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Panasonic has debuted its 4680 cylindrical battery that was previewed at Tesla’s Battery Day event last year.The battery will purportedly store five times as much energy and cost half as much to build as the 2170 lithium-ion cells Tesla currently uses in the Model 3 and Y, which are also provided by Panasonic.Panasonic has also entered into an agreement to supply batteries for the Canoo Lifestyle Vehicle, product of an American startup that expects to start building the car in late 2022.Battery technology is constantly evolving, and the latest advancement comes from Panasonic, which revealed a prototype of its new 4680 battery cell. Automotive News reports that the advanced-technology battery is due to power future Teslas, saying the 4680 batteries will have five times the storage capacity of current Tesla battery packs and will cost 50 percent less to build. This is the first time Panasonic has unveiled the 4680 battery. Tesla’s earnings report issued earlier this month said it was testing battery packs using the 4680 cells. Panasonic constructed a test line for the new format earlier this year. 4680 refers to the battery’s dimensions: 46 millimeters (1.6 inches) wide by 80 mm (3.1 in) tall. Tesla claims that there will be a 100-fold increase in battery production by 2030 thanks to the new battery type, and that the new cell design produces six times the power of current cells. Tesla is one of the only automakers using cylindrical cells, and the additional energy capacity of the new 4680 cell isn’t magic, it’s simply a lot larger than the current ones Tesla employs. On a purely volume basis, the 4680 is 5.5 times larger than the 2170 cells currently used in the Model 3 and Y battery packs and 8.0 times larger than the 18650 cells used in the Model S and X (the 18650 is slightly larger than a typical AA battery).

The head of Panasonic’s battery operations, Kazuo Tadanobu, said at the meeting, “We have developed this because of the strong desire of the other party, and we think this can only lead to stronger ties.” Panasonic has a battery manufacturing plant in Nevada, supplying the Tesla Gigafactory. According to Electrek, Tesla claims the first vehicles with the 4680 battery cells will be delivered next year. Tadanobu also said that Panasonic does not intend to build cheaper lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for standard-range Teslas, even though Tesla’s report said the company plans to start using those in its “standard range” vehicles worldwide.

Canoo

Along with building the 4680 batteries for Tesla, Panasonic will also supply batteries to American electric startup Canoo, which recently announced an agreement with the Japanese electronics corporation. The batteries will power the Lifestyle Vehicle that Canoo predicts will begin production in the fourth quarter of 2022, with Dutch contractor VDL Nedcar building the vanlike vehicle for the European and American markets. Canoo said they chose the Panasonic batteries—which will not be the Tesla-specific 4680 format—for their proven reliability. Canoo is claiming a range of 250 miles from a 80.0-kWh battery, with the base panel van version starting at $34,750.

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A 2000 Chevy Metro with only a few hundred miles has just been listed on the online auction site Bring a Trailer.With six days to go before the end of bidding on Thursday, November 4, $9000 has already been offered, and that number is sure to go up.Perhaps way up: This unspoiled hatchback is a classic in its own way.We don’t know why the original owner of this 2000 Chevrolet Metro stopped driving it after less than 400 miles, but that portentous decision has led to this fortuitous moment for Metro collectors everywhere: an as-new Metro, up for auction right now on Bring a Trailer.Truly, opportunities like this don’t come along every day.

This Metro is a second-generation example, which arrived for 1995. The 2000 model year was the last for the iconic two-door hatchback body style, as only the four-door sedan would be offered in the final model year of 2001. This also marked the last model year for the three-cylinder engine that was so emblematic of the Metro.

Bring a Trailer

As a purist base model, this coupe is powered by the 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine making every bit of 55 horsepower and 58 pound-feet of torque (the Metro LSi got a 79-hp 1.3-liter four-cylinder). It’s paired with the preferred five-speed manual transmission, a combo that was lauded for its EPA fuel economy of 39 mpg city and 46 mpg highway.

Bring a Trailer

Bring a Trailer

The classic lines of the Metro are set off by the white over gray Sport cloth livery, and it is believed that the paint is factory, although no paint-depth readings are provided. Keen observers will note the 13-inch steel wheels with factory three-spoke wheel covers.

Bring A Trailer

Bring a Trailer

Importantly, this Metro still wears its original selling dealer license-plate frame from Martin Chevrolet Geo of Torrance, California, and it also comes with dealer-branded key fobs. Collectors will delight in the treasure trove of documentation that includes dealer brochures, service manuals, and the original sales paperwork. The factory window sticker is also included and shows an MSRP of $11,140 ($17,745 in today’s dollars). That Monroney indicates that this Metro is loaded with options including air conditioning, an AM/FM–cassette stereo, an electric rear-window defogger, and the Preferred Equipment Group 2 (easy-entry passenger seat, color-keyed carpet mats, and body-side molding). Although Chevrolet has yet to establish a factory-refurbishment program for the Metro, this car benefits from a mechanical freshening carried out at a local dealer, which included a new fuel pump and a fuel-tank cleaning, to the tune of more than $1000. With that recent service, this Metro is a modern classic that the new owner can drive every day—although doing so would run up the mileage and potentially dim this car’s value as a piece of history. That will present a difficult dilemma for the new owner, but it’s surely one to envy.

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This Jeep Wrangler Overlook concept for SEMA has an added third row of seats.It’s a foot longer than a standard Wrangler four-door and the roof is five inches higher.The Overlook also has other Jeep accessories including upgraded shocks and fancier leather upholstery.Jeep is taking a page from the Land Rover Defender’s book by creating a special stretched version of the Wrangler with an additional row of seats and a stepped roofline. This concept is called the Wrangler Overlook and is headed for the SEMA aftermarket show in Las Vegas next week.The Overlook is based on a four-door Wrangler Sahara and features a body that’s lengthened by a foot and a raised roof at the rear that’s five inches taller than normal. This provides enough room for a third row of seats. The roof extension also includes extra windows to see the world outside from the second and third rows, while the roof remains removable and a flip-up sunroof sits over the front seats.

Jeep

The interior features black Katzkin leather with bronze accents, while embroidered Jeep logos, a leather-wrapped dashboard, and suede trim class up the vibe. The Overlook’s exterior is finished in Sahara Bronze and it has a two-inch lift kit with fox shocks. Special 20-inch wheels are wrapped in 37-inch BF Goodrich all-terrain tires and there are extra off-road lights mounted up front.While we don’t expect to see Jeep put this one-off vehicle into production anytime soon, we do think there’d be a market for a three-row Wrangler if the company decided to build one. So only time will tell if this is simply a fun idea or something that may come to fruition in the near future.

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The 2022 Honda Pilot adds a TrailSport trim level, like its sibling the Passport.The TrailSport, starting at $44,785, has a lifted suspension, 18-inch wheels, and different tires.The Sport also replaces the LX as the base trim level, starting at $38,055.Honda’s new TrailSport moniker is making its way to the Pilot three-row SUV for 2022, after having made its debut on the closely related Passport. The trim level is similar for the Pilot, consisting of some appearance tweaks and a suspension lift. The 2022 Pilot TrailSport starts at $44,785 and comes standard with all-wheel drive.

Honda says that the lifted suspension provides an extra 0.6 inch of ground clearance, and the TrailSport also has black 18-inch wheels and different tires. The black plastic cladding around the wheel wells is more noticeable, and there’s a TrailSport badge on the tailgate and embroidered on the seats.

Honda

Elsewhere in the Pilot lineup, the base LX trim level is gone and is replaced by the Pilot Sport that starts at $38,055. This means the base price rises by $4280 compared with 2021, although the Sport does have more standard features than the LX did, including 20-inch wheels and an 8.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A new color called Sonic Grey Pearl also joins the color palette for 2022.
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High-speed side impacts were responsible for 23 percent of passenger vehicle occupant deaths in 2019, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), so the nonprofit safety organization decided to update its 2003 side-impact test.IIHS now uses a heavier barrier moving at higher speeds to strike the vehicle being tested—an 82 percent increase in overall energy—to better represent common crashes today.Only one small SUV, the Mazda CX-5 (pictured above), earned the top Good rating, while the Honda HR-V and Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross were rated Poor.The good news is that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently ran 20 small SUVs through a new series of more stringent crash tests that were designed to better model a high-speed side impact. The bad news is that none of the vehicles tested in one of the most popular vehicle segments in the U.S. scored a “good” rating, the highest possible, in all categories.

IIHS changed the way it tests side impact crashes by using a heavier barrier moving at a higher speed—it’s now 4180 pounds at 37 miles per hour, compared to 3300 pounds at 31 mph in the earlier test protocol, for an increase of 82 percent more energy overall. That change is to better simulate the not-that-uncommon incident of a mid-size SUV hitting a small SUV.
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IIHS said it also updated the honeycomb striking surface of the new barrier so that it “acts more like a real SUV or pickup when it hits another vehicle.” In the real world, IIHS discovered that a strong B-pillar, which was important for the old side-impact test, could bend the striking vehicle’s front end, and those bent areas could intrude into the passenger cabin. IIHS said automakers will probably have to improve the strength of the horizontal door beams to provide better occupant protection. That will also let them get better scores in the new IIHS test. The only small SUV to come close to a perfect score was the 2021 and 2022 Mazda CX-5, which aced all the categories except the chest category for driver injuries. There, the CX-5 was rated Acceptable, the second-highest score. Mazda’s Masaki Ueno, vice president of R&D, design, and quality assurance, said in a statement that the company studied real-world crashes and computer simulations as it designed the CX-5’s body structure and load paths.IIHS gave almost half of the vehicles tested, nine out of 20, an overall Acceptable rating: Audi Q3, Buick Encore, Chevrolet Trax, Honda CR-V, Nissan Rogue, Subaru Forester, Toyota RAV4, Toyota Venza, and Volvo XC40. Two models, the Honda HR-V and the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross, scored Poor ratings overall. The other eight—Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Escape, GMC Terrain, Hyundai Tucson, Jeep Compass, Jeep Renegade, Kia Sportage, and Lincoln Corsair—were given Marginal ratings. Full test information, including for this new side-impact crash test, is shown for each vehicle on the IIHS website under “Side: New Test.”

2021 Volvo XC40, rated Acceptable in this test.
IIHS

IIHS claims high-speed side-impact crashes are behind 23 percent of passenger-vehicle occupant deaths in 2019, so it wanted to know which small SUVs provide the best protection in this situation.”We developed this new test because we suspected there was room for more progress, and these results confirm that,” IIHS president David Harkey said in a statement. “The good rating for the CX-5 shows that robust protection in a more severe side crash is achievable.”IIHS has a case to make that its tests can have an impact on how automakers design vehicles. The company introduced its first side-impact test in 2003, and rated only around 20 percent of the vehicles it tested as “good” that first year. Today, all 20 of the vehicles that were run through this new test earned “good” ratings on the original test, and IIHS said most new vehicles can earn a top score for this test.Car companies have a short amount of time to adapt to the new test. For now, IIHS will continue to use the original test when it hands out its Top Safety Pick awards, but the award criteria will be updated in 2023 to reflect the new side test.

Detailed test results available at IIHS.org.
IIHS

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