure to perceived increases in the (yet-to-be-released) NFTs' value.We know you're probably here for the Lamborghini explosion, so here's that:When reached for comment via their website, the faceless artist insists it isn't a protest against crypto, as other outlets have reported, but rather a critique of short-term greed and hopefully an example of how digital currencies can be used for more than just "zero-sum wealth extraction."Still, Lamborghini the automaker did just partner with an artist to sell off five NFTs of a graphically-exploded Lamborghini being shot into space, so it does seem like this could be mocking that a little bit.NFT Auction Proceeds Will Fund More ArtMost of the proceeds of the sales, we're told, will fund future public art installations. Shl0ms views NFTs for their original purpose—minting a digital entity's singularity on the blockchain as proof of its originality—and wants to use the digital artwork's intersection with currency as a way to funnel value toward good. Therefore it makes sense, to some degree, that just as demolishing his Huracan is performative, the air of publicity from others feels like a performance in itself.If it leaves some observers with a scammy crypto scheme taste in their mouth, know that Shl0ms doesn't want you to think of their project that way, and hopes the buyers of the NFTs are looking to appreciate the creation and the future art it funds, rather than simply accruing value. It's not supposed to be taking advantage of anyone in particular, but rather of the broader financial movement of the moment to raise funds for further art projects.Blowing Up The CarThat blow-up was more complex than you'd imagine, with the artist mentioning how carefully charges needed to be placed to avoid obliterating the Huracan too much. We doubt, based on the video evidence above, that the Lambo was left in exactly 999 pieces post-'splosion, but hey, 999 feels like a nice, cool number, doesn't it?In all, Shl0ms and company spent about two weeks testing explosives and even blowing up another (presumably less interesting) car before turning their hired explosives expert (said to be "federally licensed") on the used Lamborghini. If you're salty about the lost car, Shl0ms says it was purchased for about a quarter of a million dollars and apparently had lots of miles on its odometer.Following the big boom, the artist collected the 999 pieces and took detailed, closeup, rotating 4K videos of each one. Those are what are being sold off as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, inimitable digital properties on the blockchain. Again, the proceeds of the NFT auction taking place February 25 will go to funding artistic installations.