Enlarge / I'm not 100 percent sure but it looks a lot like the Vistiq will be a three-row SUV. (credit: Cadillac)

Cadillac's product planners sure love the letter Q. Last year the American luxury automaker started building the Lyriq, a rather competent midsize electric SUV . Last month, it revealed plans for an entry-level electric crossover called the Optiq, that goes on sale next year. And today, it tells us there's another new SUV due in model year 2026 called the Vistiq.

Size-wize, the Vistiq slots between the Lyriq and the rather ginormous Escalade IQ due for model year 2025—the brand recognition on that name is far too good to Q-icize it directly. Although we have no details other than the model year and the name right now, there's a fairly good chance the Vistiq will be an electric analogue to the Cadillac XT6 .

(Similarly we have no further details on the Optiq yet, other than it will share the same smaller crossover architecture as the forthcoming Chevrolet Equinox and will arrive in 2024.)

Enlarge / A Porsche 963, one of the four different kinds of hybrid prototype racing cars built to the LMDh rules, running in IMSA's GTP class at the 2023 Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in October. (credit: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The crowd streamed onto the track before the race, seizing their last chance to see the brightly liveried cars up close. Daytona had been busy in January, but the crowd at Road Atlanta seemed even larger. To be honest, though, the race the fans were here to see would not be one for the ages. A 52-car grid packed into just 2.8 miles of race track promised potential trouble, and the 10-hour race saw 14 interruptions by the safety car, never getting into a rhythm. But I’m not sure that mattered much; the main draw for many in attendance that Saturday was simply seeing this new era of hybrid prototypes in person, and on that score, everyone left with smiles.

We’ve spilled plenty of pixels over the past 18 months or so delving into some of the minutiae of this new class of racing car, variously known as LMDh or GTP . Briefly, these are purpose-built racing cars, which start with a carbon-fiber spine from one of four racecar constructors and then add an engine, bodywork, and software from one of the four OEMs that participate, and then the same Xtrac gearbox, Williams Advanced Engineering lithium-ion battery, and Bosch electric motor as a way to keep development costs reasonable.

The rules purposely limit the amount of aerodynamic downforce a car can generate relative to the amount of drag it creates, and they positively encourage each car maker to give these race cars styling that calls out to their road-going products.

Enlarge / GM says the only way Cadillac enters F1 is in the back of an Andretti car. (credit: Cadillac)

At the start of the year, we got the surprising news that Andretti Global was partnering with Cadillac to try to field a team in Formula 1. That has been a contentious process, exposing a rift between the sport's stakeholders, some of whom aren't keen to add a new fish to the pond.

But on Tuesday, the Andretti Cadillac program got even more serious with the news that General Motors, which owns Cadillac, has now registered as an official F1 powertrain constructor—although only from the 2028 season.

"We are thrilled that our new Andretti Cadillac F1 entry will be powered by a GM power unit," said GM President Mark Reuss. "With our deep engineering and racing expertise, we're confident we'll develop a successful power unit for the series and position Andretti Cadillac as a true works team. We will run with the very best, at the highest levels, with passion and integrity that will help elevate the sport for race fans around the world."

Enlarge / GM recently announced home charging hardware that was capable of bidirectional charging. Today it filled in the missing piece, announcing V2H capabilities are coming to Ultium EVs. (credit: Chevrolet)

General Motors is adding capabilities to allow its new electric vehicles to send power from their batteries to the owner's home. Known as V2H, or bidirectional charging, it's a relatively simple idea: an EV is a giant battery on wheels, so why not be able to use that to power other things? GM says the rollout will begin with model-year 2024 EVs and will continue through to model-year 2026.

There are actually a couple of different approaches to using an EV's battery to power non-car stuff. An increasing number of EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Volkswagen ID. Buzz offer AC outlets, and, depending on the region, can provide either 120 V or 240 V power. That is usually known as vehicle to load, or V2L.

V2H amps things up a bit—quite literally—by sending power from the car back into a home electrical circuit, similar to a home storage battery. Nissan demoed but never implemented the idea for the second-generation Leaf back in 2018 , but Ford did implement it with its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck .

Enlarge / Race winners, the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and Antonio Giovinazzi arrive down the pit lane toward parc ferme at the end of the 100th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe on June 11, 2023, in Le Mans, France. (credit: James Moy Photography/Getty Images)

One hundred is something of an arbitrary number, an accident of how many fingers we happen to have. But in years, it represents a long time to keep doing something again and again: like the 24 Hours of Le Mans, an annual race around an 8-mile circuit in France that exists not just as a way to entertain but also to improve the cars we drive on the road. Windshield wipers, disc brakes, fuel injection, and laserbeam headlights are just a few examples that were proved in the cauldron of the 24 Hours before appearing on cars like the one you might drive.

This weekend saw the centenary edition of the race take place. Anticipation had been building for months thanks to a new ruleset that has revitalized the top class of prototypes , now called Hypercars. After several years of Toyota facing little competition by meagerly funded privateer teams, 2023's entry list also included cars from other major manufacturers—Cadillac, Ferrari, Peugeot, and Porsche.

Legends return

Each has raced at Le Mans before, the European makes with quite some success. Across 91 actual races—world wars prevented running some years—Porsche's entries notched 19 wins, more than anyone else. Audi has the next-best record, but it has opted to spend its racing budget on Formula 1 for the foreseeable future .

Enlarge / GM is the second American automaker to decide to ditch the CCS port (pictured) for Tesla's design. (credit: Cadillac)

Tesla's Supercharger network is about to get more crowded. On Thursday afternoon, General Motors CEO Mary Barra joined Tesla CEO (and Twitter's owner) Elon Musk to announce that GM is signing on to what Tesla calls the North American Charging Standard (NACS) and will integrate those ports into its electric vehicles from 2025. The move follows a similar agreement between Tesla and Ford, announced two weeks ago .

"This collaboration is a key part of our strategy and an important next step in quickly expanding access to fast chargers for our customers. Not only will it help make the transition to electric vehicles more seamless for our customers, but it could help move the industry toward a single North American charging standard," Barra said in a statement.

GM EVs will gain access to the Supercharger network of over 12,000 chargers starting in 2024. As with the Ford news, GM EVs will initially require an adapter to connect the NACS cable to their CCS1 charging ports.

Enlarge / This is the rear of the Red Bull RB19. I can't find a good photo of it with the DRS flap open, but the bit that says Oracle drops down flat, reducing the amount of drag the wing causes and increasing the car's top speed. (credit: Bryn Lennon - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Formula 1 held its annual street race in Azerbaijan this past weekend. With its very high-speed track, the city of Baku has seen some rather exciting racing. But that was not the case this year, which proved more soporific than Ambien. But at least one other race was truly entertaining this weekend, as the World Endurance Championship visited Belgium. Watching the two makes me think it's time for F1 to drop a couple of the driver assists.

Part 1: The case for banning DRS

F1's problem this year is one it often suffers from. One team has designed a better car than anyone else, and assuming that team—Red Bull Racing—stays reliable, it's almost certain to win both the drivers' and constructors' championships. It's not Red Bull's fault it did a much better job than anyone else this year, but its advantage is magnified by a techno-crutch that was added to the sport some years ago to try to increase overtaking.

It's called DRS (drag reduction system), and it was introduced in 2011 to address the problem of one F1 car not being able to follow another closely enough through a corner that it could then build up the necessary speed to overtake.

Enlarge / With a starting price of $26,500, it's no surprise that Chevrolet has sold a lot of Bolt EVs this year. (credit: General Motors)

As we're now in the second quarter of the year, automakers have been reporting their sales numbers. Tesla, which we covered on Monday , is far and away the leader when it comes to electric vehicle sales in the US. But as more and more automakers are bringing new EVs to market, Tesla's market share is eroding, from 72 percent at the beginning of last year to 54 percent now— and it may fall to less than 50 percent over the next few weeks . Which of those other automakers are managing to move metal? We took a look through the Q1 sales announcements to get an idea.

While most automakers have published their Q1 2023 sales, this is not a universal list. In particular, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Lucid, and Genesis have yet to reveal those numbers as of April 5. And the manufacturers don't all break out data in the same way, either lumping all EVs together (looking at you, General Motors) or grouping different powertrains together (as is the case with the Kia Niro and Hyundai Kona).

It's also helpful to remember that, other than Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, all the other automakers have product lines other than battery EVs, so such a company probably isn't going out of business next week because it only sold 3,000 EVs in three months. Supply chains still aren't back to what was considered normal pre-pandemic, and it's worth remembering that in most cases, these are global products. There are severe penalties for automakers who don't sell enough EVs in Europe and China, unlike here in the US. So in cases of finite supply, those markets will receive priority when it comes to deliveries—every EV you sell in the US is an EV you can't sell in Germany, after all.