Car and Driver’s Best Images of 2021

Criminals are jerks. And, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the jerks were busy stealing 2347 catalytic converters in a year (2020 data). As seen in this dramatized illustration from our September 2021 issue.

Electric vehicles are no longer some weird damp closet the AV team hides in anymore. They’re what’s new, what’s hot, and the main focus for brands across the world. And while automakers promise to transform their lineups into a fully electric team of superheroes here to save Planet Earth, many of the electric options today can’t make it 200 miles without plugging back into the wall. It’s a wild new frontier, but we promise to wrangle the herd with our new annual EV 1000 electric-car comparative-driving test.

The Corvette that gets to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and starts at a modest $62,195 just got a lot cooler. The Z06 will use a 670-hp 5.5-liter V-8 in place of the Stingray’s 490-hp 6.2-liter. If you’re like us, and craved more music behind the ears while driving a C8, the flat-plane-crank engine that revs to 8600 rpm should suffice.

The Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing is one of the best sports sedans ever made. It sounds and drives like it was thought up by automotive enthusiasts, and that’s because it was. Sadly, this rear-drive sports sedan with a 668-hp supercharged V-8 and six-speed manual transmission is the last of a dying breed.

Whatever you have to do to look past the rather distracting kidney grille of the new BMW M4, do it. The 473-hp twin-turbo inline-six in this thing rips, and its pendulum of comfort and crazy swings far enough to offer a practical daily-driving experience and track-day excitement. Dogs love it too.

It has been able to drive itself out of damn near anything since the 1970s, yet the Toyota Land Cruiser couldn’t tread through the muck of disappointing U.S. sales. It will continue to be sold globally, but a return stateside is doubtful. A redesigned Lexus LX will still be sold here, using the bones from the new Land Cruiser that’s still available to the rest of the world.

We’ve answered 20 of your most important questions about electric vehicles. We help you navigate the BEV, PHEV, CHAdeMO acronym soup. We tell you all about charging, how much range you actually need, what happens when the battery dies. For instance: According to a AAA study, range drops by an average of 41 percent when the temperature falls from 75 degrees to 20.

Our 40,000-mile long-term test with a 2020 Toyota Supra is nearly over. We don’t want to stop driving it. A road trip from Michigan to Florida is no problem behind the wheel of something so immediately fun to drive.

Porsche’s all-electric sports sedan has more than earned its place under the Porsche umbrella of exciting sports cars. This is the 562-hp Taycan 4S, which doesn’t move as urgently as the 750-hp Taycan Turbo S but is still an absolute pleasure to captain. The 4S we tested matched the 997-generation 911 Turbo‘s acceleration time, in a package that produces no tailpipe emissions.

It’s the most abundant element in the universe, so you’d think it’d be a lot easier to find hydrogen. Nope. In California, it can be nearly impossible to find when you need to refuel vehicles like the Toyota Mirai or the Hyundai Nexo.