Chris Teague

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crash-tests and evaluates vehicles throughout the year, and it recently released its final list of Top Safety Pick award winners for the 2024 calendar year.This round of winners brings the number of Top Safety Pick + awards to 48 and Top Safety Picks to 56.

Porsche is not an automaker that often makes mistakes, which is why it took so long for the Macan EV to land after extended delays over software issues. The company is now reportedly struggling to manage battery packaging issues with the upcoming 718 EV, which could see it delayed in a similar fashion.

Toyota finally updated the Tacoma for the 2024 model year, after it sold for almost a decade with no significant changes. The new Tacoma sports several improvements over its predecessor, and Toyota is making further revisions for the 2025 model year, though they’re far less dramatic than those seen in 2024.

Rivian owners may be missing out on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but the company has piled on nearly every other tech feature in their place. A recent software update brought a wealth of new “stuff,” including streaming video apps.

Red Bull F1’s Sergio Perez has been rumored to be losing his seat for what seems like years, but the two recently officially parted ways. In his place, newcomer Liam Lawson steps into the seat, which has never been a friendly spot on the grid with the team’s number-one driver, Max Verstappen.

Hyundai hasn’t had the best luck with its suppliers this year. Earlier in 2024, the automaker was sued by the government over reports that a supplier had used child labor, and now, one of the company's suppliers is pulling back on its prison labor programs in Alabama after reports that some workers felt like they had no choice but to participate.

Europeans tend to be warmer toward EVs than Americans, but they aren’t warming to Tesla in the way they once did.The automaker’s most recent sales numbers from November show a significant drop, to the tune of almost 41 percent, and that’s just the latest report in a year full of disappointments for Tesla’s European operations.

The news that Honda and Nissan are discussing a merger is certainly worth all the attention it’s getting, but one of the more interesting parts of the story relates to a third company.Foxconn – you know, the company that builds iPhones – was interested in acquiring Nissan but is putting that effort on hold while it negotiates with Honda.

In news that will surprise very few of you, Dodge has announced that it will continue building Hemi V8 engines. The automaker said it would offer the Durango R/T and SRT Hellcat through at least the 2025 model year, but as history has shown us, they’ll likely stick around for far longer than that.

Layoffs have been an increasingly common tool used by automakers and many other international companies to cut costs and refocus investments, but Stellantis is having second thoughts about a recently planned layoff at one of its Ohio facilities.