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Genesis
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Development of General Motors and Lockheed Martin’s Lunar Mobility Vehicle (LMV) is underway, and the two companies intend to deliver the first of these vehicles by the middle of the decade. As its name suggests, the LMV is a moon-bound vehicle that may play a part in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) upcoming Artemis mission that intends to bring humankind back to the Earth’s lone satellite more than 50 years after the conclusion of the Apollo missions.
That said, there are no guarantees this jointly developed lunar vehicle will win NASA’s contract and make the trip. As of this writing, NASA has released a Request for Information (RFI) for what it calls a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) for the mission. The American space agency intends to release a Request for Proposal (RFP) before year’s end, at which point vendors, such as GM and Lockheed Martin, can submit business proposals for the project, with NASA later awarding one of these vendors the contract. Regardless of the outcome, GM and Lockheed Martin are prepared to build and produce the LMV with or without government funding.
“[This is] a vehicle developed 100 percent for industry,” Derek Hodgins of Lockheed Martin said during a media event at GM’s Milford Proving Ground in Michigan. The two American corporations brought us here to pull back the curtain on the development process of the commercial-use LMV.
Testing such a vehicle on our planet, however, is a difficult task given the differences between the Earth’s and moon’s environments, the latter of which includes large craters, an approximate temperature swing of 500 degrees Fahrenheit, and a gravitational pull that’s around one-sixth of the blue marble we call home. So, GM created a digital lunar surface using data supplied by Lockheed Martin. The automaker then feeds this information into its Driver-in-the-Loop (DIL) simulator at the Milford Proving Ground.
Though the DIL is an essential component to the development of the LMV, its use spans multiple projects. In fact, the DIL was key to the short development time of the GMC Hummer EV, which went from idea to complete vehicle in about two years—approximately half the time it typically takes GM to complete this process.
Credit the relative ease by which GM engineers can alter vehicle dynamics using the DIL. Is the virtual vehicle displaying too much body roll or is far too eager to whip its tail out mid-corner? All it takes is a few tweaks to the dataset to adjust the dynamic characteristics of the vehicle’s suspension system.
GM refrained from sharing the cost of the DIL with us; however, a company spokesperson informed us the DIL has more than paid for itself in tire and fuel savings alone—items the automaker pays for when a vehicle undergoes real-world development tests. This isn’t to say the DIL is a replacement for such testing. Rather, the setup allows GM engineers to focus on developing more promising dynamic profiles (and cull less favorable ones) for a given vehicle when the time comes to test it in real-world environments.
Given the 238,355 miles that—on average—separates the Earth and the moon, the first LMV’s dynamic development is due to rely heavily on information gleaned from the DIL. In order to better understand this process, GM and Lockheed Martin gave us a chance to wander about the DIL’s virtual lunar landscape in a digital LMV.
Whereas the production LMV will incorporate hand controls, as on the lunar rover of the later Apollo missions, the DIL’s cockpit included a steering wheel and brake and accelerator pedals for steering, stopping, and accelerating the virtual LMV. Similarly, the tweel-like tires on the digital vehicle are not anticipated to reach the finished product. Instead, the LMV is set to wear mesh-like tires reminiscent of those of the Apollo missions’ lunar rovers. This sort of tire design is less likely to stir up any of the razor-sharp and adhesive dust that sits on the moon’s surface.
Although the LMV’s operating speed is expected to average 5 mph, the virtual vehicle GM and Lockheed Martin uploaded to the DIL topped out at approximately 12.5 mph—a harrowing speed to drive in a low-gravity atmosphere on rocky and crater-filled surfaces. Frankly, we wish we had more to share about driving this virtual vehicle in this digitally produced lunar landscape, however, we were unable to fight off motion sickness while operating the theme park simulator ride–like DIL (something we warned about prior to entering the DIL’s cockpit). Though we spent the entirety of our allotted time making the most of the power produced by the LMV’s four electric motors (the total output of which was simply described as “low” by a GM spokesperson), our queasiness prevented us from fully appreciating or assessing the LMV’s driving experience.
GM and Lockheed Martin foresee the LMV as a mostly autonomous vehicle, with humans occupying the control stick approximately one week out of the year. The goal is to have the vehicle drive itself with minimal oversight, with the program’s chief engineer, Brent Deep, stating the LMV’s autonomous capabilities will build on the knowledge gleaned from Cruise’s self-driving vehicle technology and GM’s Super Cruise and Ultra Cruise hands-free driver-assist systems.
Likewise, the LMV will power its motors by way of a battery pack much like the so-called Ultium units GM fits within the likes of the GMC Hummer EV and upcoming Cadillac Lyriq. Among the differences between the LMV’s battery pack and those GM puts in its passenger vehicles: The lunar vehicle’s pack relies on cylindrical cells, as opposed to pouch-style ones. According to Deep, the cylindrical cells are better at coping with the moon’s vast temperature swings.
GM and Lockheed Martin intend for the LMV to have a long service life, with the two companies expecting to bring multiple variants of the vehicle to the moon as a means of maximizing the project’s commercial viability. “We don’t have a disposable rover,” Deep said.
If all goes according to plan, space agencies—and maybe even wealthy adventurers—throughout the world will pay to use GM and Lockheed Martin’s co-developed LMVs during lunar missions—or simply for kicks.
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UPDATE 6/21/22: Nissan has announced pricing for the 2023 Leaf, which is up $470 compared with the 2022 model. The S starts at $28,895 and the SV Plus starts at $36,895. We have updated the story accordingly.
Suddenly, EVs are having their moment, yet the electric car that’s been around since 2010, the Nissan Leaf, seems lost in the shuffle. For 2023, even as Nissan prepares to launch its new, bigger, flashier, and pricier Ariya electric, the automaker is also giving the Leaf a little love. But just a little.
Up front, the grille, headlights, and bumper have been changed, but even looking at pictures side by side, the differences aren’t easy to spot. Nissan says various body elements also have been reshaped for improved aerodynamics. The standout new design element is the Leaf’s funky new multispoke wheels. Oh, and the Nissan badge is illuminated, because that’s now a thing.
The 2022 lineup of five models has been trimmed to just two, the base S and the mid-grade SV Plus. As before, the base car has a 147-horsepower electric motor fed by a 40.0-kWh battery pack—both numbers that are looking pretty small in the new competitive landscape. The SV Plus returns with its more respectable 214-hp motor and 62.0-kWh battery. Both models have front-wheel drive. EPA range estimates aren’t expected to stray far (if at all) from the current 149 miles for the S and 215 miles for the SV Plus. We got 180 miles out of the SV Plus in our 75-mph highway test. Note that the Leaf continues to use a CHAdeMO charging connection, while the new Ariya adopts the more popular CCS connection used by most other automakers.
One thing that’s not quite unchanged is the pricing, which is up $470 compared with last year. The 2023 Leaf S will start at $28,895 and the SV Plus at $36,895 when the models arrive this summer. That’s a bit more than the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, which both received a significant price cut for 2023 and now start at $26,595 and $28,195. Of course, those GM vehicles no longer qualify for the $7500 tax credit that the Leaf is still eligible for, but Nissan is expected to hit that 200,000-vehicle cap later this year.
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Entering the final week of practice with qualifying beginning on Tuesday, June 21, the 100th running of the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC) is almost here. The green flag drops for the legendary race up Pikes Peak Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colorado, at 7:30 a.m. Mountain time (9:30 a.m. Eastern) on Sunday, June 26. Spectator tickets are completely sold out, but don’t let that stop you from watching the wildest motorsports event in the United States.
Here’s how to watch it for free. Pikes Peak Live, presented by Mobil 1, will be hosting live video from their official Facebook page. We’ll embed that video here on race day. If you’re unable to watch but want to listen to the action, Live flag-to-flag coverage by Colorado Springs’s own news station, KRDO, will be featured on their website and FM radio channel. For those who tweet, the PPIHC Twitter will continue to post updates and behind-the-scenes coverage throughout the week.
This year’s roster includes more than 70 entries, with drivers from some of the most exciting circles of motorsports. Rod Millen, who turned 71 this year, returns with the legendary 1998 Toyota Tacoma hill-climb pickup in which he achieved two of four consecutive King of the Mountain wins. This time, the road up the mountain is completely paved, but in the dirt, Millen’s quickest run in the Tacoma was 10:07.70 in 1998.
Rhys Millen, Rod’s son, nearly beat Romain Dumas last year for an overall win. Rhys returns for an attempt at his third King of the Mountain title in a 2016 Porsche GT3R built by E-Motion Engineering.
Three-time King of the Mountain David Donner is back for his 26th attempt at Pikes Peak with a 2022 Porsche 911 Turbo S 000 production car. Donner currently holds the record for the quickest climb of the Time Attack class with a blistering 9:36.559 time, but this year he’s back to reclaim the production car record of 10:18.488 set by Rhys Millen 2019.
Acura is debuting its race-prepped 2023 Integra alongside two 2022 NSX Type S and a pair of 2021 TLX Type S sedans. The NSX Type S is the official pace car for this year’s event piloted by Renée Brinkerhoff, who has competed in La Carrera Panamericana Mexican Rally three times.
The race up Pikes Peak is a 12.42-mile time trial event, where one car at a time climbs the 156-turn paved scenic roadway and finishes at the summit at 14,115 feet above sea level. Six divisions of cars compete, ranging from production cars to open-wheel aerodynamic freak shows.
Each year brings quicker and more powerful competition. It’s how records are made, and later broken. The quickest time yet, a mind-blowing 07:57.148, was set by Romain Dumas in 2018 with Volkswagen’s electric ID. R, and there’s plenty of horsepower (and downforce) in Colorado this year to potentially beat it.
Everyone’s chance hinges on successfully completing this week’s practice and qualifying leading up to an exciting race on Sunday. Until then, we highly suggest watching last year’s PPIHC from the Mobil 1 YouTube channel.
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• The 33-year-old car looks clean and has 58,000 miles on the odometer.
• The paint is finished in Alpine White while dark-tinted windows protect a burgundy interior from any unwanted UV rays.
• If you’re interested in bidding, the auction ends Friday, June 24.
Like many other young car enthusiasts, I spent much of my spare time throughout high school scrolling through page after page of car listings I could not afford. I never worked during the school year and therefore never really had any buying power. I did, however, have eyes quite a bit bigger than my wallet—and a friend willing to drive me around in his 1982 Porsche 924.
Bring a Trailer
I was head over heels for that car, even if it was riddled with mechanical and electrical issues. It was simply gorgeous in its peeling burnt-orange-paint glory. It sounded the way I thought a car should, and it had a manual transmission, which intrigued me even if my 14-year-old self couldn’t realistically drive anything. I spent hours poring over examples of 924s and 944s I would never be able to buy.
Bring a Trailer
When I discovered the 944, I was, simply put, smitten. The Porsche 944 took the body from the entry-level 924, muscled it up, and gave the car wider proportions. This generation of 944, which is up for auction on Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—came in 1989 and was labeled the 944 S2, the third and final variation of the car.
The 944 S2 is powered by a 3.0-liter inline-four originally rated at 208 horsepower and 207 pound-feet of torque. That power is mated to a five-speed manual transaxle and limited-slip differential sending power to the rear wheels.
According to the listing, the timing belt, idler pulleys, tensioners, and accessory belt were all recently serviced, along with an A/C system recharge. The car is being auctioned from Arizona with an owner’s manual, service records, tool kit, and a window sticker.
Bring a Trailer
There are a few blemishes: the shift knob shows wear, and the top of the dash is cracking around the vents. Even so, with all the recent service and sophisticated Alpine White paint, this 944 S2 managed to charm us. If you want a crack at it, the auction ends on Friday, June 24.
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Acura
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Illustration by Pete SucheskiCar and Driver
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Pagani first revealed the Huayra, its successor to the legendary Zonda, in 2012. In true Pagani fashion, though, the company is still releasing limited-edition and one-off versions of the mid-engine carbon-bodied supercar. The latest version is this, the Huayra Codalunga.
Pagani first revealed the Huayra, its successor to the legendary Zonda, in 2012. In true Pagani fashion, though, the company is still releasing limited-edition and one-off versions of the mid-engine carbon-bodied supercar. The latest version is this, the Huayra Codalunga.
The Codalunga—Italian for longtail—was developed by Pagani’s Grandi Complicazioni special projects division. It started out as an idea from a single client that, over the course of two years, developed into a small production run of cars. Using the Huayra’s dimensions as a base, the Codalunga has a revised fascia and a totally new rear section that sports a rear hatch covering an area over 12 square feet. Underneath sits an uprated version of the AMG-supplied twin-turbo 6.0-liter V-12 making 840 horsepower and 811 pound-feet of torque. There’s also a new ceramic-coated titanium exhaust system that weighs just 9.7 pounds. In all, the car weighs just 2822 pounds—about as much as a new Subaru BRZ.
Pagani says the Codalunga’s design was inspired by Italian race cars and coachbuilt machines of the Sixties.
“We made the Huayra Codalunga longer and smoother, as if it had been caressed and molded by the wind, to design lines that were even more elegant than the coupe,” founder Horacio Pagani said in a statement. “We drew inspiration from the longtails of the 1960s that raced at Le Mans, which had very clean lines. The Huayra Codalunga comprises very few essential elements; we have taken away rather than added. Simplifying is not at all straightforward, and this vehicle is, above all, the result of a complex pursuit of simple ideas.”
The Huayra Codalunga starts from an incredibly reasonable $7.4 million at current exchange rates. Not that that matters, as all five examples have already been sold. Interestingly, one of the cars was sold to a customer in the U.S., as Pagani says it was able to homologate one car for use on our roads. We hope it gets driven rather than stashed away in a collection.
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Spencer PlattGetty Images
Inflation is everywhere, so it’s not surprising, even though it’s discouraging, to see the monthly cost to finance a new car reaching record highs, or to hear that experts predict this situation will continue for months to come. Figuring out exactly how much people are now paying differs depending on who’s doing the counting, with Edmunds.com finding the average payment for a new car in May reached $656, while Moody’s Analytics calculated the amount to be $712.
Whatever the calculations say, the rise in payments is being driven by factors that anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to the news should be able to guess: supply-chain issues and inflation caused or made worse by the pandemic. These factors have helped push the average price of a new car up and up and up, which is of course connected to the high monthly payment. The latest available numbers are from May, when the average price of a new car hit $47,148, according to KBB. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, new-car prices have risen 12.6 percent compared to a year ago, while used-car prices are up 16.1 percent.
When it comes to inflation, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage point this past week, a move the Washington Post called part of the government’s “war on inflation.” The 0.75-point increase was the Fed’s largest rate hike since 1994, part of what the Fed said was its mission “to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run.” Based on information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual inflation rate in May was 8.6 percent, the highest level since 1981.
According to the New York Times, the average interest rate for new-car loans was 5.08 percent in May, while the average rate for used vehicles was 8.46 percent. Higher interest rates mean it costs more to borrow money—but the good news, if you already have a loan, is that the higher interest rate will not change your monthly payment or what you owe.
Of course, if you’re buying a car now, your financing offers might be higher than they would have been before last week. Or they might not, as Yahoo Finance points out, since car loans are “so reliant on the buyer’s individual credit score and history” that any effects of the higher interest rate will not fall on each buyer in the same manner.
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We have a big list of modern & classic cars in both used and new categories.