Ezra Dyer's Weirdest Car Features and Technology of 2022

January: Car Dealers Are Still Scrounging

Ezra Dyer|Car and Driver

Okay, I’m veering off the theme here on the very first month, because I’d rather post a photo of a sweet Camaro than of the Subaru Outback Wilderness fruitlessly trying to connect to its Subaru cloud server to diagnose its electronic maladies, but failing to do so because I’d gotten it stuck Out Back in the Wilderness where there was no cell service whatsoever. Plus, I’m writing this in International Waters, where rules don’t apply. (That’s capitalized because International Waters is the name of my local bar.)

Anyway, in January the used-car market was so wacky that when I went to my local Jeep dealer to stalk Gladiators, they had a 1990s Camaro on the lot. This is normally the type of trade-in that goes straight to the dealer auction for eventual sale at Lenny’s Used Kars and Small Engine Repair 10 miles out of town out on Route 57, but in January the car supply was still so tight that new-car dealers would take whatever they could get. Including Camaros built in an entirely different millennium. Not that I’m judging. It was a wicked Camaro. It sold quick.

February: Raptor on 37s, the Unobtainium Truck

Ezra Dyer|Car and Driver

Sometimes, we write reviews of limited-edition cars that are already sold out, because they’re interesting and maybe you, the reader, might take a crack at buying one used in a few years. But lately we’ve had to deal with the challenge of covering vehicles that are constrained by supply-chain problems.

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For instance, my friend Steve ordered a Ford F-150 Raptor with the 37-inch tire package right around the time I drove one in early February. Then he waited. And waited. Ford sent him a series of letters saying that they’d really like to build him a Raptor with 37s but couldn’t. (The notice here was sent in late October.) If he wanted 35-inch tires, though, no problem! So he eventually just went with the 35s. Unfortunately for Ford, they were bolted to a Ram TRX.

March: I Discover That the Kia EV6 Has a Poor Self-Image

Ezra Dyer|Car and Driver

Some cars go to great lengths to accurately depict themselves on their in-vehicle displays, sometimes even representing the correct paint color on the actual car. Not the Kia EV6! When you summon the battery state-of-charge display on the EV6, the Kia depicts itself as something that looks like a joint venture between Daewoo and the Chinese government circa 2002. Somewhere at Kia, there is a memo buried deep under a stack of papers that reads, “Remember to make that blobby hatchback thing with the solid featureless wheels and six-inch-wide tires look like the actual car before production.”

April: Mazda Is Honest about Premium Fuel

Ezra Dyer|Car and Driver

All turbocharged engines love premium fuel, whether they demand it or not (an accidental tank of regular unleaded turned an EcoBoost Mustang to a total mope at Lightning Lap back in 2015). But Mazda is one of the outliers that actually provides separate horsepower ratings according to octane. In the CX-50 Turbo, filling it with 87 octane gets you 227 horsepower. Running 93 octane, it’s rated at 256 hp. Torque improves, too, from 310 lb-ft to 320 lb-ft. That’s a difference you can feel. So if someone asks you whether premium fuel really matters, your first response should be, “You got a Mazda?”

May: The Kona N Only Knows Five Tracks

Ezra Dyer|Car and Driver

During some downtime with the Kona N on the Cherohala Skyway, I fiddled around with the sub-menus on the infotainment’s performance pages. There I discovered that the N offers track maps of various road courses, which I’d think would add some VBox flavor to your lapping sessions, assuming you don’t have an actual VBox. However, the Kona only knows five tracks: Atlanta Motorsports Park, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Lime Rock, Road America, and Watkins Glen. It’s a cool feature—if you live near one of those tracks. On a sort-of-related note, the Genesis G90 can make its sound system emulate the acoustics of any concert hall in the world, as long as it’s Boston Symphony Hall.

June: The Lucid Air Makes You Sign a Disclaimer to Unlock All the Power

Ezra Dyer|Car and Driver

My first, and so far only, encounter with the Lucid Air was at our EV of the Year testing last summer. This was the 819-hp Grand Touring rather than the 1111-hp Dream Edition Performance, but it was still violently quick, hitting 60 mph in 3.0 seconds. However, I think the disclaimer screen to unlock Sprint mode was a little much. It was the EV equivalent of a carnie making you sign a waiver before heading over to ride the Matterhorn. Settle down, Lucid Air. You’re one second quicker to 60 than that F-150 over there. I did, however, appreciate the implication that I am a “skilled, advanced driver.”

July: The BMW iX Leads Me to Meet Drifter Dave

Ezra Dyer|Car and Driver

Under the long list of things that might happen at gas pumps, I’d put “making a new friend” at number 10,534, right after “get squeegee water in your eyes somehow” but before “have your gas paid for by a friendly Sasquatch.” But that can happen at EV chargers, where everybody has more time to kill and at least one thing in common. And that’s how I met Drifter Dave, as he’s now labeled in my contacts. I stopped for a charge in the BMW iX and there was a Ford Mach-E at the adjacent charger. Dave was there with his wife (it was her car), and we started talking about the BMW. Then he told me about how he was into drifting and showed me photos of his E36 drift car. A month or two later, I gave him a call when I was at Charlotte Motor Speedway to drive the Mach-E 1400, and we ended up riding around in the Eluminator concept truck and getting hellrides with Vaughn Gittin Jr.

Vandalism by squirrel.

Ezra Dyer|Car and Driver

Which, again, is the kind of thing that I’ve never had happen at gas pumps. Although I did once meet a former Ford engineer named George who worked on the original Thunderbird, and I let him drive a Bentley across the parking lot to prank his wife. But I don’t have George’s number. That’s how charge stations are different. Anyway, a few days after I met Dave, a squirrel hucked a big, sappy pine cone out of a tree and broke the BMW’s windshield. So I guess July is a two-parter, but I told you I play by nobody’s rules but my own.

August: The Genesis G90 Has Delightfully Elaborate Window Shades

Among the G90’s bargeload of motorized and luxed-out features (remote parking, power doors, an interior fragrance dispenser), I was especially impressed by the motorized side window shades. Lots of cars have window shades, most of them manual affairs that pull up and latch on the hook. Really fancy rides have motorized shades. But the G90 has two shades per side. In addition to the main window shade that deploys vertically, they hid a horizontal shade in the pillar for the small rear quarter-window. That’s attention to detail. Sorry, paps. I will not be seen unless I deign to allow it.