Posts from ‘First Spin’
First Spin: 2023 Toyota Prius

2023 Toyota Prius
It was weird. When I rounded the corner, a guy walking down the street stopped suddenly, whipped out his phone, and started acting like a paparazzo, taking pictures of my test car like it was a super star. Add this incident to the to the number of thumbs-up signs my test car scored, and you’d suspect I was driving something rare and exotic. But I wasn’t. I was driving a 2023 Toyota Prius…something decidedly un-exotic.
First Spin: 2023 Toyota GR Corolla

2023 Toyota GR Corolla Morizo Edition
The “hot-hatch” segment, for a longtime defined by Volkswagen’s enthusiast-beloved Golf GTI, is inarguably shrinking, in sales volume and in number of models offered. In fact, the whole small, sporty-car thing is in serious decline. Sadly, buyer attitudes have changed, and shoppers—especially young shoppers—seem to value utility over fun these days. I curse their pragmatism.
First Spin: 2023 Toyota Sequoia

2023 Toyota Sequoia Platinum
One of the most old-school SUVs on the market is about to get a lot less old-school. It’s been a long time coming, but late this summer an all-new, third-generation version of Toyota’s full-size SUV is slated to go on sale. The Toyota Sequoia is redesigned from the ground up for 2023, finally doing away with its 2008-vintage platform and adopting new body-on-frame architecture that’s shared with Toyota’s redesigned-for-2022 Tundra full-size pickup truck.

2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe
There’s no moss growing under the feet of Jeep engineers and product planners these days. About a year ago, the brand introduced its first plug-in-hybrid vehicle: the Wrangler 4xe. Approximately 30,000 units found buyers last year, which Jeep says makes the Wrangler 4xe (pronounced “four by e”) America’s best-selling plug-in hybrid. Last summer, the fifth generation of Jeep’s Grand Cherokee debuted with the all-new 2021 Grand Cherokee L—the first Grand Cherokee with three rows of seats. Late last year, a redesign of the traditional two-row, five-passenger Grand Cherokee was introduced on a shorter version of the L’s all-new unibody platform. That’s all history now—along with the equally new Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer full-size SUVs—and Jeep’s engineers are on to their next act: the 2022 Grand Cherokee 4xe. It’s an intriguing mix-and-match that combines the Wrangler 4xe’s powerful plug-in-hybrid powertrain with the redesigned Grand Cherokee.

2022 Toyota Tundra Capstone
Last October, Toyota gave us our first chance to drive the all-new redesigned 2022 Tundra full-size pickup in Texas, which you can read all about in our First Spin report. Since then, Toyota has announced a new top-of-the-line Capstone trim level and filled in few more details about the new Tundra lineup that were left blank last fall. Now, we’ve had the opportunity to spend some time behind the wheel of the new Tundra Capstone and better experience the new i-FORCE MAX hybrid powertrain.
First Spin: 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee

2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited
Earlier this year, the Jeep Grand Cherokee kicked off its fifth generation with the all-new 2021 Grand Cherokee L—the first Grand Cherokee to offer three rows of seats. Meanwhile, the 2021 two-row Grand Cherokee soldiered on for one more season with the previous, fourth-gen design. Now, for the 2022 model year, a redesigned two-row five-passenger Grand Cherokee is being introduced. The 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee is built on a shorter version of the L’s all-new unibody platform, and it’s scheduled to go on sale by the end of the 2021 calendar year. Shortly after the new year, Jeep will add 4xe plug-in-hybrid electrified variants of the two-row Grand Cherokee.