While not quite a separate dialect, Formula 1-speak can be heavy on the jargon at times. They say “box” instead of pit, “power unit” to describe the engine and hybrid system, and that’s before we get into all the aerodynamics-related expressions like “outwash” and “dirty air.” Next year is a big technical shakeup for the sport, and it seems we’re getting some new terminology to go with it. So forget your DRS and get ready to talk about Boost mode instead.

The F1 car of 2026 will be slightly narrower and slightly lighter than the machines that raced for the last time earlier this month. But not by a huge amount: minimum weight is decreased by 30 kg to 724 kg, the wheelbase is 200 mm shorter at 3,400 mm, and the car’s underfloor is 150 mm narrower than before.

The front wing is 100 mm narrower and has just two elements to it, although for the first time in F1 history, this is now an active wing, which works in conjunction with the three-element active rear wing. Active rear wings have been a thing in F1 since the introduction of DRS—the drag reduction system—in 2011, but now there’s a philosophical change to how they’ll work.

Read full article

Comments

© Formula 1

One of the big stories of last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was the debut of Donut Lab’s diminutive but powerful electric motors. When I spoke with Donut earlier this year, the company told me that it was looking at applications ranging from drones to large automotive motors, but also things like wind turbines and even washing machines. Now, almost a year later, we have our first look at an electric vehicle that uses the technology, thanks to a new collaboration between Donut Lab and WATT Electric Vehicle Company.

WATT had previously developed the Passenger and Commercial EV Skateboard (PACES), a lightweight aluminum platform for low-volume EVs. Now, it’s integrating Donut’s motors, first with one for each rear wheel, although there will eventually be an all-wheel-drive variant, too.

The small EV chassis is rather intriguing—with the motors in the rear wheel hubs, the layout is even more space-efficient than a more conventional EV, which still needs to find a few cubic feet to package its drive unit(s). The two companies see plenty of potential for the platform, which they say could give rise to “multiple vehicle configurations from beach buggies to high-performance sports cars to commercial delivery vehicles.”

Read full article

Comments

© Donut Lab

SAN FRANCISCO—Automakers are starting to follow somewhat familiar paths as they continue their journeys to electrification. Electric vehicles are, at first, strange new tech, and usually look like it. Mercedes-Benz’s EQS and EQE are good examples—with bodies that look like bars of soap worn down in the shower, they stood out. For early adopters and trailblazers that might be fine, but you need to sell cars to normal people if you want to survive, and that means making EVs more normal. Which is what Mercedes did with its newest one, the all-electric CLA.

The normal looks belie the amount of new technology that Mercedes has packed into the CLA, though. The car sticks to the four-door coupe look that the company pioneered a couple of decades ago, but there’s a thoroughly modern electric powertrain connected to the wheels, run by four powerful networked computers. And yes, there’s AI. (For the pedants, “coupe” means cut down, not two-door, so the name is accurate.)

The CLA is the first of a new series of Mercedes that will use the same modular architecture, and interestingly, it’s powertrain agnostic—a hybrid CLA is coming in time, too. But first the battery EV, which makes good use of some technology Mercedes developed for the EQXX concept car.

Read full article

Comments

© Jonathan Gitlin

Ford’s F-150 Lightning production line has fallen silent, and its employees are now building more gas and hybrid trucks. The automaker continues to retreat from the big bet it made on Americans embracing full-size battery electric pickup trucks, and will focus instead on cheaper vehicles, hybrids, and range-extended electric vehicles—or EREVs—instead, it announced today.

One of those EREVs will be the Lighting’s replacement. With a gasoline generator that just charges the battery—series hybrid fans rejoice—the next Lightning comes with the towing ability that Ford says its customers consider “non-negotiable,” and up to 700 miles (1,126 km) of range.

“Our next-generation F-150 Lightning EREV will be every bit as revolutionary. It delivers everything Lightning customers love – near instantaneous torque and pure electric driving. But with a high-power generator enabling an estimated range of 700+ miles, it tows like a locomotive. Heavy-duty towing and cross-country travel will be as effortless as the daily commute,” said Doug Field, Ford’s chief EV, digital and design officer.

Read full article

Comments

© Thomas Banneyer/picture alliance via Getty Images

Cast your mind back to 2021. Electric vehicles were hot stuff, buoyed by Tesla’s increasingly stratospheric valuation and a general optimism fueled by what would turn out to be the most significant climate-focused spending package in US history. For some time, automakers had been promising an all-electric future, and they started laying the groundwork to make that happen, partnering with battery suppliers and the like.

Take Ford—that year, it announced a joint venture with SK to build a pair of battery factories, one in Kentucky, the other in Tennessee. BlueOvalSK represented an $11.4 billion investment that would create 11,000 jobs, we were told, and an annual output of 60 GWh from both plants.

Four years later, things look very different. EV subsidies are dead, as is any inclination by the current government to hold automakers accountable for selling too many gas guzzlers. EV-heavy product plans have been thrown out, and designs for new combustion-powered cars are being dusted off and spiffed up. Fewer EVs means a lower need for batteries, and today we saw that in evidence when it emerged that Ford and SK On are ending their battery factory joint venture.

Read full article

Comments

© Ford

Although many of us associate it with rally-derived machinery from the late 1990s and early 2000s, these days, Subaru has mostly abandoned its performance cars to concentrate on its true calling—rugged, all-wheel-drive vehicles that are high on practicality, powered by horizontally opposed “boxer” engines. One area where the brand has never particularly excelled has been fuel efficiency, which is where today’s test car, the Subaru Forester Hybrid, comes in.

The last time Ars reviewed a Subaru Forester, it left us impressed. How about one with 40 percent better economy, in that case? Now, the 2.5 L flat-four engine operates on the Atkinson/Miller cycle, which generates 162 hp (121 kW) and 154 lb-ft (208 Nm). There’s an electric motor-generator starter and an electric traction motor with 118 hp (88 kW) and 199 lb-ft (270 Nm) that work together to send a combined 194 hp (145 kW) to all four wheels via a symmetrical all-wheel drive system and a planetary continuously variable transmission.

If that sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it’s the same powertrain that Subaru has also fitted to the smaller Crosstrek Hybrid that we drove in September.

Read full article

Comments

© Jonathan Gitlin

The 2025 Formula 1 World Championship drew to a close this past weekend in Abu Dhabi, and with it came the end of the current generation of cars. After a grueling 24 races, the title was decided in a three-way fight by the finest of margins; just two points, less than half a percent, separated the winning driver from second place when the checkered flag waved on Sunday.

Coming into Abu Dhabi, McLaren’s Lando Norris was, if not a comfortable favorite, then at least the driver with the highest odds of prevailing. After a strong start to the season, the British driver’s form dipped at the Dutch Grand Prix. But he bounced back, retaking the championship lead from his Australian teammate Oscar Piastri in Mexico in October.

For much of the season, it seemed to be a two-car race. McLaren had a clear car advantage and two strong drivers, suggesting a repeat of the years we saw Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg duking it out to bring home titles for Mercedes. But that didn’t figure on Red Bull developing its car late in the season. New boss Laurent Mekies has revitalized the energy drinks squad, and four-time champion Max Verstappen was able to close inexorably toward the McLaren drivers in the points with a string of sublime performances.

Read full article

Comments

© Clive Mason/Getty Images

There’s some Toyota news today that doesn’t involve the chairman wearing a MAGA hat. The Japanese automaker evidently decided it’s been too long since it flexed its engineering chops on something with two doors and plenty of power, so it has rectified that situation with a new flagship coupe for its Gazoo Racing sporty sub-brand. Meet the GR GT, which looks set to go on sale toward the end of next year.

The Camry-esque look at the front, and to an extent the rear, came second to the GR GT’s aerodynamics, which is the opposite way to how Toyota usually styles its cars. It’s built around a highly rigid aluminum frame—Toyota’s first, apparently—with carbon fiber for the hood, roof, and some other body panels to minimize weight. The automaker says that lowering the car’s center of gravity was a top priority, and weight balance and distribution also help explain the transaxle layout, where the car’s transmission is behind the cockpit and between the rear wheels.

That transaxle transmission will be an eight-speed automatic that uses a wet clutch instead of a torque converter and into which the car’s hybrid motor is integrated. Power from the 4.0 L twin-turbo V8 and the hybrid system should be a combined 641 hp (478 kW) and 626 lb-ft (850 Nm). Despite the aluminum frame and use of composites, the GT GR is no featherweight; it will weigh as much as 3,858 lb (1,750 kg). The V8 is a new design with a short stroke, a hot-V configuration for the turbochargers, and dry sump lubrication.

Read full article

Comments

© Toyota

It’s been less than a year into the second Trump administration, and to many outside observers, US government policies appear confusing or incoherent. Yesterday provided a good example from the automotive sector. As has been widely expected, the White House is moving ahead with plans to significantly erode fuel economy standards, beyond even the permissive levels that were considered OK during the first Trump term.

Yet at the very announcement of that rollback, surrounded by compliant US automotive executives, the president decided to go off piste to declare his admiration for tiny Japanese Kei cars, telling Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to make them street-legal in the US.

50.4 mpg 40.4 mpg 34.5 mpg

A little over a decade ago, the Obama administration announced new fuel economy standards for light trucks and cars that were meant to go into effect this year, bringing the corporate fleet fuel economy average up to 50.4 mpg. As you can probably tell, that didn’t happen. It wasn’t a popular move with automakers, and the first Trump administration ripped up those rules and instituted new, weaker targets of just 40.4 mpg by 2026.

Read full article

Comments

© Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The new BMW iX3 is an important car for the automaker. It’s the first of a new series of vehicles that BMW is calling the Neue Klasse, calling back to a range of cars that helped define the brand in the 1960s. Then, as now, propulsion is provided by the best powertrain BMW’s engineers could design and build, wrapped in styling that heralds the company’s new look. Except now, that powertrain is fully electric, and the cabin features technology that would have been scarcely believable to the driver of a new 1962 BMW 1500.

In fact, the iX3 is only half the story when it comes to BMW’s neue look for the Neue Klasse—there’s an all-electric 3 series sedan on the way, too. The sedan will surely appeal to enthusiasts, particularly the version that the M tuning arm has worked its magic upon, but you’ll have to wait until early 2026 to read about that stuff. Which makes sense: crossovers and SUVs—or “sports activity vehicles” in BMW-speak—are what the market wants these days, so that’s what comes first.

The technical stuff

As we learned earlier this summer, BMW leaned heavily into sustainability when it designed the iX3. There’s extensive use of recycled battery minerals, interior plastics, and aluminum, and the automaker has gone for a monomaterial approach where possible to make recycling the car a lot easier. There’s also an all-new EV powertrain, BMW’s sixth-generation. When it goes on sale here next summer, the launch model will be the iX3 50 xDrive, which pairs an asynchronous motor at the front axle and an electrically excited synchronous motor at the rear for a combined output of 463 hp (345 kW) and 475 lb-ft (645 Nm).

Read full article

Comments

© BMW

LAS VEGAS—Formula 1 held the third annual Las Vegas Grand Prix this past weekend in the Nevada city. The race is an outlier in so many ways, and a divisive one at that. Some love the bright lights that make it appear to be set in Mega-City One or F-Zero. Others resent the rampant commercialism of F1 at its most excessive. And this time, Ars was on the ground, making one of our periodic visits to the series. The race we saw was something of a damp squib, seemingly leaving McLaren’s Lando Norris in control of the championship.

At least that’s how it looked when I left the track on Saturday night. Within a few hours, Norris and his teammate (and one of his two title rivals) Oscar Piastri were both disqualified for having worn away too much of the “legality plank” underneath the car—more on that in a while.

I was <a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/11/f1-succeeds-in-making-its-las-vegas-debut-a-spectacular-one/">a huge skeptic of the idea</a> when the Las Vegas race was announced, but the first two events put on a good show. Year 3 was a little more dull, however. Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Emblematic of the new F1

Unlike most Grands Prix, Liberty Media promotes this one itself. It spent half a billion dollars to get ready for the 2023 event, some of that on the pit lane and paddock complex, yet more on resurfacing the roads to the standards preferred by these thoroughbred racing cars. The track layout—which looks like a pig on its back—is typical of North American street circuits.

Read full article

Comments

© Hector Vivas/Getty Images

LAS VEGAS—A Formula 1 car runs on soon-to-be-synthetic gasoline, but an F1 team runs on data. It’s always been an engineering-driven sport, and while you can make decisions based on a hunch, the kinds of people who become good engineers prefer something a little more convincing. And the volumes of data just continue to get bigger and bigger each season. A few years ago, we spoke to Red Bull Racing about how it stayed on top of the task, but a lot has changed in F1 since 2017, as we found out at this year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

It’s hugely popular now, for one thing, even in the United States: a 200 mph soap opera now with 24 episodes a season. Superficially, the cars look the same—exposed wheels, front and rear wings, the driver in between some side pods. And the hybrid powertrains that make the cars move are still the same format: 1.6 L turbocharged V6 engines that recover energy from the rear wheels under braking as well as the turbine as it gets spun by hot exhaust gases.

But the cars are actually fundamentally different, particularly the way they generate their aerodynamic grip mostly via ground effect generated by the specially sculpted underside of their floors rather than the front and rear wings. A bigger change lurks in everyone’s accounts. The days when teams were free to spend as much money as they could find are gone.

Read full article

Comments

© Jonathan Gitlin