Enlarge / The introduction of model year 2025 brings a retractable hard-top option for the McLaren Artura, plus a host of other upgrades. (credit: McLaren)

MONACO—The idea of an "entry-level" supercar might sound like a contradiction in terms, but every car company's range has to start somewhere, and in McLaren's case, that's the Artura. When Ars first tested this mid-engined plug-in hybrid in 2022, It was only available as a coupe. But for those who prefer things al fresco, the British automaker has now given you that option with the addition of the Artura Spider.

The Artura represented a step forward for McLaren. There's a brand-new carbon fiber chassis tub, an advanced electronic architecture (with a handful of domain controllers that replace the dozens of individual ECUs you might find in some of its other models), and a highly capable hybrid powertrain that combines a twin-turbo V6 gasoline engine with an axial flux electric motor.

More power, faster shifts

For model year 2025 and the launch of the $273,800 Spider version, the engineering team at McLaren have given it a spruce-up, despite only being a couple of years old. Overall power output has increased by 19 hp (14 kW) thanks to new engine maps for the V6, which now has a bit more surge from 4,000 rpm all the way to the 8,500 rpm redline. Our test car was fitted with the new sports exhaust, which isn't obnoxiously loud. It makes some interesting noises as you lift the throttle in the middle of the rev range, but like most turbo engines, it's not particularly mellifluous.

Enlarge / Polestar's first electric SUV is the new Polestar 3, and it's rather great to drive. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

MADRID, Spain—2024 is a big year for Polestar. It was spun out of Volvo in 2017 as a standalone performance electric brand, and in 2019, we tried its first car, a low-volume plug-in hybrid GT that wowed us but only ever amounted to 1,500 cars. Next came the Polestar 2, a compact four-door sedan that was one of the first cars to deeply integrate Google's automotive services. But now it's time for the cars most of Polestar's potential customers have been waiting for—SUVs. And it's starting with the $73,400 Polestar 3.

Although Volvo has sold its shares in Polestar (leaving its parent company Geely as Polestar's sole corporate parent), the two companies will continue to share technology and platforms. The Polestar 3 is built on the group's SPA2 architecture, which is also being used by the forthcoming Volvo EX90; indeed, both are going into production at Volvo's factory in South Carolina this year.

As a measure of how far the company has come in a relatively short time, the Polestar 3 generates less carbon emissions during production than the smaller, cheaper Polestar 2 when it was introduced in 2020.

Enlarge / The R1S and R1T don't look much different from the electric trucks we drove in 2022, but under the skin, there have been a lot of changes. (credit: Rivian)

In rainy Seattle this week, Rivian unveiled what it's calling the "Second Generation" of its R1 line with a suite of mostly under-the-hood software and hardware updates that increase range, power, and efficiency while simultaneously lowering the cost of production for the company. While it's common for automotive manufacturers to do some light refreshes after about four model years, Rivian has almost completely retooled the underpinnings of its popular R1S SUV and R1T pickup just two years after the vehicles made their debut.

"Overdelivering on the product is one of our core values," Wassym Bensaid, the chief software officer at Rivian, told a select group of journalists at the event on Monday night, "and customer feedback has been one of the key inspirations for us."

For these updates, Rivian changed more than half the hardware components in the R1 platform, retooled its drive units to offer new tri- and quad-motor options (with more horsepower), updated the suspension tuning, deleted 1.6 miles (2.6 km) of wiring, reduced the number of ECUs, increased the number of cameras and sensors around the vehicle, changed the battery packs, and added some visual options that better aligned with customizations that owners were making to their vehicles, among other things. Rivian is also leaning harder into AI and ML tools with the aim of bringing limited hands-free driver-assistance systems to their owners toward the end of the year.

Enlarge / With just 222 miles of range, you can't venture far off-grid in the Subaru Solterra. (credit: Subaru)

Over the years, Subaru has generated a cult following in the US, making its name with all-wheel drive powertrains and a go-anywhere attitude. Cars like the rally-bred WRXes and STIs did a lot of work here, but lately, Subaru has seemed to go in the opposite direction, phasing out fun drives like the STI lineup in favor of volume-movers like the Ascent and bloated versions of existing models such as the Subaru Wilderness editions.

Its first electric vehicle is perhaps even less in character. The $44,995 Solterra is the result of an ongoing partnership with Toyota and was developed together with the bZ4X. Unlike the Toyota, there's no single-motor option for the Solterra. It's all-wheel-drive only, with a pair of identical 107 hp (80 kW) permanent magnet electric motors, one for each axle. That means you can do some, but not all, of the off-road things you'd expect to do with a Subaru.

Looks are deceiving

At first glance, the Solterra looks like the edgy, tech-leaning offspring of a Crosstrek and an Impreza wagon. The 8.3 inches of ground clearance is slightly less than the Outback or Forester, while the Solterra comes in at 184.6 inches (4,689 mm) in length, placing it squarely in the middle of the brand's stable. It's a rather compact SUV, even more so when you try to get comfortable in the cockpit. My short frame was cramped, and anyone taller than me won't feel welcome on long drives.

Enlarge / The regular Hyundai Elantra is a perfectly fine compact sedan. But once the boffins at Hyundai N got hold of it, they transformed it into something with a lot more character. (credit: Peter Nelson)

Few cars are aimed quite at driving enthusiasts like the wholesome sport compact. In terms of everyday usability and fun factor, little can touch them, and luckily, there's still a good variety of them on the new market. Among the best is the Hyundai Elantra N, which, for the 2024 model year, received a styling and chassis refresh. Pricing starts at $33,245 for three pedals and a manual gearbox, or $35,515 for a dual-clutch eight-speed, and either is a massive value for the performance and fun factor that they offer.

Amply sporty styling, plenty spacious

The 2024 Elantra N's biggest change is in its face. Where previously it had beady eyes surrounded in a sea of black trim—kind of like the vehicular equivalent of a Belgian Malinois—its headlight, grille, and intake are now more geometric. Looks are subjective, but I'm a fan of the headlights, and the functional inlets improve radiator and brake cooling over the previous fascia.

Elsewhere, it's pretty much the same angular four-door wearing some trapezoidal accents across its body panels and a pronounced rear spoiler. A new set of forged 19-inch wheels is wrapped in 245/35/19 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires—these also shave off 8.25 lbs (3.75 kg) of unsprung weight at each corner, which bodes well for acceleration and handling.

Enlarge / For a while the Lyriq was a rare sight on the road, but now that production has picked up, we decided it was time to get a second impression. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

We first drove the Cadillac Lyriq a couple of years ago. It was the first of a whole range of new electric vehicles from General Motors built on shared electric powertrain components. Compared to more recent Ultium-based EVs from GM, the Lyriq launch went relatively smoothly, despite pre-production test vehicles. Hype was so great that Cadillac was said to have increased the first year's production run by almost a factor of 10.

But customers faced a long wait for their orders as the company stumbled at the step where cells get turned into battery packs. Now the production kinks have been worked out, and Lyriqs are becoming a more common sight. So it seemed like a reasonable time to check in on the electric Caddy.

We've written quite a lot in the past about the Lyriq's Ultium powertrain, so I won't repeat too much detail here. For model-year 2024, the underpinnings remain the same, although our test car is an all-wheel-drive version. (Cadillac only had the rear-wheel-drive variant at the first drive in 2022.) There are a pair of new trims, Tech and Sport—this test car was the top-of-the-line Sport 3, with a $78,295 sticker price (including delivery charge).

Enlarge / The Mustang Mach-E Rally is the latest version of Ford's electric crossover. It features plenty of power and a new drive mode, as well as plenty of rally-inspired accoutrements. (credit: Tim Stevens)

Mildly off-road-ready performance variants are extremely trendy right now, and it's easy to turn your nose up at them. But when cars like the 911 Dakar or Huracan Sterrato actually improve the day-to-day drivability and comfort of the road-focused machines upon which they're lifted, you have to respect them.

Me? I'm a die-hard rally fan and someone who'd rather drive sideways than straight. It's no surprise that I love these special editions, from their top-boxes down to their all-terrain tires. But I also love electric vehicles, and while there are plenty of electrified crossovers and SUVs out there, it's slim pickings if you want something rally-ready.

Today, that changes.

Enlarge / BMW's single-motor, rear-wheel drive i4 eDrive40 ticks an awful lot of my boxes. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

I have a theory about electric vehicles, and with a few notable exceptions, it's this: The cheaper, less powerful version is usually the one to get. Big power outputs and short 0–60 times have been the industry's go-to, but always with the trade-off being less range and a bigger sticker price. Today's EV is a good example. It's the BMW i4 eDrive40, a single-motor version of BMW's smaller electric fastback sedan. It has taken a while to get some seat time in one, but the wait was worth it, because this is one of the best electric sedans we've tested so far.

I've driven the BMW i4 a few times now since its launch in 2021, but always the very fast, very powerful, rather expensive i4 M50. Which is fine, but not exciting like the M3. The i4 eDrive40 undercuts the twin-motor, all-wheel drive M50 by more than $10,000—it starts at a more reasonable $57,300 and goes more than 30 miles (48 km) farther on a single charge of the same capacity 84.3 kWh (net) battery pack, with an EPA range of 301 miles (484 km).

BMW made its name on the back of a string of driver-focused, rear-wheel drive sedans, and I had high expectations for the eDrive40 to live up to. With no front motor, there's less weight on the front axle, and the front wheels just have to worry about steering and braking, not laying down power as well. Less power to put down means smaller wheels, which translates into a better ride and more range, although our test car was equipped with 19-inch wheels (a $600 option), which reduced its range to 283 miles (455 km) compared to the 18-inch option.

Enlarge / Chevrolet is starting at the top with the Silverado EV RST First Edition. It's betting that EV truck buyers want a lot of range and towing capability and will pay handsomely for the experience. (credit: Michael Teo Van Runkle)

The latest addition to Chevrolet's growing family of Ultium electric vehicles recently began shipping to dealers in the form of the Silverado EV's early RST First Edition package. Silverado's top spec level now joins the lineup's previous fleet-only WT trim, meaning the general public can now purchase an enormous electric pickup that strongly resembles the Avalanche of 2001 to 2013. But despite any other similarities to the Hummer EV, which shares a related chassis, or ICE trucks of old, the 2024 Silverado aims to change the game for GM's market positioning despite arriving a full 24 months after Ford's F-150 Lightning.

With a large crew cab, a longer truck bed, and angular sail panels, the Silverado EV looks less boxy than GMC's Hummer EV. Aero gains thanks to the smoother design pair with lower rolling-resistance tires, allowing the Silverado to achieve an EPA range estimate of up to 450 miles (724 km), though the RST First Edition I recently drove over the course of a long day in Michigan earns a rating of 440 miles (708 km).

On the highway, judging by wind noise around the cabin alone, the aerodynamic gains of the Silverado's styling seem to make a noticeable difference versus the Hummer. On the other hand, tire hum might cover up any aero deficiencies because the RST's single weirdest detail constantly occupies center stage here: a set of 24-inch wheels, the largest ever equipped to a car, truck, or SUV straight from the factory.