Mercedes Crashes Two CLAs To Demonstrate EV Safety

When the first-generation Honda Ridgeline arrived in 2005 (as a 2006 model), it was a head-scratcher. Honda blasphemed against truck orthodoxy by making the Ridgeline unibody instead of body-on-frame, and proudly showed that off by integrating the bed and cab with unusual styling. That’s because Honda wasn’t benchmarking traditional pickups. In fact, the first-gen Ridgeline wasn’t even called a truck internally. Don Herner, the Ridgeline’s exterior design lead, explains this and the rest of the Honda pickup’s origin story in an interview with YouTuber Jack Bontatibus. Herner spent most of his career at Honda, joining the automaker right after graduating from California’s ArtCenter College of Design and interning at General Motors in the Corvette design studio. His project was the third-generation Acura Integra; he also led design of the first-generation Acura RDX and worked at Fisker.

There’s something out there. In the pitch-black, beyond the glow of our fire, which is burning strong into its 11th hour, I keep hearing leaves crunching. I think back to the nice lady who discovered our encampment not 20 minutes after we pulled our e-brakes. She lives in the area and was looking for firewood. She left us with a friendly warning, “You know it’s bear-hunting season, right?”We were deep in the Huron National Forest at the end of a two-track service road, far enough off the beaten path that Apple Maps only shows it as green. It’s overgrown after weeks of rainfall, and it’s beautiful, at least during the day. Representing humanity in these woods are senior news editor Caleb Miller, associate news editor Jack Fitzgerald, and myself. The air is still, without even a breeze, yet I hear rustling, and then another branch cracks. This one sounds louder than the others. "Jack, you’re sure it’s just dead sticks falling? "“It’s just dead sticks,” he reassures me, with a soft cadence as if he’s comforting a child. There’s another crunch from his side of the fire, and he whips his head toward the void. We are so effed.

Classic gems, tasteful customs, legendary supercars - for Silvian, they're all fair game. He's been in love with cars and motorcycles for as long as he can remember, so it made perfect sense to eventually turn that passion into a full-time writing career. Around six years and more than 3,000 articles later, he is still going strong and doesn't plan on hitting the brakes anytime soon. When it comes to the current financial woes of German automakers, Porsche and the Volkswagen Group as a whole tend to get most of the media coverage. But other manufacturers aren’t exactly in for a fun picnic, either, even if they don’t make nearly as many headlines as VW or the Stuttgart-based performance brand.

The average American can't afford a new car. The average new car transaction price has recently ballooned to an all-time high of nearly $52,000 at a time when most consumers don't have $1,000 in savings. Jobs are down, wages are down, the value of the dollar is down, and prices are way up. With utilities, insurance, groceries, and gasoline prices exploding this year, most of us haven't got, as my Grandfather would frequently say, a pot to p*ss in or a window to throw it out. How are Americans coping with an affordability and savings crisis? Many of us are foregoing a new car purchase, with new car sales down 3.6% from last year. The decrease in new car sales matches up with an increase in the average age of a registered passenger car on the road today, getting older than it ever has been, reaching a bonkers 14 and a half years.

Wilhelm's first experience as a motoring writer came in the early 2000s during job shadowing at Auto Express and Autocar magazines in the UK. Subsequently, he became a full-time motoring writer, contributing to websites and magazines across South Africa, the UK, the USA, and Germany. In South Africa, he has built a strong client base of owners and collectors who have given him access to their cars for feature stories. Owners often treat high-performance cars as investments or weekend toys, carefully limiting mileage to preserve their value. However, some enthusiast vehicles offer a different proposition by combining exhilarating performance with the durability and practicality needed for everyday driving.

Belinda has written about cars for more than a decade and has various post-graduate degrees majoring in creative writing, research, and literature. She has served as Senior Editor and Section Lead at CarBuzz since 2019, and was appointed Deputy Editor in 2024. Born to a family of Ford people, motoring enthusiasts, and mechanics, Belinda wouldn’t find her calling in the motor industry until after completing her postgraduate studies in the behavioral sciences. Majoring in English literature and creative writing, she was appointed at the University of Johannesburg to assist and tutor students in composition, writing, and research. She served as assistant and contributor to numerous academic journals, research articles, and published works, and started her own freelance writing and editing company shortly thereafter. After falling in love with the idea of merging her passions for cars and writing, Belinda spent four years writing for local motoring publications before joining the CarBuzz team full-time as Senior Editor in mid-2019.