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Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.

2015 Russian Grand Prix was full of crashes and DNFs

Mercedes-AMG Petronas non-executive chairman Niki Lauda said of Lewis Hamilton's race-day domination this year, "The guy is driving like a god." Qualifying is another story, though – teammate Nico Rosberg taking pole proved that sometimes deities have to settle for second on the grid. Williams driver Valtteri Bottas surprised himself and his team with third place, half a second behind Hamilton but 0.05 sec ahead of the first Ferrari driven by Sebastian Vettel, while a mistake on Kimi Raikkonen's final flying lap left him in fifth, 0.4 sec behind Vettel. The Sahara Force India team had a good showing, with Nico Hulkenberg qualifying sixth just ahead of teammate Sergio Perez in seventh. It's the first time they've had both drivers in the top ten on the grid since the 2014 British Grand Prix. Romain Grosjean is leaving the stormy waters of Lotus at the end of the year for the unknown waters of Haas F1, but he made the shoestring operation look really good before Renault takes over by taking eighth place on the grid. Max Verstappen qualified well again with ninth in the Toro Rosso, ahead of the first Infiniti Red Bull Racing of Daniel Ricciardo in tenth. Red Bull driver Daniil Kvyat lined up eleventh for his home grand prix, certainly a disappointment after locking up fifth place on the grid last year in a Toro Rosso. When Pirelli brought soft and supersoft compounds to Sochi, the company said it hoped this year's race would be better than last year's. We're sure this first-lap mishap isn't what they meant. Rosberg and Hamilton dragged it down to Turn 1, with Rosberg getting the inside line. Hamilton had to go wide at Turn 2 as Rosberg fought to hold position, but they left a mess in their wake: Hulkenberg spun going into Turn 2 and stopped in the middle of the track, and Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber – who'd started 16th – collided with him. Both cars were out of the race immediately, and the Safety Car came in. The Safety Car returned to the pits on Lap 3 Rosberg led the field, but just two laps later the German complained of a sticking throttle pedal. Two laps later he had to retire, unable to drive the car properly. That put Hamilton at the front, and we've seen that race a bunch of times before. He built a double-digit lead and never lost it.

2021 Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 is business class without the jet lag

Mercedes-AMG demonstrated how sporty a mammoth SUV can be by unveiling the 2021 GLS 63 S at the 2019 Los Angeles Auto Show. Across the Pacific, at the Guangzhou auto show in China, Mercedes-Maybach revealed another GLS variant that puts an unabashed focus on comfort. The 2021 GLS 600 ends years of rumors by finally taking Maybach into the SUV segment. (If you don't count the limited-edition G 650 Landaulet). It's not a standalone model developed from the ground up, and it's in no way related to the electric Vision Mercedes-Maybach Ultimate Luxury concept introduced in 2018. It's a second-generation GLS dressed up in a Hugo Boss suit. Stylists spruced up the front end with Maybach's chromed waterfall grille and mesh inserts in the lower part of the bumper. An abundance of chrome trim (including big slabs of it in on the B-pillars) and Maybach emblems on the D-pillars further set the SUV apart from its non-Maybach-badged sibling. Buyers can order a two-tone paint job at an extra cost. 6.8-foot-long running boards automatically extend from under the body about a second after one of the passengers opens a door. Designers took advantage of the cavernous interior to replace the second- and third-row seats with a pair of business class-like chairs that offer heated, ventilated, massaging and reclining functions. Maybach developed the GLS with chauffeur-driven buyers in mind, so the passengers traveling in the back benefit from their own infotainment system with wireless headphones, folding tablets, wireless device chargers, plus heated and cooled cupholders. Alternatively, buyers can order the GLS as a five-seater with a three-person rear bench. The GLS 600 receives the twin-turbocharged, 4.0-liter V8 engine that's omnipresent in the Mercedes range. It delivers 550 horsepower from 6,000 to 6,500 rpm and 538 pound-feet of torque between 2,500 and 5,000 rpm in this application, and it spins the four wheels via a nine-speed automatic transmission and 4Matic all-wheel drive. Mercedes pegs its zero-to-60-mph time at 4.8 seconds. The standard 48-volt mild hybrid system briefly gives the GLS 600 an additional 21 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. It also sends the kinetic energy it recuperates to the battery pack while braking or coasting, and powers a technology named E-Active Body Control which scans the road ahead and adjusts the suspension as needed if it detects a pothole, a bump or another obstacle.