1964 Vw Beetle on 2040-cars

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Autoblog's Editors' Picks: Our complete list of the best new vehicles

It's not easy to earn an “EditorsÂ’ Picks” at Autoblog as part of the rating and review process that every new vehicle goes through. Our editors have been at it a long time, which means weÂ’ve driven and reviewed virtually every new car you can go buy on the dealer lot. There are disagreements, of course, and all vehicles have their strengths and weaknesses, but this list features what we think are the best new vehicles chosen by Autoblog editors. We started this formal review process back in 2018, so there's quite of few of them now. So what does it mean to be an EditorsÂ’ Pick? In short, it means itÂ’s a car that we can highly recommend purchasing. There may be one, multiple, or even zero vehicles in any given segment that we give the green light to. What really matters is that itÂ’s a vehicle that weÂ’d tell a friend or family member to go buy if theyÂ’re considering it, because itÂ’s a very good car. The best way to use this list is is with the navigation links below. Click on a segment, and you'll quickly arrive at the top rated pickup truck or SUV, for example. Use the back button to return to these links and search in another segment, like sedans. If youÂ’ve been keeping up with our monthly series of the latest vehicles to earn EditorsÂ’ Pick status, youÂ’re likely going to be familiar with this list already. If not, welcome to the complete list that weÂ’ll be keeping updated as vehicles enter (and others perhaps exit) the good graces of our editorial team. We rate a new car — giving it a numerical score out of 10 — every time thereÂ’s a significant refresh or if it happens to be an all-new model. Any given vehicle may be impressive on a first drive, but we wait until itÂ’s in the hands of our editors to put it through the same type of testing as every other vehicle that rolls through our test fleet before giving it the EditorsÂ’ Pick badge. This ensures consistency and allows more voices to be heard on each individual model. And just so you donÂ’t think weÂ’ve skipped trims or variants of a model, we hand out the EditorsÂ’ Pick based on the overarching model to keep things consistent. So, when you read that the 3 Series is an EditorsÂ’ Pick, yes, that includes the 330i to the M3 and all the variants in between. If thereÂ’s a particular version of that car we vehemently disagree with, we make sure to call that out.

VW CEO lost his job over buggy software that delayed new models

It says a lot about the state of the auto industry and where it's going that software problems have cost the CEO of a carmaker his job. Volkswagen ousted Herbert Diess as chief executive officer after severe software-development delays set back the scheduled launch of new Porsches, Audis and Bentleys. This was untenable considering buggy software postponed the debut of VW’s initial rollout of ID models, and customers are still having to drop off their cars at the dealer for updates the company has struggled to make over the air. Sure, Diess also didnÂ’t do enough to make allies and became increasingly isolated due to his hard-nosed leadership style. In his push to transform the company into an electric-vehicle leader, he repeatedly clashed with labor leaders by warning VW was losing out to Tesla and needed to cut thousands of jobs. But failures at the carmakerÂ’s software unit Cariad ultimately eroded DiessÂ’s support from the powerful Porsche and Piech family that calls the shots. Back in December, VW overhauled its management board, stripping Diess of some responsibilities while tasking him to turn around Cariad. While thereÂ’s been a lot of re-arranging since then, Diess didnÂ’t manage to make the issues go away. Discord at Cariad has pushed back the rollout of important new models including the electric Porsche Macan, a high-volume sport utility vehicle for the division thatÂ’s planning an initial public offering in the fourth quarter. AudiÂ’s new line of Artemis EVs has been delayed by around two years to 2027. And VWÂ’s ultra-luxury brand Bentley may not be able to go all-electric by the end of this decade as planned because of the software issues, Automobilwoche reported earlier this month. “Taking over the ship at Cariad seems to have been DiessÂ’s downfall,” said Matthias Schmidt, an independent auto analyst based in Berlin. VWÂ’s solutions to challenges tend to reflect its status as an industrial behemoth: itÂ’s able to throw lots of money and people at its problems. But modernizing the company for the digital age is going to take bringing in talent and building skillsets outside its traditional zones of expertise. Drivers increasingly demand intuitive user interfaces and services that could create new revenue streams, if done correctly. “Software is the key to the future,” TeslaÂ’s Elon Musk tweeted when one of his followers asked about VW switching CEOs. Diess certainly didnÂ’t lack ambition.

Prop-driven VW Beetle hopes to land in Bonneville [w/video]

Sometimes you meet folks who, when they tell you "Hey, I have an idea," your reflex response is to stop what you're doing and tell yourself, "Get ready...." We imagine Mike Niemans is one of those folks, and the idea in question is putting a tank engine on a Type 1 Volkswagen Beetle. Not just any old tank engine - as if there were such a thing when we're talking about putting them in cars - but a 668-cubic-inch, 220-horsepower radial engine built by Continental in 1941 and procured from an M2 tank.
In the image above Nieman is using the tank clutch hub to get the motor set up, but in one of the images below you can see what really belongs back there is: a two-inch, reverse-pitch prop taken from a wind generator. He says there's enough mojo with the propeller action to get the car rolling down the runway like a jet when he gives it gas - and speaking of gas, the engine's been refitted to run on propane.
After a few safety tweaks Nieman's going to take the matte-black Beetle to Bonneville, "put the prop on, let her go and see what happens!" We can't wait to see the video of that. There are two shakedown videos below to get you ready.