Too Good for America

Posted on by Derek Price
Cargazing
By Derek Price

I’ve been waiting a long time for an electric car as good as this one, the Hyundai Ioniq 6.

The first EV I tested, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, felt like a street-legal golf cart when I first drove it in 2012.

And while I watched EVs get better in the following years, they still felt more like slow, gimmick-filled novelties than competitors for “real” cars.

Back then, I couldn’t imagine an electric vehicle that was as quiet as a Mercedes on the highway or thrilling as a BMW on the streets, all while draped in the timeless shape of a classic Porsche sports car.

That’s what buyers get in an Ioniq 6.

After a week behind the wheel, the experience reminds me of the best German luxury cars except for one component: the engine.

The Ioniq 6 doesn’t have one.

Instead, it has a battery pack and electric motors that let it drive up to 361 miles on a full charge.

For drivers willing to install a charger in their garage, this is one of the best vehicles I’ve ever driven for local trips, including both gasoline and electric vehicles. It’s that good.

The driving assistance systems are so flawless that it feels autonomous on the highway.

Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 electric car seems to draw design inspiration from classic Porsches and the driving spirit of thrilling BMW sports sedans. It’s an all-around great car that happens to be powered by electricity.

The in-cabin technology is so seamlessly integrated that it makes the car feel like an extension of your smartphone. Plus the colorful ambient lighting and solid-feeling construction make the Ioniq 6 seem more like a Lexus than a Hyundai from the inside.

It’s also wonderfully practical. The doors swing open wide to make ingress and egress easy, and the rear hatch lifts up like a crossover vehicle to accept big, bulky cargo.

As good as it is from a design and engineering perspective, though, this car has a glaring problem: America isn’t ready for it.

That’s not such a big deal for people who have a gas-powered car for road trips and can limit their EV driving to less than 361 miles a day. Anything beyond that, though, and you have to take advantage of America’s DC fast charging infrastructure that isn’t up to the task, at least not yet.

While the Ioniq 6 is designed to accept ultra-fast, 350-kW charging stations, there are relatively few of those around. And if you are lucky enough to find a working ultra-fast charger along your route, you may have to wait in line to use them.

When you do happen to win the 350-kW charging lottery on your trip, Hyundai says the Ioniq 6 can go from 10 percent to 80 percent charge in just 18 minutes.

The Ioniq 6’s cabin feels unusually spacious. It doesn’t have a traditional driveshaft and transmission, which creates a completely flat floor and adds to the airy, voluminous feeling inside.

My real-world charging experience wasn’t anything like that, which is very normal for the weeks I drive EVs. It involved hours of charging time and occasional waits for a charger to become available.

In fact, America hasn’t even taken the very fundamental step of mandating a standard charging plug yet, which makes me reluctant to install one in my garage when it will only work on some of today’s EVs and perhaps none of tomorrow’s EVs.

This is a basic, foundational problem that America hasn’t solved yet.

For a long time, the limiting factor in adopting electric propulsion was a lack of decent vehicles. Many previous EVs were either not very good to drive or outrageously expensive luxury products.

Hyundai did an incredible job making the Ioniq 6 not just better than a lot of electric cars, but better than most gasoline cars, too. My all-wheel-drive tester with 320 horsepower was one of the most thrilling, exciting and all-around useful cars I’ve driven in the past year.

It’s good enough to make this old-fashioned, gasoline-loving car guy fall in love with it. It’s absolutely perfect for commuting and local trips.

Just make sure you still have a gasoline car, too, if you ever want to make road trips without long delays and frustration.

Pricing starts at $37,500 for the rear-wheel-drive version with standard range. It tops out at $53,650 for the fast and luxurious Limited with all-wheel drive, dual motors and an extended range.

At A Glance

What was tested? 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 6 Limited Long Range AWD ($53,650). Options: Carpeted floor mats ($210). Price as tested (including $1,115 destination charge): $54,975
Wheelbase: 116.1 in.
Length: 191.1 in.
Width: 74 in.
Height: 58.9 in.
Motors: Front and rear (combined 320 horsepower)
Range: 270 miles
Fuel economy: Combined 103 MPGe

Ratings

Style: 9
Performance: 9
Price: 5
Handling: 7
Ride: 8
Comfort: 8
Quality: 8
Overall: 9

Why buy it?

The battery-powered Ioniq 6 is an all-around spectacular car, including by traditional gasoline standards. It’s fast, powerful, quiet, luxurious and good-looking.

Posted in Hyundai

New Kind of Lexus SUV

Posted on by Derek Price
Cargazing
By Derek Price

Lexus has long offered spacious SUVs for people who need three rows of seating.

There’s just one problem. The brand’s biggest SUVs — the GX and LX — are built on heavy ladder frames just like pickup trucks, which is ideal for off-roading but not necessarily a good fit for the upscale suburbs where luxury SUVs tend to gravitate.

On pavement, unibody construction is a much more logical choice because it weighs dramatically less, resulting in a more responsive ride and lower payments at the gas pump.

Now, for the first time ever, Lexus is selling a purpose-built three-row SUV with unibody construction called the TX.

While Lexus did offer a three-row version of the RX in the past, called the RX-L, it shoehorned a third row into a vehicle that didn’t seem properly designed for it. Kids may have fit back there, but it wasn’t great for adults.

That changes with the roomier TX.

Based on the same design as the new Toyota Grand Highlander, this fresh Lexus has a reasonably spacious third-row seat that could actually fit grown-ups comfortably.

The TX is a new Texas-sized Lexus SUV. It has three rows of spacious seating and is built with unibody construction for better gas mileage and crisper handling than body-on-frame SUVs.

It also offers the predictable recipe Lexus buyers have come to expect: a solid cabin built with luxurious-feeling materials, a generous suite of tech features and a syrupy, fluffy ride that makes highway trips relaxing.

I spent a week behind the wheel of the new TX, and I came away feeling like this is the first time Lexus has hit the sweet spot of the market for three-row SUVs.

The big LX is an incredible machine, but its base price around $94,000 means not many people can afford it. The outgoing 2023 GX starts at a more attainable price, around $60,000, but is rated for a combined 16 mpg in city and highway driving.

The TX 350, in contrast, is rated for 21 mpg in the city and a thrifty 27 on the highway, an impressive feat for a vehicle this size.

A turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine is responsible for the thrift. Coupled to an eight-speed automatic transmission, the powertrain felt silky and competent in my tester, although not quite muscular enough to power a truly premium SUV.

The gasoline-powered TX 350 accelerates from 0-60 mph in a ho-hum 8 seconds, according to Lexus’ measurements.

A huge, 14-inch touchscreen dominates the dash on the new-for-2024 Lexus TX.

If you want to upgrade to a faster TX, there two different hybrid versions to pick from.

The standard hybrid, called the TX 500h, accelerates from 0-60 in 6.1 seconds while delivering better gas mileage at the same time. Government wonks rate it at 27 mpg in the city and 28 on the highway.

A plug-in hybrid, called the TX 550h+, is two tenths of a second faster than the standard hybrid to 60 mph. It also lets you drive up to 33 miles on battery power before the gasoline engine kicks in. On the downside, it also tops the lineup in price, more than $20,000 over the TX 350’s starting sticker.

The TX comes with a long list of no-extra-cost features, which is unusual for a luxury brand. Every version comes with radar cruise control and lane centering, plus a gigantic 14-inch touchscreen that takes up the entire center of the dash to run its myriad tech features.

Its cabin seems to be designed more for fingertips than eyeballs. It looks very simple and understated in pictures, almost like the sparse, thrifty, minimalistic style of a new Volkswagen more than an old-fashioned, tufted-leather luxury car.

In real life, though, the TX feels and smells spectacular, with rattle-free construction and supple materials in all the right spots.

Pricing starts at $55,050 for the base TX 350. The hybrid version, which comes with the spirited F-Sport Performance treatment, starts at $69,350. Finally, the plug-in 550h+ Hybrid model tops the lineup at $78,050.

At A Glance

What was tested? 2024 Lexus TX 350 ($53,700). Options: None. Price as tested (including $1,350 destination charge): $55,050
Wheelbase: 116.1 in.
Length: 203.2 in.
Width: 78.4 in.
Height: 70.1 in.
Engine: 2.4-liter turbocharged four cylinder (275 hp, 317 lbs.-ft.)
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel economy: 21 city, 27 highway

Ratings

Style: 9
Performance: 5
Price: 7
Handling: 6
Ride: 9
Comfort: 9
Quality: 9
Overall: 7

Why buy it?

The TX is a new kind of SUV from Lexus. It’s large and spacious inside, and its car-like unibody construction means it handles better and burns less gas than Lexus’ previous truck-based SUVs.

Posted in Lexus

A Fresh Camry

Posted on by Derek Price
Cargazing
By Derek Price

It’s no secret that sedan sales have been tanking in America as buyers crave crossovers and SUVs.

Ford famously dropped sedans entirely from its lineup in recent years, and Chevrolet appears to be following suit after whittling its four-door-family-car lineup down to a single aging model, the Malibu.

Some writers are predicting the demise of the traditional sedan entirely. If there’s only one left standing at the end of the carnage, though, I think it will be this one: the Toyota Camry.

The Camry is one of the rare sedans that still enjoys strong sales in the modern era. Around 290,000 copies were purchased last year, enough to continue its reign as the best-selling sedan in America with no sign of letting up.

With an all-new generation of the Camry being released for 2025 — making it one of the few sedans receiving a major investment these days — one has to wonder exactly what Toyota would do, if anything, to turn the tides.

Would it make the Camry look tougher to woo some SUV buyers? Would it make a special off-road version or offer a roof rack on top?

Fortunately, after Toyota released pictures and details of the new model in recent weeks, we now know the answer is a resounding “no.” The 2025 Camry is more of the same, just — if you believe the press release — better.

 

Toyota’s new-generation Camry will look very different when it hits America’s highways as a 2025 model.

There are some big changes coming to it. For starters, every single version is going to come with a hybrid powertrain. It’s also making all-wheel drive (AWD) available on every grade, an obvious nod to those SUV buyers who need traction in all kinds of weather.

A 2.5-liter, four-cylinder engine will be paired with two electric motors to create a combined 225 horsepower. AWD versions get a bit more power with 232 horses.

Based on pictures, this ninth-generation Camry should turn heads with its sleek new design. While this car built its reputation on frugality, dependability and staid styling in the 1980s and ‘90s, it’s gotten more outlandish in recent years. The new 2025 model isn’t as wild looking as the outgoing generation, to my eyes, but is trim and sleek in the vein of a handsome sports sedan.

Inside, this new generation seems to take a bigger break from tradition.

I’ll go out on a limb — well, maybe not much of a limb — and say this is the best-looking cabin a Camry has ever had. It’s airy, modern and even sleeker than the body. It also appears to be centered around the driver, the kind of design that could easily be penned for a new sports car, albeit a roomy one.

And yes, you can get the cockpit in red.

 

A red interior will be available on sporty grades of the 2025 Camry.

Granted, after decades of beige-on-beige blandness, the Camry doesn’t face a high hurdle to top its best-looking interior. Historically its buyers have been more interested in how it holds up over time, including that all-important sense of solidity and tight construction that makes a Toyota buyer feel borderline smug.

Having only seen it in pictures, I can’t vouch for whether the cabin’s feel matches the snazzy look. I can only hope that it lives up to this car’s reputation for being built to survive a nuclear apocalypse without developing a squeak or rattle.

It should be no surprise that the new Camry also participates in the Great Touchscreen Wars of the 2020s. This new version comes with a standard 8-inch screen at the lower end and 12.3 inches on higher-end trims.

Other standard features include wireless charging, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, along with both kinds of USB charging ports, Type A and Type C. There are three up front and two in back.

Pricing and fuel economy have not been announced. Expect both those numbers to arrive closer to its release date, which should be sometime this spring, Toyota says.

At A Glance

Expected price: Not announced yet
Power: 2.5-liter gasoline engine and two electric motors (combined 225 hp)
Standard wheels: 18 inches
Screen size: 8 inches (LE and SE), 12.3 inches (XLE and XSE)
Expected release: Spring 2024
Fuel economy: Not rated yet

PREDICTED RATINGS
Style: 9
Performance: 6
Price: 8
Handling: 7
Ride: 8
Comfort: 9
Quality: 9
Overall: 8

Why buy it?
An all-new design brings a fresh perspective to America’s best-selling sedan. Every new-generation Camry will be a hybrid, and its interior is the best this car has ever looked.

Posted in Toyota

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