Electric Cars

This 4Runner is electrified and almost ready to race.
Emme Hall/Roadshow
King of the Hammers is one of the most brutal off-road motorsports events in the world, taking place over the course of a week in the desert of Johnson Valley, California. It’s a place where 40-inch tires meet massive amounts of horsepower and torque to climb over obstacles in a way that defies physics. This is not a place where you’d expect to find an EV. Until now.Kyle Seggelin and his team took the gas powertrain out of a 1986 Toyota 4Runner and replaced it with the battery and electric motor from a Nissan Leaf. Their plan: Race it in the Every Man Challenge at this year’s King of the Hammers. Seggelin’s 4Runner uses the first-gen Leaf’s 80-kilowatt motor, which produces 107 horsepower and 187 pound-feet of torque. That’s not a lot of power considering the team has added 1,000 pounds of batteries to the already heavy SUV. Because the Leaf’s motor has an output shaft, it can be driven with the 4Runner’s existing five-speed manual transmission. I can’t wrap my head around the logic behind this one, and Seggelin says the team wants to collect more data before swapping it out for something that’s more EV-traditional, like a single reduction gear. Battery packs store the go-go juice, but they add about 1,000 pounds to the 4Runner.
Emme Hall/Roadshow
The team has two sets of batteries that can power this electric motor. One is from a second-gen Leaf that can store 40 kilowatt-hours of energy and one 62-kWh pack from a Leaf Plus. The team expects to get one mile out of every kilowatt hour, but they haven’t had time for testing, so that’s just an educated guess. The team plans to start with the smaller batteries, which should easily get the truck to the first pit stop at race mile 17.5. At that point, the team will swap out for the larger batteries to get the truck through the next 55-mile loop. While Seggelin and his co-driver (his sister Dahlia) are out there doing their thing, the support team will charge the smaller batteries with a 12,000-watt generator. The team will then do another battery swap to make the final 18.5 miles to the finish line. The 4Runner is rolling on Raceline wheels and 35-inch Falken tires. Pro Eagle supplied the team with some jacks and Bend-Tech gave the team tube bending software. The long-travel suspension uses King shocks and it’s got ARB lockers front and rear.Swapping out the gas engine for the Nissan Leaf motor leaves a lot of extra space in the 4Runner’s engine bay.
Emme Hall/Roadshow
Seggelin isn’t some kind of EV expert, by the way, he just thinks electrification is the next wave in racing and he wants to be ahead of the curve. He’s using this project as a self-education opportunity. “I’m tech for sure, but my weakest thing is wiring,” Seggelin told me. “I don’t really understand electricity very well.”When asked what he thinks the failure point might be, Seggelin told me he’s worried about the multiple connections. “The vehicle control unit needs to monitor voltage from each of the 192 cells,” Seggelin said. “If it sees a cell going too high or too low it will shut the car down. But even if the cells are OK, if a connection breaks, it will stop the car. So there are 192 connections, never mind the myriad other connections that were all made by a wiring expert.” (That last part was written in a sarcasm font, obviously.) Just a few members of the team that converted the 4Runner to run on electric power.
Kyle Seggelin
It’s not just Seggelin who’s put in countless hours in the garage on this crazy idea. The team has been working overtime since October to get the truck ready for this race, so big props to Will Barrameda, Charlie Pangelinan, Jeff Webb, Jaymes Massa, Mike Torrano, Rick Slagle, Danny Tran, Rob Gurski and Diego Ortiz.You can follow along with Seggelin and his team (No. 2277) in the Every Man Challenge on Friday, Feb. 4, at 8:00 a.m. PT, at www.ultra4racing.com.

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Discuss: 2021 Porsche Taycan is a good-driving EV in an awesome pink wrapper

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You should definitely order your Taycan in pink.
Steven Ewing/Roadshow
There’s more to the 2021 Porsche Taycan than its new Frozen Berry Metallic paint option, but sweet cuppin’ cakes is that a good place to start. This awesome shade of pink is one of several new colors available for Porsche’s EV, but it’s really just a small part of a big update for the Taycan’s second year in the US.Frozen Berry also happens to be the star color for the new entry-level Taycan, which, at $81,250 including $1,350 for destination, undercuts the Taycan 4S by more than $20,000. That makes this EV more accessible to a larger swath of buyers, and with hardly any compromises in performance, luxury and tech, the base Taycan is as compelling as any other.
2021 Porsche Taycan is a good-driving EV in an awesome pink wrapper
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The main difference between this Taycan and all the others is that it uses rear-wheel drive instead of all-wheel drive; the base model has one electric motor mounted at the rear axle while the more expensive versions have a dual-motor setup. Yes, this means the entry-level Taycan is less powerful and not as quick as its costlier siblings, but it doesn’t make this EV any less good to drive.The standard 79.2-kilowatt-hour battery is the same one used in the Taycan 4S. So equipped, the single-motor Taycan produces 321 horsepower and 250 pound-feet of torque, or 402 hp and 254 lb-ft on overboost during launch control on cars fitted with the optional Sport Chrono pack. The base Taycan will launch to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds, which sounds slow in a world where a Tesla Model S can give you whiplash in less than half that time, but any level of acceleration feels like a thrill when it comes from instant electric torque.For an additional $5,780 you can spec the Taycan with Porsche’s upgraded 93.4-kWh battery — the same Performance Battery Plus that’s optional on the 4S and standard on the Turbo and Turbo S. This ups power output to 375 hp but keeps torque the same at 250 lb-ft, and with launch control, you get 469 hp and 263 lb-ft. But because we’re really just talking about torque thrust through a single motor, Porsche says that even with the bigger battery pack it’ll still take the rear-drive Taycan 5.1 seconds to hit 60 mph. Oh, well.Porsche Taycan, that’s my name. That name again is Porsche Taycan.
Steven Ewing/Roadshow
The base car with the larger battery pack should be the range queen of the Taycan lineup — in theory, anyway; final EPA estimates are still TBD. When equipped with the same 93.4-kWh battery, the 2021 Taycan 4S is rated at 227 miles, which is a nice improvement over the 2020 model. Yeah, Tesla still takes the cake as far as driving range is concerned, but I’ll be curious to see what the Taycan’s real-world number ends up being. After a day of driving the Taycan through the greater Los Angeles area, including a quick run up a canyon, I found the trip computer showed an indicated 149 miles and 60% level of charge remaining. Some quick math equates that to a 248-mile overall range, but again, that’s just a scribbled-on-a-napkin guesstimate. The base car’s charging times are consistent with the other Taycan variants, at least; on a DC fast-charger, Porsche says you can go from a 5% to 80% state of charge in 22.5 minutes.You’d think the rear-drive setup might noticeably change the Taycan’s on-road behavior, but it really doesn’t feel all that different. Sure, the base car lacks the outright shoot-you-out-of-a-corner torque of the Turbo or Turbo S, but even compared with a 4S, the handling differences are negligible. This purple/gray interior scheme is so cool, and the base car’s cabin is just as comfortable and techy as the more expensive Taycan models.
Steven Ewing/Roadshow
Jettisoning the second drive motor saves 205 pounds of weight, all of which comes off the front axle, but the front end doesn’t lose any precision while cornering. The steering tune is unchanged from the other Taycans, so it’s quick and direct, with lots of feedback. The batteries are positioned low in the center of the chassis, both of which are boons for handling. This also makes it a lot harder to get the rear end to break loose despite the rear-drive architecture, though make no mistake, the Taycan will definitely drift under the right conditions.Porsche doesn’t restrict what kinds of options you can add to the base Taycan, so even in this least-powerful spec, you can snag all sorts of performance upgrades. This test car has the adaptive air suspension and rear-axle steering, both of which definitely help with that aforementioned agility. You can add Porsche’s torque-vectoring tech, too.Oh, and you aren’t stuck with the dumpy 19-inch wheels seen here, thank god. These are the Taycan’s standard aero wheels, but larger 20- and 21-inch options are available. Behind those wheels, you can fit Porsche’s often finicky Surface Coated brakes, but I have to imagine that if you’re buying the base spec, you don’t really need that extra stopping power. My one big complaint is that Porsche doesn’t offer enough regenerative braking power to allow for true one-pedal driving. I know I’m not alone in saying I love one-pedal EV driving and it’s a shame the Taycan doesn’t offer this experience, even as a setting you can turn on and off, like in the Ford Mustang Mach-E.The base 19-inch wheels look so bad. Ugh.
Steven Ewing/Roadshow
All of the Taycan’s exterior design, interior furnishing and onboard tech options are offered on the base model, so like, go wild. I already mentioned the Frozen Berry exterior, but also check out the Blackberry (purple!) leather inside this car’s cabin. Seriously, this spec is so, so good. Every Taycan comes standard with Porsche’s latest infotainment tech on a touchscreen in the dash, as well as a digital gauge cluster behind the steering wheel and an additional screen for climate controls on the center console. This car has the optional passenger display, too, bringing the total number of screens up front to four, which sounds like it might be distracting, but is actually totally fine. The Taycan’s cabin tech is easy to learn and master.You can order the base Taycan with Porsche’s full suite of driver-assistance niceties, though as usual, all the best stuff costs extra. A surround-view monitor, lane-change assist, head-up display, night vision and adaptive cruise control are all costly add-ons. Porsche’s great InnoDrive tech that bundles adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist is available, as well, and it works great.The base Taycan with the bigger battery option could be the range queen of the lineup.
Steven Ewing/Roadshow
So yeah, the base Taycan might start at $81,250, but no one’s driving one of these home without a bunch of stuff added on. Playing around on Porsche’s configurator suggests my German-spec pink pal has an as-tested price between $120,000 and $125,000, which is actually more expensive than a Taycan 4S with the Performance Battery.But does that matter in the grand scheme of things? Not really. In its first year on sale in the US, the Taycan proved to be a total hit for Porsche, outselling the Panamera, 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman — and keep in mind, that’s without being able to get in one for anything less than six figures. The base Taycan is simply the same great EV in a more affordable package.

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Tesla
Update, Jan 28: Late Wednesday evening, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to answer everyone’s question of, “Where the hell is the new Model S’ shifter?” but his explanation just made things even more confusing. Musk says the car “guesses drive direction based on what obstacles it sees, context & nav map.” Basically, the Model S will determine whether to put itself into drive or reverse based on what its computers think is the driver’s intended direction of travel. Seems totally safe, right?
No more stalks. Car guesses drive direction based on what obstacles it sees, context & nav map. You can override on touchscreen.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2021

A new report from Electrek purports to have acquired internal documents from Tesla further explaining how the process works: The car “uses its Autopilot sensors to intelligently and automatically determine intended drive modes and select them. For example, if the front of Model S/X is facing a garage wall, it will detect this and automatically shift to Reverse once the driver presses the brake pedal.” Electrek added that the Model S would have force-sensitive touch controls on the center console under the wireless charging pad, but that doesn’t seem to be the case per another tweet from Musk. He said that drivers can manually override and shift the car themselves via the touchscreen, also adding that “after you drive without using a PRND stalk/stick for a few days, it gets very annoying to go back & use a shifter!”As we have said previously, we would ask Tesla for clarification on the issue, but the company no longer maintains a PR or communications department. Keep reading below for our original story.The Tesla Model S was updated with a totally new interior on Wednesday, and the most radical change is the new yoke-style steering “wheel,” which looks straight out of Knight Rider. But what might be even more radical is something that I can’t see: It seems like there’s no traditional PRNDL (Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Low) gear selector or in-cluster indicator to say what gear you’re in.Up until now, you’d shift a Model S into gear via a column-mounted stalk borrowed from the Mercedes-Benz parts bin. (The Model 3, Model X and Model Y use the same stalk.) However, Tesla has eliminated all stalks from behind the updated Model S’ wheel, moving controls for the turn signals, horn and wipers to the yoke itself. So how exactly do you shift?There’s no PRNDL here.
Tesla
In all of the released images, the center console and dashboard are smooth and devoid of any sort of controls, save for the 17-inch touchscreen and the hazard warning light button that sits under the wireless charging pad below the screen. There’s nothing on the door panels or the headliner, either.The shifting controls could be found in that center screen, but there’s no visible evidence of that. The lower left corner of the screen shows controls for the climate control and the heated windshield, while the lower right corner displays media info. In the top left there’s an icon showing a top-down view of the car, so maybe the PRNDL is found there? But it seems like it would be extremely dangerous to keep such an essential function in a submenu of a digital display that could break.No PRNDL here either.
Tesla
Now there’s a chance that these CGI images are all at an angle that obscures the PRNDL shifter, or maybe they were rendered or edited to remove its location. The only mention from Tesla on the topic is this blurb under an image of the steering wheel on its website: “The ultimate focus on driving: no stalks, no shifting. Model S is the best car to drive, and the best car to be driven in.” That seems like an obvious reference to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, which is nothing of the sort.No matter how advanced you think Tesla’s Full Self-Driving tech is, the driver still needs to be able to put it the car in drive, reverse, neutral or park. In fact there are even laws on the books that mandate the order of the letters PRND and require that shifter position always be visible, as our friends at GearPatrol explain, and while I’m not sure if there is an actual law that requires a car have a shifter, it seems like there’s got to be.If this were any other car company, I could just call the public relations team for an explanation, but Tesla dissolved its PR department a few months ago. Guess I’ll just have to tweet at Elon Musk.
Refreshed Tesla Model S has a Knight Rider steering wheel
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First published on Jan. 27. More

Maybe the production Roadster will look more… roadster-y?
Tesla
With all the news about the Tesla Model S’ new interior (and that dumb new steering yoke), the Model X Plaid, the upcoming Cybertruck and even the company’s Full Self-Driving software, fans of the automaker are right to ask: Where the hell is the Roadster? It’s been more than three years since we first saw the new Tesla Roadster and, more importantly, since customers began forking over $50,000(!) deposits. But fear not, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says, the Roadster is still on the way.When asked about Tesla’s upcoming sports car on Thursday, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the automaker “finished engineering this year” and that “production starts next year.” Musk says Tesla is “aiming to have [a] release candidate design drivable [by] late summer.”
Finishing engineering this year, production starts next year. Aiming to have release candidate design drivable late summer. Tri-motor drive system & advanced battery work were important precursors.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2021

Musk first confirmed the Roadster’s delay last spring. The hold-up is apparently due to the development of the tri-motor drive system and “advanced battery work,” according to Musk.When Tesla announced the second-generation Roadster in late 2017, it promised some pretty impressive specs. Accelerating to 60 mph is said to take less than 2 seconds and the car will be able to go 620 miles on a single charge. Of course, we’re taking all of that with a massive grain of salt, but perhaps we’ll have some more concrete data if and when a Roadster prototype arrives later this year.

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Just… no.
Tesla
Let me get this out of the way up top: I watched a lot of Knight Rider when I was a kid. I mean, a lot. As a child of the ’80s, I specifically remember pedaling my heart out on my BMX to make sure I got home in time to watch that iconic opening sequence. You probably know it by heart, with KITT poking his Cylon-aping nose out of the dusky desert. The show, terrible as I now realize it to be, was a significant part of my childhood. Back then I really, really wanted to be just like Michael Knight.Despite all that, I can’t help but see Tesla’s new KITT-style steering yoke as anything other than a bad idea. I fear it’ll not just be awkward to use, it’s potentially unsafe. Here’s why.
Refreshed Tesla Model S has a Knight Rider steering wheel
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Getting ratioedThe next time you’re in your car, count the number of times you need to turn the wheel to make it into a perpendicular parking spot. Better yet, try a U-turn. There’s a good chance at some point you’ll need to reposition your hands, in what’s typically called a shuffle-steer. Now, imagine doing that with only half a wheel. It’d be awkward at best. “But racecars,” you might be thinking. And indeed Formula One and many other forms of on-road racing feature steering wheels that look like oversized Batarangs. The thing is, those cars offer swift steering ratios, needing as little as 180 degrees of rotation to turn from the left-most steering extent to the right. Your average street car? Try 900 degrees of rotation from full left to right. That’s two and a half turns. More rotation means slower turning, yes, but it also means more precision and frankly greater safety. A razor-sharp steering rack is a great thing on the racetrack. On the highway, a tiny bump to the wheel would send you spearing across three lanes of traffic. For your average driver, that’s a risky proposition. Many companies have deployed steering racks that offer variable rates, changing based on speed and steering angle. Even at their quickest, though, these racks don’t eliminate the need to reposition your hands for common, daily maneuvers. On top of that, most of them have been panned for making cars feel less predictable and, ultimately, less fun to drive.I can get behind all the other tweaks, just not the most notable one. 
Tesla
Losing your gripEver hit a pothole and have the steering wheel slip in your hands? It’s disconcerting, but so long as your wheel is round (or D-shaped at least) you can quickly regrip the wheel. Now, imagine that happening on Tesla’s new steering yoke. At least one of your hands is going to be grasping at thin air.

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Breaking wrists, or facesImagine the above scenario but in a more serious situation, like a frontal or side impact. When the front wheels of a car are involved in the impact, the steering wheel can very forcefully twist in one direction or another. While it’s possible to get a sprained wrist or even a broken thumb if you’re gripping the wheel too hard, a round wheel will naturally shield your hands and the rest of your person from serious injury. The leading edge of a spinning yoke, on the other hand, has the potential to catch your hands, legs, or even your head if it’s a significant enough frontal impact. I’ve actually experienced this first-hand — literally. I have a yoke-shaped wheel on my sim rig and, on one of my first forays with my new Fanatec DD1 wheel base and formula-style wheel, I took my hands off after a minor impact. However, I didn’t realize the car hadn’t come to a complete stop. It bumped into the wall and spun the wheel, which caught me on the back of the hand. The impact hurt like hell and left me with a painful bruise, but it could have been a lot worse. ‘But full self-driving’Yes, perhaps a wheel like this will make a lot of sense in the future when cars can be fully trusted to drive themselves, to change lanes on their own and handle that three-point turn without any extra assistance. I’m sorry to say we’re not there yet, and assuming you’re buying a car that you’ll not only need to drive, but actually want to drive, this shape wheel just doesn’t make any sense.Now, I’ve spent a fair bit of time speaking with Tesla’s safety engineers about how they creatively solved many safety issues. That pronounced touchscreen on the Model 3 and Model Y
, for example, has edges that could be a problem in a crash. Tesla designed a special airbag with protrusions meant to keep the passenger’s head away from it. I’m sure there are similarly creative solutions to the problems this yoke presents, but that still leaves me wondering: Exactly what problem is it fixing? More