2024 Cadillac XT4 & 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLA35

Hi, I'm John Davis and this is MotorWeek !

Join us as we test compact luxury from Cadillac, the XT4... Then, go underneath for a guide to the art of fender rolling... We'll have just the facts on current electric vehicle sales... Ending with gateway German high performance, the Mercedes-AMG GLA 35...

So, come drive with us, next!

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JOHN: Whether it's 16-cylinder engines in the 1930s or massive tailfins in the 1950s, Cadillac has long been an automotive trendsetter.

They certainly started something with the huge Escalade sport Ute back in 1999, and today are known more for their SUVs than the few sedans still in their lineup.

But, keeping pace with the rapidly changing luxury crossover utility trend is a challenge.

So, let's find out if an updated XT4 is up to the task.

♪ ♪ Cadillac's XT family of crossovers are designed for people who either don't need the utility that the full-size Escalade delivers or don't want the sheer size that comes with it.

Yet, like the Escalade, the XTs are big on style and features.

This Cadillac XT4 is the smallest member of the family and has gotten some updating for the 2024 model year.

Its most impressive update greets you immediately when you hop behind the wheel; the big 33 inch LED screen that stretches across the dash, similar to the one we first saw in the LYRIQ EV.

As with most new GM's, the software behind it is Google-based, that is still compatible with your Apple or Android phone.

Buyers can also now get a 14-speaker AKG audio system.

As for the rest of the interior, it improves on what we felt was already a very inviting and spacious environment in our test of the original XT4 in 2019.

There is a new dash layout, but except for the big screen, it doesn't look vastly different.

While, materials have been upgraded throughout, including our test car's leather seats, we're not quite sure it quite lives up to the, "So nice, they named it twice" Premium Luxury trim signifier, which is a step up from just Luxury trim.

The other trim option is Sport which comes with expected sporty metallic accents.

Cargo capacity remains good for the segment with 22.5 cubic-feet of space in back, expanding to 48.9 with the rear seatbacks folded.

Exterior tweaks for '24 include new front and rear fascias, a redesigned grille, updated LED lighting, and new alloy wheel designs in either 18 or 20 inches.

Together the changes succeed in making the XT4 appear more substantial and more elegant than before.

All XT4s roll with a 2.0 liter turbo I4 that returns unchanged from last year, outputting 235 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque.

From there, a 9-speed automatic handles power output, with standard front-wheel-drive or optional all-wheel-drive for all trims.

Our all-wheel-drive tester showed more than adequate power for the street, but overall drivetrain operation is not quite as smooth or quiet as its best European competitors.

Likewise, there wasn't much excitement at our test track either, really struggling to get off the line.

But, once we got rolling, we could feel more power coming into play; enough to get us to 60 in a longish 7.4 seconds.

Power delivery continued in this moderate fashion through the quarter-mile, accompanied by unhurried transmission shifts, as we tripped the clock in 15.8 seconds at 86 miles per hour.

The XT4 shares its platform with the Buick Envision but tuning for the MacPherson strut front and five-link rear suspension is clearly unique, as the XT4 felt even more nimble through our handling course.

The 20 inch wheels, which made the ride a little choppy on the street, paid big dividends here, combining with all-wheel-drive to deliver fantastic grip.

Steering was light and never vague, with minimal body roll.

An Active Sport Suspension with Continuous Damping is also available, but only with Sport trim.

Braking performance was also quite good, with a nicely firm pedal, minimal nosedive, and a 118 foot average stopping distance.

Upgraded standard safety for '24 includes Blind Zone Steering Assist and Rear Cross Traffic Braking.

Government Fuel Economy Ratings with all-wheel-drive are 23 City, 28 Highway, and 25 Combined.

We averaged a fine 27.2 miles per gallon on Premium.

That's an average Energy Impact Score; 11.9 Barrels of Annual Oil Use with 6.0 Tons of CO2 Emissions.

Pricing starts at $39,090 and tops out at $43,190 for Sport trim; plus, this Premium Luxury starts just below at $42,690.

All-wheel-drive is a pricey $2,500 for all trims.

There's no way that Henry Leland could have predicted where Cadillac would be today when he founded the company back in 1902.

But much like in those early years of the auto industry, no one's really sure how things will shake out in the long term, with SUVs taking over the luxury market, and Cadillac pushing to become an all-electric brand.

But for now, Cadillac has made sure that the nicely updated 2024 XT4 remains a highly competitive premium crossover utility, and that's something that would make Henry proud!

♪ ♪ The headlines are everywhere: electric vehicle sales are down!

Dealers are swamped with unsold EVs!

Car companies are doubling down on internal-combustion engines!

The EV era is over before it began!

And so on... You know, there's a lot of misinformation swirling around these days about the state of the current EV market.

So, what are the facts and where might EVs go from here?

♪ ♪ We're in the midst of the most revolutionary shake up of the automotive market since the car replaced the horse as our preferred form of personal transportation back in the early 1900s.

Then, as now, drivers faced the same decision of choosing petrol or electric power for their cars, and carmakers offered both options.

As it turned out, the rapid expansion of our interstate road system outpaced the electrification of rural America, paving the way for petroleum to take the lead in widespread availability, and to largely squeeze electrics out of the car market.

Fast forward a hundred years: America is now wired from coast to coast, and advances in battery technology have made it possible for electric vehicles to perform competitively with gas and diesel models.

But more importantly, environmental concerns have become an important factor in determining our fuel of choice, fostering the second coming of the electric vehicle.

Now EV sales, including both plug-in hybrids and pure battery electrics, are surging beyond the early adopter and novelty stage, rising 46.5 percent in 2022 and 53.8 percent in 2023, achieving a record 9.0 percent of the total car market last year.

After such rapid growth, some moderation was expected, but are EV sales really falling as headlines proclaim?

The short answer is...no.

While, growth has slowed, plug-in vehicles still grew 17 percent in the first quarter of 2024, increasing their market share further as overall car sales rose only 5.0 percent.

JOHN O'DONNELL: There's a lot of articles and media suggesting that we've already reached a plateau for EV sales, and that's false, that's incorrect.

The rate of adoption is slowing, but it's still, uh, increasing nationwide.

State by state, it varies.

Uh...

The coasts, east and west coasts, uh, have the higher penetration.

The center of the country is adopting at a more slow rate, but make no mistake, this is not going away simply because somebody wrote an article.

JOHN: Another trend we've noticed is that consumers' preferred type of EV is shifting.

For all of 2023, about 80 percent of EVs sold were pure battery electric.

But plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid sales are growing, and currently make up a quarter of total EV sales.

When faced with the EV market's three-headed conundrum: limited number of affordable battery electric choices, fear of range anxiety, and a public charging infrastructure that's still a work in progress, many buyers see plug-in hybrids as a safe near-term bridge to eventually going all-electric.

And that shift is now forecast to widen for the foreseeable future, as manufacturers release more new PHEVs into the market.

JOHN O'DONNELL: Consumer affordability is always on our minds, representing the people who sell the cars, but it's also on the mind of the state, local, and federal governments.

They know that they need to help us balance, uh, the amount of technology, which costs money through research and development, and what the average consumer can afford.

JOHN: The good news for consumers is that EV prices are already coming down, and, with dozens of new electric vehicles of all types expected to enter the market over the next 18 months, there is little doubt that such increased competition will cause EV prices to moderate even further.

Thus, most market experts are still conservatively predicting EVs to pass the 12 percent market share point for all of 2024, and 15 percent, or over two million new EVs on the road, in 2025.

Add to that continuing improvements in driving range and charging infrastructure, and the future of EVs in America is still quite bright.

American consumers are smart enough to question the naysayers.

They know that the time is finally right for the electric automobile to come into its own.

It's not only the best thing for the environment, it just makes good driving sense.

Changing your vehicle's ride height or stance can sometimes require a little extra clearance, and one trick is fender rolling.

So, we brought in Dan Maffett to explain this art on MotorWeek's "Your Drive!"

♪ ♪ DAN MAFFETT: If you're modifying your vehicle with bigger wheels and tires, chances are you're going to have some clearance issues.

Now, the old school way was to shove a baseball bat in the fender well and roll it back and forth until you got clearance.

Well, the good thing is that the aftermarket world has evolved a lot since then.

Now, there's companies making tools like this.

This is a universal fender roller.

And what this allows you to do is you bolt this flange against the hub of the wheel, and then you can use this wheel here and gradually massage that fender lip back.

So, this is a really cool build that we did in the past.

It's all hot rod, so when you do hot rod stuff, you get hot rod problems.

This has a Corvette-style coil-over suspension, so it's sitting way lower than it was originally.

Custom offset wheels; with that you get a little bit of rubbing in turning.

So, what we're going to do today is roll this inner fender, so we can minimize that.

And, once we get that done, we should be able to take any turn at any speed and not have any noise whatsoever.

So, we're going to get this at a workable height, because I don't like to bend over...and...uh, we're going to get to it.

Alright, so you can see our trouble area is going to be this space right here.

Most of this is pretty flat already, but we're going to try to get a little bit of space here.

And looking at the tire, you can see where it's been rubbing.

These are witness marks that show where the tire has been coming in contact with this fender here.

Um...

It's not bad, but over time, this will chew through your tires.

Um... And they're expensive.

We don't want to have to keep buying those, so we're going to fix it.

Alright, so the problem area right here, we got a little bit of space behind here, and we're going to try to just massage that back and give us the clearance we need.

This is meant to work on a complete radius, so what we're doing is just putting it in the corner, getting a lot of pressure on it and slowly rolling this back, and you'll see the wheel will start walking... and that's going to just slowly massage that area back.

And we're going to start adding some heat here, so that we make sure that we keep this nice and soft.

Cold paint is brittle.

It'll crack, it'll splinter if you hit it.

Um...

This heat gun is going to heat up all those molecules and just soften them, let them lay down, so they're a little more pliable and we can bend them instead of stretch them or crack them.

Yeah, I think that's really good.

Yep.

And we did that all thanks to an inexpensive little tool like this.

So, if you have any questions or comments, hit us up, right here at MotorWeek.

♪ ♪ STEPHANIE HART: Shots taken of a prototype Lamborghini tell us that a successor to the Huracan supercar may be closer than we might think.

Believed to be named the Temerario, this prototype leaves plenty to the imagination.

We can't make out any powertrain details, but perhaps we'll see a plug-in hybrid of sorts, like the recently launched Revuelto.

One particular shot of the passenger side window does show a Revuelto-like interior, but the exterior is rather bespoke.

We're excited to see more of what Lamborghini has in store for their next supercar entry and we can't wait to get behind the wheel.

JOHN: Lets hit the road wheels a-turning for another QuickSpin!

♪ ♪ JESSICA RAY: The Macan has been a top seller for Porsche since its 2013 introduction, so it was safe to assume they'd bring it with them into the electrified era, and now they have with the 2024 Porsche Macan Electric.

After our First Drive through southern France we can loudly proclaim that...yes, while it is all electric, it's still all Macan; and that means all Porsche.

Destined to be sold alongside internal-combustion Macans for now, the Electric will launch with two trims: the Macan 4 and Macan Turbo.

Both are built on Porsche's Premium Platform Electric and use a dual-motor design.

The 4 provides up to 402 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque.

But if its 0-to-60 time of 4.9 seconds isn't enough, how about 2.9?

That's the Macan Turbo, up to 630 horsepower and 833 pound-feet in Launch Control.

The Turbo's punchier rear motor feels incredible, but the Macan 4 is no slouch either.

Now, I spent a lot of my morning with the Macan 4.

It's the base, all electric Macan, and it's pretty much all the Macan that most people need.

It has what I would refer to as the perfect amount of power for a daily driver.

It can get you in and out of places quickly, but for the most part, that power is just on tap and you're not really accessing it until you really need it.

And not just the power, but the 48 percent front and 52 percent rear weight distribution gives this SUV an amazingly balanced and sporty feel.

The weight is carefully spread around by the 95 usable kilowatt-hour battery pack; 800 volt architecture and 270 kilowatts of charging means 10-to-80 percent top-offs in about 21 minutes.

No EPA figures yet, but we estimate around 300 miles of range.

The 2024 Porsche Macan Electric will start around $80,000, working up to nearly $107,000 for the Turbo when they arrive later this year.

GREG: After a brief pause, the Land Cruiser is back in the U.S. and better than ever; and we just got some QuickSpin first drive time in Southern California.

The first thing we notice is that the 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser is certainly slimmed down.

It's a much more purposeful design, replacing big and bloated with lean and mean.

That includes the three trim levels, from a basic blank canvas 1958 to a limited First Edition, with simply Land Cruiser in between.

All sport 18 inch wheels, the base 1958 with tires that are a little narrower at 245 versus 265 for the others.

Power is a major change.

All J250s come with the Tacoma's i-FORCE MAX 2.4 liter I4 turbo hybrid rated at 326 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque, 16 percent more than the old V8; and all work with an 8-speed automatic transmission.

Off-road capability was, naturally, a priority, with full-time 4-wheel-drive standard, along with a 2-speed transfer case, locking center and rear diffs, front stabilizer bar disconnect, 8.7 inches of ground clearance, and a host of off-road specific driving aids as part of Multi-Terrain Select, plus, a Multi-Terrain Monitor camera system.

BRIAN ROBINSON: I've done plenty of off-roading in Land Cruisers over the years, and while they've always been incredibly capable, the last few gens did get a little, uh, heavy-handed with the electronics kind of relegating you to just being along for the ride.

This one definitely has an old-school feel to it; uh, almost some FJ Cruiser vibes.

In other words, I'm diggin' it.

GREG: Pricing starts around $56,000, with First Editions beginning at about $75,000; 2024 Toyota Land Cruisers will be rolling into dealerships later this spring.

And we'll have more QuickSpins...soon!

JOHN: Back in 2015, buying an AMG-tuned utility vehicle was not unheard of, but finding one as affordable as the then-new AMG GLA 45 was an entirely new phenomenon.

Since then, they've only enhanced their AMG profile, so let's check in with the latest Mercedes-AMG GLA 35 and see if we can keep up.

♪ ♪ A quick look at the Mercedes-Benz lineup reveals they currently have more than a dozen SUVs for sale, most of which can get some level of high-performance AMG treatment.

This 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLA 35 is the least expensive one you can buy, but it certainly doesn't feel, look, or behave like a budget ride.

Styling updates are mostly limited to a new front fascia, though both head and taillights get freshened up, and there are some new wheel designs, plus, a unique AMG crest on the hood for the first time.

The base Mercedes-Benz GLA also gets updated, just with a much milder theme for those that are looking more for the luxurious experience instead of the AMG's sporty theme.

Inside, drivers can take in all the carbon fiber accents, as well as put their hands on a new AMG Performance steering wheel.

Mercedes has gotten rid of the touchpad controller on the center console and put a much more practical phone charger in its place, as well as added an additional USB-C port with faster charging speed.

The touchscreen shares its housing with the 10 inch digital instrument cluster.

The GLA 35s 2.0 liter turbocharged I4 has been retuned by AMG for 302 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque with 48 volt mild-hybrid assistance.

It's the same setup found in the CLA 35 4-door Coupe, we recently tested.

The base GLA 250 makes do with 221 horsepower from its 2.0 liter turbo 4.

The GLA 35 comes strictly with an 8-speed automatic transmission and AMG-tuned 4MATIC all-wheel-drive.

At our test track, with AMG Race Start engaged, we hooked and booked to 60 in just 4.9 seconds despite a slight hesitation in full power delivery off the line.

It launched hard even without Race Start, and the engine strongly pulled all the way down the track.

Shifts were plenty quick, yet still very smooth, as while we could barely feel when they were happening, the bassy bark from the exhaust gave us a much-appreciated audible cue.

Our best quarter-mile run was a 13.5 at 102 miles per hour.

As for handling, it was easy-peasy for this AMG.

We were able to carry quite a bit of speed through our cone course with very minimal body roll and a planted feel that had us pushing harder and harder until we got it to step out on us just a little.

You can get into a base front-wheel-drive GLA for as little as $43,000, but this AMG 35 will cost you at least $57,600.

When we hear things like, "The best or nothing at all," we tend to dismiss it as Mercedes marketing speak, but that was actually a quote going all the way back to Gottlieb Daimler in the late 1800s prior to his firm joining up with Karl Benz's.

And, for the most part, it's still the philosophy behind Mercedes-Benz today.

And you can certainly feel it behind the wheel of the 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLA 35.

Well, that's our show, I hope you enjoyed it.

Now, for more MotorWeek , including daily news updates, podcasts, and even complete episodes, cruise on over to PBS.ORG/MOTORWEEK.

And I hope you'll join us next time for one machine that highlights the "sport" in "sport utility," the BMW X6, followed by a very practical EV, the Volvo XC40 Recharge.

Until then, I'm John Davis.

We'll see you right here on MotorWeek !

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Learn more at AutoValue.Com and BumperToBumper.Com.

TireRack.Com is proud to support MotorWeek !

First, there was the wheel.

Then, the tire.

"We'll call it TireRack."

Forty years later, we're not slowing down.

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