All posts tagged: automobiles

Hyundai Ioniq 3 2026: Price, Specs, Availability

Hyundai Ioniq 3 2026: Price, Specs, Availability

Published by skeptic

Hyundai has unveiled its Ioniq 3, a fully electric compact hatchback for urban driving designed to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible yet still offer up a surprisingly spacious interior—a trick the carmaker is loftily calling Aero Hatch. The 3 is intended to fill the gap between Hyundai’s Inster supermini and Ioniq 5 crossover. In profile, the Ioniq 3 has a sleek front end that transitions into a roofline that stays straight over both front and rear occupants before dropping to merge with the rear spoiler. It’s this roofline that maximizes interior headroom for the rear passengers, but it also offers a supposed class-leading drag coefficient of 0.263. The Ioniq 3’s impressive aerodynamics will supposedly help it get more than 300 miles on a single charge. Photograph: Courtesy of Hyundai The car has the same underpinnings as its sibling brand, Kia’s EV2. Two battery options will deliver a projected WLTP distance of 344 km (around 214 miles) for the Standard Range Ioniq 3; the Long Range version is supposedly good for a competitive 308-mile range. …

BYD’s Fastest-Charging Car in the World Is Astonishing—in Good and Bad Ways

BYD’s Fastest-Charging Car in the World Is Astonishing—in Good and Bad Ways

Published by skeptic

The Denza Z9 GT is the world’s fastest car—fastest at charging, that is. It’s by no means slow in speed (we’ll get to that), and it is packed to the brim with bleeding-edge tech (we’ll get to that, too). But, trust me here, it’s the formidable charging tech BYD has brought to bear here that should get you hot under the collar. Many auto brands claim charging times that are, shall we say, massaged. Not so with the Denza Z9 GT. I sat in the car and personally watched it go from 10 percent to full in just over 9 minutes. It makes all other EVs look like they are standing still in this department, and the Z9 GT heralds a new age of electric cars that will confound gas faithfuls whose primary argument has always been that you can’t fill EVs quickly. Denza is BYD’s “premium” EV brand, here to bother the likes of Porsche and Polestar, and the Z9 GT is its opening salvo in Europe, intended to scare the hell out of …

The 3 Best Portable Jump Starters in 2026: Get Charged Up

The 3 Best Portable Jump Starters in 2026: Get Charged Up

Published by skeptic

Leaving your headlights on used to mean a knock on a neighbor’s door—or a long and maybe costly wait for a tow truck. But battery technology changes everything, whether for cars or portable blenders or power packs. Portable jump starters now don’t cost much more than the price of a single tow and can jolt your car awake even with a bone-dead battery. Most can also charge your phone or laptop in a pinch. My conversion moment happened in a remote stretch of northern Delaware, where I’d left my headlights on after a foggy morning drive. I chased phone signal for most of an hour, until a passing parks employee happened to have one of the new breed of lithium-ion jump starters tucked behind his seat. I drove straight to the auto parts store and procured a basic 1,000-amp NOCO jump starter ($100) that saved my hide multiple times thereafter. NOCO is still a brand I recommend. The same goes for a reliable, low-cost Gooloo A3 jump starter ($70) that I bought after moving cross-country. …

The Sony Afeela Was Doomed to Fail

The Sony Afeela Was Doomed to Fail

Published by skeptic

Sony-Honda is no longer Afeelin’ it. This week, the Japanese joint venture that for years had promised to bring a video-game sensibility to a digital-first electric car was abruptly canceled. The two companies snuffed out one vehicle, the Afeela 1, that was first announced three years ago, and also halted work on another model under development. Sony Honda Mobility (SHM) pinned the blame on Honda’s larger EV pivot. Earlier this month, the automaker canceled its “0 Series” lineup of electric vehicles after posting a $15.7 billion loss amid bigger changes in the global EV market. Because of those shifts, the joint venture wrote in a press release, “SHM will not be able to utilize certain technologies and assets that were originally planned to be provided by Honda.” Reservation holders will get full refunds, the company said, and “discussions” about the future of the Sony-Honda partnership “will continue.” So the PlayStation-first car of everyone’s dreams may still be far ahead on the horizon, maybe. The Afeela, though, was a weird fit from the start. Let’s put …

Lamborghini is the Latest Automaker to Pull the Plug on Luxury EVs

Lamborghini is the Latest Automaker to Pull the Plug on Luxury EVs

Published by skeptic

I ask if Winkelmann can explain why luxury EVs are failing so badly when lower price points in the sector are doing so well. “First of all, there is no need to buy a car like Lamborghini. Then, for sure, there is the experience with electric cars on purchase price, resale value and residual value, and also in terms of technology.” Here Winkelmann is referring to the eye-watering drops in value some high-end EVs are experiencing, with brands like Porsche losing up to half the car’s value in just a year. Meanwhile, other marques had lux EVs that lost more than $600 each day. “Then there is the fact that technology, in the eyes of our customers, is going to be obsolete in 10 years from now,” says Winkelmann, “because there’s a lot of new tech. This is the idea of the majority of our customers, and the experience they have had with electric cars, even in different segments, and charging times.” Winkelmann says he does not know if fast-charging and high-capacity solid state battery …

Join Our Livestream: The Hype, Reality, and Future of EVs

Join Our Livestream: The Hype, Reality, and Future of EVs

Published by skeptic

As electric vehicles have gone mainstream, buyers are facing a smorgasbord of options, and Tesla—once untouchable—is no longer the dominant force. Last year was a tough one for Elon Musk’s auto brand: Sales efforts faltered, and the company lost its title of world’s largest EV maker to China’s BYD. Today, it feels like all automakers—including luxury brands—are racing to release their own EVs. But at the same time, some companies are scaling back production plans. So where is the market headed? Will the US build out EV charging infrastructure fast enough? Will gas-powered vehicles soon be obsolete? Will an American company ever dominate the EV market again? And what policies might shape what comes next? Join WIRED’s next livestream to discuss these issues and more. On the Panel Julian Chokkattu: Senior editor at WIRED overseeing personal technology, gadgets, and gizmos. He has reviewed consumer products for a decade. Aarian Marshall: Staff writer at WIRED covering transportation systems and cities. She’s covered Tesla for close to a decade, and the EV industry for the last five …

People Still Aren’t Into Buying Cars Online

People Still Aren’t Into Buying Cars Online

Published by skeptic

In the US, cars follow only housing as the most expensive purchase consumers make. So it makes a lot of sense that, according to recent buyer surveys, very few of them want an Amazon-style, one-click approach to getting a new set of wheels. “People want to see, feel, and touch the car,” says Erin Lomax, the vice president of consumer marketing at Cox Automotive, a research firm that also makes digital auto sales products that allow dealers to initiate transactions online. (This gives Cox a lot of insight into buying patterns, but it also has a stake here.) Not to mention test-driving the expensive thing they’ll probably use every day. Data released by Cox this month shows that while 28 percent of car buyers go into the transaction thinking they want to do the whole thing online, just 7 percent end up pulling it off. More than half of buyers conduct their purchases entirely in person. Another consumer survey, published in the fall, found that just over half of car buyers wanted to physically sign …

Where Are All the New Cars?

Where Are All the New Cars?

Published by skeptic

Ministeri adds that Chinese OEMs, ahead in software compared to Western makers in terms of autonomous driving tech, he believes, weren’t on show because right now they cannot launch any vehicles in the US. CES, therefore, is simply no longer “the right for stage for them.” Andy Palmer, former COO of Nissan and former CEO of Aston Martin Lagonda, goes further. “CES used to matter to carmakers because the industry was borrowing technological credibility from Silicon Valley. Today that relationship has flipped. Automotive tech is no longer an exciting novelty, it’s to be expected,” he says. “Electrification, software, and ADAS are now industrialized technologies. They are no longer concept-stage theater pieces that need a Las Vegas stage.” More importantly, Palmer, Nothard, and Ministeri all state that the center of gravity for the auto world has moved—both technologically and geographically—to, of course, China. This makes China’s main auto expo, which alternates each year between Shanghai and Beijing, now the location where carmakers must posture and preen. Indeed, as WIRED pointed out in May last year, Shanghai …

‘Physical AI’ Is Coming for Your Car

‘Physical AI’ Is Coming for Your Car

Published by skeptic

Physical AI sounds like a contradiction in terms. A computer, but a body? But for the marketing architects, it’s the latest term of art, a buzzword meant to point us citizens toward a bright and promising technological future. Back here on earth, the term is maybe most useful as a way to understand how automotive companies are thinking about themselves right now: as tech pioneers. It’s also a handy shortcut to understanding how appetizing the automotive industry is for the companies that make chips—what could be a $123 billion opportunity by 2032, up some 85 percent from 2023. The giant CES consumer tech showcase that just took place in Las Vegas always has its share of goofy robot demos, but this year’s presentations showed how the world of robots, cars, and chipsets are growing ever closer. First, to define (marketing) terms: “Physical AI” is the way tech developers eventually hope that autonomous systems interact with the real world, by using camera and sensor data to truly understand and reason through what’s going on around them, …