crossover

2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio – The Preferred Italian For Winter Driving

This entry was posted in Alfa Romeo Carmakers crossover reviews and tagged alfa romeo car review car reviews crossover review reviews stelvio on by (updated 2462 days ago)

2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio ti Lusso AWD

Ever since Fiat Chrysler reintroduced Alfa Romeo to America a few years back, each successive model has become more practical and usable. The tiny 4C is a brilliant little carbon-fiber roadster, but best considered a toy. The Giulia is a gorgeous midsize sports sedan that’s available with a twin-turbocharged V6 that sounds like it came straight out of a mid-1980s Ferrari F1 car. But as much as I adored the Giulia Quadrifoglio, it’s pricey and as discussed previously it’s too low to the ground to deal with a major snow storm. But Alfa has us covered there as well with its first-ever utility vehicle, the Stelvio which I drove the week before the big storm.

Read the rest of the review here

2018 Mercedes-AMG GLA45 – It’s Hot But Don’t Call It An SUV

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars crossover Mercedes-Benz reviews and tagged 2018 Mercedes-AMG GLA45 amg car review car reviews cars crossover high-performance hot hatch review reviews on by (updated 2678 days ago)

2018 Mercedes-AMG GLA45

In 2017, do vehicle segment labels even have any meaning anymore? Back in the dark ages of the 1970s we knew what a sport utility vehicle was. It was essentially a shortened body-on-frame pickup truck with an enclosed, but often removable rear body. But then in 1984, Jeep introduced the XJ Cherokee and it all began to change. Now a utility vehicle can be whatever an automaker’s marketing department deems it to be including a high-performance compact, hot hatch like the Mercedes-AMG GLA45.

(more…)

Leave The Brake Pedal, Take The Bolt – Driving Chevrolet’s New EV

This entry was posted in Carmakers Chevrolet crossover electric General Motors reviews technology and tagged android apple car review car reviews chevrolet crossover electricvehicles EV review reviews on by (updated 2849 days ago)

It’s been more than eight years since I first drove one of BMW’s MINI E electric prototypes around downtown Los Angeles. One of the first characteristics I noticed about that car was the extremely aggressive regenerative braking that enabled driving virtually without touching the brake pedal. While BMW has persisted with that strategy as the only control mode on the production i3, other automakers have provided similar abilities only when shifting the transmission to Low mode. After driving the new Chevrolet Bolt EV from Tesla’s Silicon Valley backyard into the heart of San Francisco, I think all Bolt drivers should consider driving this way all the time.

(more…)

2017 GMC Acadia All-Terrain – Right-Sizing GMC’s Bigger Crossover

This entry was posted in Carmakers crossover General Motors GMC reviews SUV and tagged 2017 GMC Acadia android apple car review car reviews crossover review reviews on by (updated 2880 days ago)

2017 GMC Acadia All-Terrain

It’s been a decade since General Motors finally gave up on trying to stake out a claim in the minivan market and then trying to recast its vans as pseudo-SUVs. In 2006, GM launched an all-new platform for full-size crossover utilities that was known internally as Lambda and ultimately spawned four nameplates, Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia and the now-defunct Saturn Outlook. Having achieved some notable success with the platform with steadily growing sales of more than 200,000 units annually since 2010, an all-new second-generation Lambda is now ready and hit the streets in 2016 under a redesigned version of the Acadia.

(more…)

2016 Mazda CX-9 – Moving People in Style

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars crossover Mazda reviews SUV and tagged 2016 mazda cx-9 car review car reviews crossover cx-9 review reviews suv on by (updated 2910 days ago)
2016 Mazda CX-9 Signature

2016 Mazda CX-9 Signature

Earlier this year, nearly eight years after Ford started divesting its controlling interest in Mazda, the Japanese brand finally replaced the last of the products that shared hardware with the Dearborn brand. Mazda’s biggest vehicle was also its oldest with the original CX-9 lasting nearly a decade before a complete redesign. Now that the CX-9 is new and fresh, does it finally fit in with the rest of the family from the brand that says “driving matters?”

(more…)

2017 Jaguar F-Pace S – To Big Sur and Back

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars crossover Jaguar reviews and tagged 2017 Jaguar F-pace car review car reviews jaguar performance reviews suv on by (updated 2933 days ago)
2017 Jaguar F-Pace S

2017 Jaguar F-Pace S

As the western coast of the United States rises up from the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, a 655-mile stretch of the boundary between land and water is marked by a strip of pavement known as California Route 1. Known in various locations as the Pacific Coast Highway or Cabrillo Highway, the road winds, climbs and falls as it seeks purchase along the perimeter of the continent. It’s the ideal road for the kinds of cars built by Jaguar and I recently spent some time there in one of the venerable British brand’s newest products. But rather than a car, I was driving the all-new F-Pace S.

Read the full review here

2016 BMW X5 xDrive40e – Fuel Efficient Family Truckster

This entry was posted in BMW Carmakers crossover electric Hybrid reviews and tagged bmw x5 xDrive40e car review car reviews electricvehicles EV hybrid phev plug-in hybrid on by (updated 2974 days ago)
2016 BMW X5 xDrive40e

2016 BMW X5 xDrive40e

It’s now been about a decade since BMW first announced its plans to get into the hybrid game and it was another three years before any production models with electric drive assist hit the streets. A lot has changed since BMW launched the ActiveHybrid X6 and ActiveHybrid 7 essentially as experiments in 2009. Electrification is now becoming relatively mainstream with batteries and electric motors no longer limited to super-efficient cars like the Toyota Prius. After a week with the 2016 X5 xDrive40e, there’s no doubt that the future of the ultimate driving machine includes plugs across the board.

(more…)

2017 Kia Sportage SX AWD – All Grown Up

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars crossover Kia reviews SUV and tagged 2017 kia sportage car review car reviews crossover on by (updated 3064 days ago)
2017 Kia Sportage SX

2017 Kia Sportage SX

When Steve Ballmer left the CEO’s office at Microsoft, he went and spent a good chunk of the fortune he had amassed buying the Los Angeles Clippers. If instead, he had chosen to become an automotive marketing executive, I could picture him stomping around the stage at a dealer meeting in a sweat drenched shirt shouting “Utilities! Utilities! Utilities!” As consumers increasingly opt for either traditional SUVs or more modern crossover utilities, automakers are scrambling to add more nameplates. For Kia, 2016 seems like the perfect time to launch an all-new version of the oldest continuous model in its lineup, the Sportage compact crossover.

(more…)

2016 Lexus RX450h F Sport – Adding a Touch of Cayenne

This entry was posted in Carmakers crossover Hybrid Lexus luxury reviews and tagged car review car reviews cars crossover hybrid review reviews on by (updated 3099 days ago)
2016 Lexus RX 450h F Sport

2016 Lexus RX 450h F Sport

For most of its nearly two decade history, the midsize RX crossover has been the best seller in the Lexus lineup by a fairly wide margin. Like other Lexi prior to the current generation, it also had generally inoffensive, but uninspired design. That all changed in 2015 with the debut of the fourth-generation RX including the hybrid RX450h F Sport that I recently drove. Whether you like the new design direction or not, this latest RX is at least less likely to get lost in a crowd.

(more…)