The 2027 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Is “The Truth”

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This week we have not one, but two takes on the all-new BMW i3. Also, we’ve been testing not one, not two, but three dashcams, so take a look at that too if you’re shopping around for one.

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By: Sergiu Tudose

Here’s one for NBA aficionados: On March 13, 2001, Paul Pierce dropped 42 points on 13-of-19 shooting against the Lakers at the Staples Center, prompting Shaquille O’Neal to come up with a nickname for the young Celtics forward. It was one of those iconic moments in sports.

“Take this down... Paul Pierce is the truth”, state Shaq in an interview with reporters after the game. Pierce would later confess that Shaq’s words gave him a massive confidence boost, and the rest is history. He’s now a Celtics legend and an NBA champion. One of the best to ever do it.

To say that someone or something is “the Truth” means to offer as high a praise as possible. And it works for cars, too. Especially cars that deliver on multiple fronts, or gamechangers. Cars capable of putting their peers out to pasture. That’s exactly what the new Corvette Grand Sport X is doing to the E-Ray, and to some extent, the Z06 too.

That’s pretty crazy when you think about it. The Z06 is by far the best-value Corvette, especially on the used car market – a reality that’s unlikely to change any time soon.

However, if you’re buying new – and even though we don’t have an official MSRP for the Corvette GSX – I believe the latter will eclipse the Z06 as far as bang for the buck.

Here’s what we’re working with: an LS6 V8 paired with a front-axle electric motor and a compact battery pack, same as you get in the ZR1X. This means you’ve got all-wheel drive, or eAWD, as they say in GM circles. Floor the throttle and you’ll be putting down 721 horsepower, which is 51 hp more than you get in the Z06, and you have the added benefit of improved traction off the line – not to mention instant torque courtesy of the electric motor.

That means you don’t need to build up many revs in order to break the laws of physics, but once you do, that’s when the naturally aspirated V8 kicks in. Actually, GM is calling it “near-instant access to 145 lb-ft of torque on the front axle.”

Like with the ZR1X, the user can choose exactly how they use the available power. You can put down lap times with Qualifying mode or simply use “Push-to-Pass” and get maximum available power on-demand.

Other technical highlights include the Magnetic Ride Control system (duh), carbon-ceramic brakes, Michelin Pilot Sport All-Season 4 tires (standard), plus optional goodies such as the Performance Package which adds Pilot Sport 4S rubber.

And if it’s subtlety you’re after, the Grand Sport X comes with an electric-only Stealth mode you can use as long as you stay under 50 mph (80 kph). Meanwhile, Shuttle mode is aimed at non-street use up to 23 mph (37 kph). Both systems only employ the 186-horsepower front electric axle, without soliciting the V8.

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By: Cristian Agatie

Elon Musk is never short of bold dreams to sell, even though not one of his previous plans has been completed successfully. Tesla was supposed to become the dominant global carmaker by 2030, with plans to produce 20 million cars per year. The closest Musk has come to achieving this dream was in 2023, when Tesla sold 1.81 million cars. It was slightly lower than that in 2024, but the trend accelerated abruptly last year, when sales reached 1.64 million.

From then on, car manufacturing has slipped into the background, as Musk pushed another dream: autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. Having failed to dominate the EV markets, Tesla pivoted to fulfill another one of Musk's dreams. However, it took even less before Musk understood it's not that easy. 

Tesla's Robotaxi service in Austin has basically stalled, with only a handful of unsupervised vehicles on the streets. Meanwhile, Tesla is operating an Uber-like ride-hailing service in California using human drivers with FSD (Supervised) to haul people around. With about 500 cars operating across California and Texas, Tesla is far from fulfilling Musk's autonomous driving dreams. Meanwhile, Tesla has nothing to show in the humanoid robot market.

With both projects already failing to make progress, Musk has already turned to new dreams to wow investors and keep them dazzled and involved. After boasting in January about building a chipmaking fab where he could smoke a cigar and eat a burger, Musk has now announced the Terafab project. This is a giant chipmaking project that would dwarf anything TSMC, Samsung, and Intel combined can produce today. 

I am not sure if Musk's ambitions to build a chipmaking factory can be achieved. I know little about chipmaking, other than that it is a capital-intensive business. It requires dozens of billions of dollars invested every year in perpetuity to stay on top of things. There's a reason why this field is basically a two-horse race (TSMC and Samsung), with Intel a distant third. 

What I can give Musk credit for is his idea of failure. Sort of like, if you fail, then it's better to set an impossible goal so that failure doesn't look that bad. So, the Terafab is not just a chipmaking fab, or two. It's a 100 million sqft chipmaking facility, which doesn't seem much until you compare it to other real estate projects. It's 15 times the size of the Pentagon, 23 times the size of Disneyland, or 10 times the size of Giga Austin.

If Tesla and SpaceX do build the fabs (which is far from guaranteed at this point), they will have to burn incredible amounts of money just to get things started. Tesla has about $44 billion in cash reserves, but the Terafab scale seems too much, even for that. To put things into perspective, TSMC's capital expenditure for 2025 is projected to reach about $40 billion. 

And that doesn't even touch the biggest bottleneck: you can't produce chips without Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines that only one company in the world can supply: ASML. The Dutch company has a backlog that stretches back years, and it's unlikely Elon Musk can jump to the front of the queue. Claims that Tesla and SpaceX can revolutionize lithography and produce their own EUV machines are delusional.

For the full article, please continue reading on our site.

By: Sergiu Tudose

BMW has always evolved carefully and deliberately. Which makes the speed of its recent design shift stand out even more. The German carmaker went through two completely different design philosophies in less than half a decade.

Before this Neue Klasse era came the Domagoj Dukec era. I don’t think they even gave the latter a name. Much like the Bangle era. Dukec was the man responsible for the likes of the G70 7-Series, the G60 5-Series, i5, iX and the XM, among others. That man was bold. He’s since moved on to become Head of Design at Rolls-Royce.

Now, Dukec was still on board at BMW when the company started working on the Neue Klasse styling language, and even though I’m not sure how much work he personally put into the iX3 or the all-new i3, I believe the final touches were applied after his departure, for better or worse.

Let’s talk styling languages, because this is a very sensitive subject when it comes to legacy carmakers. Anything pre-Bangle is pretty much classic BMW, as far as I’m concerned. From the 70s and up until the early 2000s, all BMWs featured clean, restrained lines, to go with understated looks. I say early 2000s because that’s when Chris Bangle started leaving his mark, but his work at BMW began in the late 90s.

Anyway, most Bangle-era Bimmers came with so-called “flame surfacing”, bolder aesthetics, and a clean departure from tradition – most notably, the E65 7 Series and the E60 5 Series. To be fair, the latter went on to become extremely popular, long after Bangle left the company. Even today, the E60 is heavily respected among BMW lovers, thanks to a design that was way ahead of its time.

In the late 2000s and up until 2018, we had the so-called “baseline” van Hooydonk era, which again favored proportions over drama, and evolutionary designs over anything revolutionary. From the F30 to the G20 and G30 – the pinnacle of modern BMW design, at least as far as sedans were concerned. Dukec came on in the late 2010s, but van Hooydonk was and still is fully in charge – just as he was on that faithful day when he gave designers the go-ahead for Neue Klasse.

I wish I was a fly on the wall when discussions were first held about this new design direction. BMW’s creative army was given the green light to simplify and to focus on EV-native proportions rather than legacy proportions. With fewer packaging limitations, they didn’t even need to make the cars instantly recognizable as BMWs.

Neue Klasse is perfectly aligned with digital product thinking. Whether we like it or not, I fear the train has already left the station – at least for the foreseeable future. I asked a friend of mine who also happens to be a Tesla owner, what he thinks of the iX3. He loved it. He loved everything about it.

Now, I don’t know anyone who used to own an E36 or an E39, but if I did, I’m not sure I’d want to know what they think about the new iX3, or the upcoming all-new i3, for that matter.

I don’t think BMW is interested in designing cars for people who were in their 30s and 40s during the E34/E36/E39 era. Then again, I don’t know any carmakers that would be. Everyone is focused on the exact same thing now – making futuristic or retro-futuristic EVs that look like they belong in a different decade than the one we’re currently inhabiting.

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By: Aurel Niculescu

The eighth-generation Lexus ES was announced in April 2025 during the 2025 edition of Auto Shanghai in China. It’s been almost a year since the gala unveiling, and we’re finally almost ready to see the latest ES roam the streets of America – silently at first.

The Lexus ES may not be the most renowned mid-size executive car out there, as people might have heard about the Audi A6, BMW 5 Series, and Mercedes-Benz E-Class, or even about the Cadillac CTS and CT5 more often, but it’s a legend among the company’s fans. Why? The answer is simple.

The Lexus ES is pretty much iconic for Lexus enthusiasts because the original iteration was one of the two vehicles that debuted alongside the premium brand, including the flagship LS limousine. Introduced in 1989, the Lexus ES had ample time to grow and expand, going swiftly from compact to executive car levels since 1991.

Eight generations later, it’s still alive and kicking, although with a few caveats. The latest iteration will be produced in Japan, again, for the North American region because the Georgetown plant is busy churning out the ultra-popular RAV4 compact crossover SUV and Camry mid-size sedan from Toyota. Also, gone is the gasoline-powered model, and the new ES will only be sold as a fully electric and hybrid model.

Actually, the former is coming first, with the latter quickly in tow. According to Lexus, the eighth-generation Lexus ES is now on sale in America with the long-running luxury sedan’s first-ever battery-electric (BEV) models arriving first at dealerships before the 2026 Lexus ES 350h hybrid models follow suit.

There are two options: ES 350e and ES 500e, both with two grades each: ES 350e Premium and Luxury from $48,795 or $57,195, and the ES 500e Premium AWD or Luxury AWD from $51,795 or $60,195. In fact, the rumor mill says the hybrid models will be more expensive, kicking off at $50,995! You do get rid of range anxiety with the latter.

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By: Mircea Panait

Inspired by the heavily modified 911s built for extreme off-road endurance, the Dakar was limited to a total production run of 2,500 units worldwide. Effectively spoken for through expressions of interest before its unveiling, the Dakar will return with added oomph.

Recently spied testing in the form of a 911 Carrera GTS-derived mule, the next iteration doesn't reveal much in the way of styling cues for the time being. On the flip side, the Neunelfer on which it's based indicates hybrid assistance for its 3.6-liter turbocharged six-pot boxer.

Priced from $181,000 in the United States, the Carrera GTS isn't a slouch. 532 horsepower and plenty of peak torque will result in a top speed of 194 mph (312 kph) and 2.9 seconds to 60 mph (97 kph). However, the off-road hardware of the Dakar means that it may be slower in both respects than the 992.2-phase Carrera GTS.

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The folks at Mercedes-AMG GmbH prepare to take the AMG GT Coupe in a completely different direction from the 2027 Porsche 911 Dakar. Not only are the mad professors in Affalterbach developing a track-oriented trim that slots above the GT PRO 4MATIC+, but the GT Black Series is making a comeback as well in 2027.

Twinned with Affalterbach Racing's next GT3 bruiser, the redesigned GT Black Series makes plenty of aero statements, beginning with a larger-than-life rear wing, diffuser, and ONE-inspired active louvers up front. Canards are featured as well, along with side exhausts, a vented hood, and a deep lip spoiler for the front bumper.

Model-specific upgrades over the GT PRO 4MATIC+ further include the revised Panamericana grille, lightweight side windows, and the composite panel that replaces the rear window. Under the hood, the most likely candidate is a flat-plane V8 engine with two snails and more than 720 mechanical horsepower at its disposal.

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Over at the M division, BMW is putting the finishing touches on a racing wagon. Conceived as nothing more than an April Fools' marketing stunt, the M3 Touring 24H finished the season opener of the Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie on 13th overall and first in class.

Closely related to the highly successful M4 GT3 Evo, the go-faster longroof builds on the road-going car with a stripped-out interior, improved cooling, racing slicks, and better aerodynamics. On the downforce-inducing front, its tremendous rear wing is the centerpiece.

Because it's a racing car developed for endurance racing, the M3 Touring 24H doesn't use the S58 twin-turbo I6 of the M3 Touring. Similarly, the Bavarian automaker had to swap the ZF-supplied automatic for a sequential. And yes, the xDrive system is out in favor of rear drive.

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While on the subject of thrilling BMWs, how do you feel about zero-emission performance instead of a turbocharged sixer in the M3? Masterfully rendered in accordance with leaked photos of the real thing, the iM3 embraces the Neue Klasse design wholeheartedly.

Alternatively known as the i3M, the most polarizing M3 to date promises best-in-segment handling and straight-line performance due to quad electric drive units. The most conservative maximum output estimate is 800 horsepower, which doesn't mean a lot in a vehicle this heavy. On the other hand, its maximum torque rating and how it's delivered will make a world of difference.

Due to hit dealers in the summer of 2027, the yet-unnamed electric sedan will be joined by a roomier wagon. BMW is expected to build the ZA0 sedan and ZA1 longroof between March 2027 and October 2035 at the BMW Group Plant in Munich, Germany.

By: Bogdan Popa

The iPhone-inspired era must come to an end, Volkswagen says. Physical buttons are on their way back, the company's big boss promises, so expect less touch and more muscle memory in the upcoming VW models. 

That's not necessarily what BMW is planning in the short term. The company keeps praising Panoramic Vision on every occasion, trying to defend the biggest change it produces in modern BMWs. The traditional instrument clusters are gone, so there you go, if you missed physical buttons, you'll probably miss your old-fashioned speedometer, too. 

Otherwise, it was a typical week in the car software space. Apple joined the fun with horrendous news, as the company found the worst possible way to copy Google Maps. It brought ads to Apple Maps, with Americans and Canadians to start seeing them later this year.

Android Auto users are battling new issues, while Google shipped emergency updates to iron out at least some of these bugs. Google has more ambitious plans up its sleeve. It's working on expanding Android Automotive behind the infotainment system, turning it into the software powering the entire car. In plain English, we should all get ready for Android cars in all their glory. 

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