Rejoice! Carmakers Are Embracing Physical Buttons Again

Automakers that nest key controls deep in touchscreen menus—forcing motorists to drive eyes-down rather than concentrate on the road ahead—may have their non-US safety ratings clipped next year. From January, Europe’s crash-testing organization EuroNCAP, or New Car Assessment Program, will incentivize automakers to fit physical, easy-to-use, and tactile controls toContinue Reading

Lucid Gravity 2026 Review: Prices, Specs, Availability

So Lucid developed a proprietary “boost” technology—it declined to give WIRED precise details—to raise incoming 500-volt power to match the pack’s 926 volts. It says only that it uses the rear motor unit to do so, presumably through one of the windings acting as a DC-DC inverter. The boost functionContinue Reading

The Affordable Car Is About to Go Extinct in the US

Let’s be upfront here: US cars haven’t been cheap for a long time. The average price of a new car in the US is close to $50,000, up some $5,000 from two decades ago, even adjusted for inflation. The reasons are manifold: Vehicles have gotten more complicated—and expensive—to manufacture, theContinue Reading