Top 10 Car News Stories Of 2023

Top 10 Car News Stories Of 2023

These are the news stories that captivated you the most this year.

As 2023 winds down, we’ve been looking back on what transpired this year. From Porsche’s 75th anniversary to Tesla finally releasing the production-spec Cybertruck, a lot happened in 2023. But what were the top stories on CarBuzz over the last 12 months? With only a few hours of the year left, we can say with some certainty nothing else will crack the top 10, so, from tenth to first, here are the top car stories from 2023.

In the last week of the year, Toyota officially shut the doors of its first-ever plant outside of Japan. The Sao Bernardo factory in Brazil was the third-ever Toyota production facility, opening in 1962. Built in response to a law banning the importation of vehicles manufactured elsewhere, the facility was responsible for producing more than 100,000 “Bandeirantes” – an FJ40 Land Cruiser with a Mercedes-Benz OM-364 engine.

Toyota still has production facilities in Brazil, but unfortunately, the San Bernardo plant doesn’t fit into the automaker’s sustainability plans for the South American market.

China is at the forefront of EV adoption, and in September this year, we reported on Shell partnering with Chinese EV manufacturer BYD to launch the Shell Recharge Shenzhen Airport EV Station – the largest charging station in the world. With 258 public chargers, it dwarfs the average Tesla Supercharger station, and it can service over 3,300 EVs in a single day. Roofing over all the chargers houses hundreds of solar panels, capable of generating 300,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity.

The annual SEMA Show brings out the best and worst of the tuning industry in America, and this year, Gas Monkey Garage stunned everyone when it revealed a massively modified Ferrari Testarossa with electric power instead of a flat-12, a monochrome white body, slimline pop-up headlights, and no roof or windshield. It was also converted to become a three-seater, with a central driving position a-la Gordon Murray Automotive T.50. Controversial? Definitely. But no one can begrudge GMG’s creativity and the amount of work that went into the build. It takes big brass ones to chop up an iconic Ferrari like this.

“Barn finds” have become a big deal over the last 20 years, finding iconic cars left to rot in abandoned barns and storage sheds and then giving them new life with incredible restorations. But in April, Gallery Aaldering announced an auction that included one of the biggest barn finds ever – 230 cars found in an abandoned church and two other locations. The collection included vehicles from extinct brands like Alvis, Matra, Moretti, and Villard, but also iconic cars from Aston Martin, BMW, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lancia, Mercedes, and Rolls-Royce. Almost all the cars were being auctioned in their unrestored states, which fortunately didn’t mean rust, as all the cars had been kept in dry condition for decades.

In November, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Toyota Motor Credit Corporation to pay a $60 million settlement for ripping off customers. Loan schemes that increased monthly payments and prevented customers from canceling product bundles were chief among the dodgy means of extorting extra money from buyers, with various insurance solutions bundled into the vehicle finance terms without buyers’ knowledge. With average fees of between $700 and $2,500 per loan, Toyota made money hand over fist for effectively nothing, and Toyota owners were upset over dealers lying about these products and services; refunds were also withheld or incorrectly calculated. Of the total fine, $32 million was directed to affected customers who did not receive the refunds requested, with $9.9 million allocated to those who tried but failed to cancel coverage on certain policies. $12 million was allocated to the CFPB’s victim relief fund.

Amid rising vehicle prices over the last few years, vehicle reliability became a prominent topic in 2023, as consumers look to keep their vehicles for longer than ever. The F-150 is one of America’s top sellers, so when someone performed an engine teardown on an F-150 EcoBoost V6 to see why it died before reaching 100,000 miles, hundreds of thousands of readers wanted to know what happened. Oil starvation was found to be the issue, with the motor running bearings as a result, highlighting the dangers of not checking your oil regularly.

Porsche has been at the forefront of synthetic fuel development to keep combustion alive, but early in December, CarBuzz uncovered a Porsche patent on how the German sports car manufacturer intends to use blow-by in engines to make them more efficient, allowing engines to be able to self-start without the need for a starter motor. In doing so, Porsche would save weight, reduce fuel usage during start-up, and making sports cars like the 911 more efficient in their use of carbon-neutral fuels in future.

Remember how we said reliability was a big topic of the year? Well, then, it’s no wonder everyone wanted to find out how one of the most reliable engines in existence fails, specifically the 2.5-liter 2AR-FE from the Toyota Camry and RAV4. Yet another engine teardown video that captivated audiences, this one revealed what happens when excess moisture gets into the combustion chambers of an engine. Known as hydrolocking, it’s when water accumulates in the combustion chambers. Water isn’t compressible like air and fuel are, and when the motor tries to compress it, damage quickly occurs, with the conrods being the first parts to fail.

Just before Christmas, Toyota Germany announced that it had taken all of 30 minutes for the new Land Cruiser Prado (sold in the US as the new Land Cruiser) to sell out of its allocation of 1,000 units. The new Land Cruiser has been a smash hit since it was unveiled with retro styling, targeting the Wrangler and Bronco head-on. It’s much smaller and more affordable than the old Land Cruiser sold in America, and combined with new engines, a new platform, and epic styling, it’s no wonder buyers flocked to get their orders in.

The year didn’t start off too well for the classic car community when California announced it wanted to ban the use of chromium-6 in decorative chrome plating by 2027. Modern cars don’t rely on chrome in the same way classics do, and for those restoring old cars, re-chroming various trim pieces is essential to revive them to their former glory. For California, it was all about the emissions of the chemical, said to be 500 times more toxic than diesel exhaust fumes. The state of California said it would be working with the industry and military to identify new coating methods to replicate the shine resulting from hexavalent chromium.