As 2023 draws to a close, we’re looking back at the biggest stories MotorTrend published this year. The most common thread? The biggest new-car reveals included 2024- and 2025-model-year vehicles that we’ll see coming online in the next few months. These generated huge interest—one of our gauges for what defines this year’s biggest news—but also there were a few that we deem consequential to the car industry overall, and thus worthy of your attention. These are the must-see news stories, vehicle launches, and industry coverage we published during 2023:
2024 Toyota Tacoma
One of three Toyota stories to top our traffic charts, the newest Tacoma pickup’s debut is the one with the hardest-core fans and the one the automaker needed to get right. The redesigned 2024 Toyota Tacoma is not only taking over for its predecessor, the best-selling midsize truck, but is also an icon in the off-roading and overlanding worlds. Many buyers have eagerly been awaiting this truck. When it finally launched, our readers proved just how strong that anticipation was. Having just finally driven the new pickup, we can tell you this: Toyota didn’t fumble this like it did the larger Tundra, and we expect the Tacoma will continue fighting for top sales in its segment, even if that fight is going to get harder with the Truck of the Year-winning Chevrolet Colorado and a new Ford Ranger in the fray.
2025 Toyota Land Cruiser
Another legacy vehicle that Toyota needed to go right and, so far, has seemed to—the new Land Cruiser been accepted by most of its fanbase and buyers. The 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser was another full redesign and really plays on its legacy, especially with the FJ40. It also marks as the first Land Cruiser to set tire tread on U.S. soil since the larger 200 series left our market three years ago, seemingly taking the Land Cruiser nameplate with it for good. The new Cruiser is overtly adventurous, and is available in three trims and with two very distinct front ends: First Edition and 1958 trims get rounded headlights while the plain Land Cruiser will get horizontal headlights. Will all these old Land Cruiser callbacks be enough for those burned by Toyota’s retraction of the Land Cruiser (however briefly) from this market, and will the smaller size and more affordable pricing bring new buyers into the fold? We’ll see.
Solid State Batteries “The Kiss Of Death”
Any time there is a story on an EV or EV-related tech, it has the potential to be controversial. People love them their gas and diesel cars and trucks, we tell ya. Add in Tesla and EV expert Sandy Munro to that mix, and you know you’re going to get an interesting story. He isn’t shy about telling it like it is, especially in the EV market, but a story we did with him about solid state batteries basically set fire to the internal combustion fandom camp. Munro’s declaration essentially said that, if solid state batteries could be brought up to a realistic production scale, “[they’d be] the kiss of death for gasoline and diesel.” The reasoning is that these batteries are not only able to charge faster, but also boast up to eight times the energy density (meaning more energy with less batteries leading to less weight) without the additional penalties of toxic materials and flammability.
2024 Jeep Wrangler
Jeep’s Wrangler is an icon. The current JL generation is exiting its sixth year of production and beginning its seventh with no signs of it slowing down, even in the face of still-fresh competition from Ford’s resurrected Bronco. The majority of the Wrangler’s sheetmetal hasn’t changed, but the mildly restyled 2024 Wrangler’s debut still was a magnet for our audience. This year, the Jeep inherits a new grille, a factory-installed 8,000-pound capacity Warn winch for the Rubicon models, and a new full-float Dana 44 rear axle. There are more updates inside the 2024 Wrangler that make living with it everyday easier, including a larger 12.3-inch infotainment screen, new center vents, and a new 7.0-inch digital gauge cluster screen, and nicer materials, just to name a few.
2025 Toyota Camry
Another Toyota story? What can we say, the brand is popular—also, anytime we’re talking Camry, we’re talking big sales numbers, which means current owners and intenders are a big audience. So of course a new Camry’s debut is going to be one of the year’s biggest stories. The 2025 Toyota Camry brings the midsize sedan juggernaut into its ninth generation, and though it’s a heavily revised take on the outgoing car, it looks very new, adopting the new Prius’s dramatic front end design. It’s also fully again assembled in the U.S., though this time around the Camry will be hybrid-only. This also marks the first time that all trim levels will not only get hybrid power, but also an optional AWD using its electronic on-demand system where the rear wheels are powered by an electric motor.
2025 Ram 1500 Rev And Ram 1500 Ramcharger
The all-electric Ram 1500 Rev is a story of what could have been versus what we will get. During the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show, Ram showed everyone a wild and amazing EV Ram concept that had everyone raving. (That story was one of our biggest hitters of the year, but we’ve bundled it here with the production models.) The concept truck was futuristic while still retaining the look and feel of a Ram but with clever and unexpected details like a fold-down midgate, the infamous “passhole” longitudinal storage tube, and novel third-row seat, which would have been a first if it had reached production.
Then reality hit. The 2025 Ram 1500 Rev was far less extreme than the concept, appearing to be the combination of a traditional Ram 1500 body on an all-electric frame. While this isn’t a terrible approach to EVs for Ram—the F-150 Lightning is similar—it seemed like a huge disappointment given the high-flying concept got everyone excited. Do we wish more of the show truck made it into the 1500 Rev? Absolutely, but color us intrigued by the 1500 Ramcharger announced later this year, a Rev with a smaller battery but an onboard gas-fed range extender.
2024 Lexus GX
With the return of Toyota’s Land Cruiser, Lexus also went in and remade its own off-road icon, the GX. We got a first look at it in June, and were floored by how aggressive and off-road-focused it was. The outgoing GX was a capable 4×4, albeit wearing boulevard clothes, and you’ll see many modified examples that strip away those mall-ready niceties in favor of lift kits, big tires, and roof racks. For the new GX, it’s like Lexus went ahead and took most GX owners’ post-purchase upgrades and incorporated them from the factory. It shares the same GA-F platform with the Lexus LX and foreign-market 300-series Land Cruiser, meaning the new GX is longer, wider, and taller than the previous generation. It’s set to be an in-betweener model, too, with the LX being the top Lexus SUV and the all-new three-row TX positioned below it.
Proof The Next-Gen Dodge Charger Won’t Only Be Electric?
This is potentially another issue of promising one thing and ending up as another, just as Ram did with the 1500 Rev. Dodge vehemently promised its muscle cars were going all-electric when it debuted the Charger and Challenger’s replacement, the Charger Daytona SRT EV, in 2022. But there was a “but”—there was news that gas engines (maybe even V-8s) weren’t gone forever from Dodge cars. Beyond it seeming inconceivable that Stellantis would shut the door on Dodge customers used to affordable gas-fed muscle machines and only sell EVs, the platform headed beneath the next-gen cars is flexible and can support gas, hybrid, and all-electric power. Our reporting spawned heated back-and-forths on social media, making this easily one of our biggest stories of the year. Then, later, a set of leaked photos showing the 2025 Charger body-in-white appeared on social media. The bodies’ glaring transmission tunnel, with room for a transmission bellhousing, no less, was the latest proof that, indeed, the 2025 Dodge Charger won’t only be sold as an EV.
2024 Tesla Cybertruck
There is a certain hype that comes with Tesla vehicles and that was no less apparent with the 2024 Tesla Cybertruck’s long-awaited production debut. While it did mostly end up looking like the prototype version, which we first saw way, way back in 2019, there are some noticeable differences. Despite that and Tesla falling short of some of the bigger initial promises from 2019, the Cybertruck is still much hyped, and despite its controversial, well, everything, it will most likely be a successful pickup truck for the all-American EV brand.
Kia Soul Pinwheels Through The Air After Hitting Truck Tire
While vehicle wrecks are no laughing manner, you can’t deny the utterly bizarre nature of the wreck this poor Kia Soul was involved in. The freak occurrence begins when the wheel of a lifted pickup truck breaks away and rolls into an adjacent lane fully upright, into the path of a Kia Soul that apparently doesn’t see the tire in time. In a blink, the tire rolls under the Kia’s nose, vaulting the little hatchback up in the air—like, really up in the air—where it tumbles before landing on its and rolling back onto its wheels. As an extra pinch of salt to the eye, the tire catches back up to the now-stationary Kia and smashes in its tailgate. The good news is that the driver of the Soul survived and didn’t suffer major injuries, and as the old adage goes, you just can’t look away from a car crash.
