ArcaMax

The daunting thing about the car market right now is how expensive non-luxury-brand vehicles have become. On average, they have increased in cost by an astounding $20,000 over the past roughly four years.

But there are, interestingly enough, some luxury-brand vehicles that aren't particularly expensive -- relative to what it costs to buy a ...Read more

Plug-in hybrids like the Kia Sportage are ingenious things. Not so much because they can be driven entirely on battery power until they run low on charge -- just like a vehicle powered entirely by a battery -- but because you don't have to stop when the plug-in hybrid runs low on charge. You don't even have to plug it in, if you prefer not to.

...Read more

It's a little weird that Mercedes is selling subcompact front-wheel-drive sedans with four-cylinder engines. Those attributes used to describe economy cars.

But the Mercedes CLA 250 -- which is FWD and comes standard with a small four-cylinder engine -- does not come with an economy car's price tag.

It is, however, available ...Read more

The Audi A7 is an interesting critter in that it's about the same size as a midsize BMW 5 Series sedan and other midsize luxury sedans but costs about $20,000 more to start than they do.

But you do get something more for the money -- as well as something you cannot get in sedans like the BMW 5 and Mercedes E.

What It Is

The Audi A7 is a ...Read more

A lot has changed in the five years since you could last buy a brand-new Fiat 500 -- the cute little minicar from Italy.

When it was last available -- back in 2019 -- it had a base price just over $16,000, came standard with a manual transmission and could take you nearly 300 miles - in city driving -- on about 10 gallons of gasoline. ...Read more

There aren't many new sedans left on the market -- and most of the ones still on the market are front-wheel-drive/all-wheel-drive and hybridized sedans.

The Cadillac CT5 is one of the few that's still RWD as it comes (AWD is available if you want it) and that just has an engine rather than an engine and an electric motor(s) ...Read more

It's interesting that Chevy -- General Motors -- offers two iterations of the Equinox. One of them sells really well.

The other not so much.

You can probably guess which one -- and why.

What It Is

The Equinox is a compact crossover that seats five in two rows. It's also Chevy's best-selling model after the Silverado 1500 pickup. So ...Read more

General Motors used to sell two slightly different versions of the same thing -- the Pontiac Firebird and the Chevrolet Camaro. It was done that way because GM's Pontiac and Chevrolet divisions both needed a sporty car in their respective lineups, and the thought was it'd be less expensive (and so more profitable) to design one car and sell it ...Read more

The trend has been to install smaller engines in place of larger engines -- and to charge people more for what they're not getting anymore.

It's nice to see Mazda bucking that trend.

Last year, they brought out a new six-cylinder engine -- rather than a new turbocharged four-cylinder engine. And they put it in a new crossover (the CX-...Read more

When Toyota brought back the Land Cruiser this year, it no longer came standard with a V8. It now comes only with a turbo-hybridized four.

If you'd like something more than that -- as well as less -- Lexus has it.

The new GX550 is a premium-badged (and slightly larger) iteration of the new Land Cruiser that comes standard with a ...Read more

Volvo used to be the go-to brand for safe vehicles that lasted a long time. Then everyone else began making "safe" vehicles, chiefly because the government was mandating that.

Other-brand vehicles also became as or even more reliable than Volvos used to be.

Now Volvo is making electric vehicles like the 2024 XC40 Recharge -- and ...Read more

Mazda's CX-30 has a couple of things going for it that most of its competitors either charge extra for -- or don't offer at all.

The CX-30 also hasn't got two things that are getting hard to avoid in a new crossover.

What It Is

The CX-30 is Mazda's compact, lowest-priced crossover. It differs from other small crossovers in that it ...Read more