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The hot hatch is a car enthusiast’s car. Neither garage tinkerer nor street racer can resist a practical hatchback stuffed with enough power to push your brains back into the headrest and handling to outdrive cars that cost twice as much. At last, the category’s standard-bearer, the Volkswagen GTI, is drifting into its electrified future. VW has revealed the ID.GTI Concept, a preview of the fully battery-powered GTI to come a few years down the line.
With the GTI EV en route, we can cross off the hot hatch as a car category without an electric champion. The arrival of the Rivian R1T and Ford F-150 Lightning have put full battery-powered pickups into America’s hypercompetitive truck market. Yet even as automakers turn over their lineups to include more and more EV versions of the gas cars they’ve always built, there are still glaring holes — car categories where nary an EV has arisen, and models that demand to become an EV. Here are some electrics on its way, and some that should be.
Heatmap Illustration/Rivian
The Rivian R1T is a dream machine, every bit the shimmering, LED-laden pickup truck of the future that lots of people expected from Elon Musk before he revealed, well, something else. The truck’s R1S counterpart packages the same guts into an SUV form that’s more practical for some. But both come with an aspirational price to go with their aspirational design. The starting prices near $70,000 leave lots of Rivian fans out in the cold, waiting for the company to debut an offering within reach.
The EV startup’s R2 platform aims to support a smaller and less expensive, but still rugged and capable, pickup truck and SUV. In an interview with Heatmap earlier this year, Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe said the company wants to roll out the new vehicles in 2026 at a price of $40,000 to $45,000.
Jeep
Other 4x4s can pose on a boulder or traverse a trail that’s turned to muck, but none have the old-time military looks and mechanics that make the Wrangler iconic. Updating a legend is always tricky. In 2021, Jeep went halfway to electrifying the Wrangler, creating the 4xe plug-in hybrid that Car & Driverderided as a “science fair project.”
This time around, no half-measures. For the 2024 model year, Jeep is slated to release a true Wrangler EV for the enthusiast who seeks an emissions-free way to terrorize the environment. In truth, lots of people who occasionally — or never — drive off-road own a Wrangler because, simply, they fell in love with it. Transforming the One True Jeep into an EV will make bombing around the urban jungle a little easier on the wallet as well as the atmosphere.
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Volkswagen
VW struck a countercultural nerve when, in 2017, it unveiled the concept of an electrified VW Microbus and made flower power aspirants everywhere say, “shut up and take my money.” This, of course, is not your grandmother’s hippie wagon. To bring the bus into the 21st century VW ditched the underdog, fix-it-yourself ethos of the original for a whiz-bang software-controlled EV that costs north of $40,000. But damn if it isn’t cute.
ID.Buzz recently made its American debut, and is finally going on sale in the U.S. as a 2025 model. What the world needs now is Buzz, sweet Buzz — read Heatmap’s coverage for more.
Fiat
We need a fun little EV. The original Fiat 500e tried to deliver on that by putting a battery in the beloved city car, but that electrified taste of Italy could barely top 80 miles of range and was discontinued a few years back.
The newer, better version currently driving around the roads of Europe is coming to America in 2024 and should be able to offer twice as many miles per charge, at around 160. That pales in comparison to the numbers that new big EVs can deliver (hey, you can only cram so much battery into a microcar). But if you’re an urban dweller with an eye for style, it’s enough to get by.
Chevrolet
Wait long enough and lots of iconic performance cars — the Alfa Romeo Giulia, the Dodge Charger Daytona — will go electric. Not just to keep with the times, but also to take advantage of the instantaneous torque available from an electric motor that makes EVs zip off the line. In terms of hype, though, it’s still the Corvette that matters most.
The launch of every new Corvette is, well, a whole to-do. That’s doubly true now, because a Corvette EV is coming perhaps as soon as 2025 and may produce ridiculous power numbers. In addition, it may bring with it an entire sub-brand of Corvette-branded cars that don’t say “Chevy” anywhere, including a spicy crossover SUV.
Canoo
Nobody can be told what Canoo is. You have to see the EV startup’s very rounded concept truck and van — which look like police vehicles mocked up for an episode of Black Mirror — for yourself.
The future pod of a van, called the Canoo Lifestyle Vehicle, bucks convention as often as possible. On the outside, its styling is like nothing else. On the inside, for example, its seating can be shifted so occupants face one another or move to make a ton of empty floor space.
Amid a sea of vehicles that all look the same, the Canoo’s over-the-top quirkiness earned plenty of early devotees and aspirant buyers. Whether they’ll actually get to part with their cash in exchange for the vehicles is another matter entirely: Canoo has endured corporate restructuring and, while it has managed to produce a few vehicles for clients such as NASA, it is always close to running out of money before it gets around to selling cars to people.
Heatmap Illustration/Tesla
Once upon a time, $35,000 was the magic number — the mark Tesla would hit with its unicorn affordable EV that became the Model 3. While few people navigated the hurdles necessary to actually get one that cheap, the entry-level Model 3s like mine got close.
Now the whispers conjure a $25,000 Tesla, one that would truly put EVs in line with the most affordable gas-burning vehicles. CEO Elon Musk teased the possibility in 2020 and pegged the promised price to the possibility of slashing battery production costs.
Tesla famously enjoys the whooshing sound deadlines make as they fly by, so the $25k model may be several years away — especially since we have no idea what it would look like. But if Musk and company roll out a compact sedan or hatchback with 250 miles of range at anything close to that price, Tesla may not be able to keep them in stock.
Heatmap Illustration/Chrysler
Let me tell you the car journalist’s mantra: Actually, minivans are good. When I was an editor at Popular Mechanics, the test-drivers would race to the defense of the minivan: Unlike the high-riding crossover that replaced it as this century’s de facto kid-mover, the minivan rides lower to the ground like a car, and those iconic sliding doors and removable seats make it easy to load and unload stuff.
Nevertheless, the SUV has left the much-maligned minivan in the dust. The people’s champion for electrified minivan drivers has been the Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid, which delivers just 32 miles of electric-only range but is the only PHEV vehicle in its class. The good news for minivan loyalists: Chrysler is committed to electrifying its lineup, which means a full EV Pacifica is probably in the works.
(The ID.Buzz and Canoo are, arguably, modern reinventions of the form, but they feel so far removed from the archetype of the American minivan as to be in their own category.)
Heatmap Illustration/Mazda
Let me now tell you the car journalist’s other mantra: Actually, the Miata is good. Like the minivan, the Miata was slandered by ‘90s popular culture as too wimpy, too effeminate. Just like the Minivan, the Miata is actually delightful to drive and beloved by the people who test vehicles for a living.
Mazda hit a home run with the excellent current Miata, which it has been making since 2015. But the brand has been among the slowest to adopt electric powertrains, so a true Miata EV (unless you have the engineering chops to convert one to battery power) remains many years away. The next Miata will be “electrified,” but to what extent — whether this means a hybrid or a true EV — is unknown.
Heatmap Illustration/Ford
Once represented by classic vehicles like the Ford Ranger and Chevy S-10, America’s small truck market grew critically endangered when pickups became super-luxury vehicles that can cost north of $50,000. Ford struck a blow for the reasonably-sized utilitarian truck when it introduced the Maverick to slot into its lineup below the Ranger (which has grown to mid-size in the intervening years) and promptly sold a ton of the little trucks.
No battery-powered small pickup has yet come along, but when it does, the Maverick Lightning, Ranger Lightning, or whatever it is will find a horde of happy buyers.
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Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.
President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.
“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”
The announcement indicates that some in the anti-wind space are leaving open the possibility that Trump’s much-hyped offshore wind ban may be less sweeping than initially suggested.
In its press release, Van Drew’s office said the executive order would “lay the groundwork for permanent measures against the projects,” leaving the door open to only a temporary pause on permitting new projects. The congressman had recently told New Jersey reporters that he anticipates only a six-month moratorium on offshore wind.
The release also stated that the “proposed order” is “expected to be finalized within the first few months of the administration,” which is a far cry from Trump’s promise to stop projects on Day 1. If enacted, a pause would essentially halt all U.S. offshore wind development because the sought-after stretches of national coastline are entirely within federal waters.
Whether this is just caution from Van Drew’s people or a true moderation of Trump’s ambition we’ll soon find out. Inauguration Day is in less than a week.
Imagine for a moment that you’re an aerial firefighter pilot. You have one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and now you’ve been called in to fight the devastating fires burning in Los Angeles County’s famously tricky, hilly terrain. You’re working long hours — not as long as your colleagues on the ground due to flight time limitations, but the maximum scheduling allows — not to mention the added external pressures you’re also facing. Even the incoming president recently wondered aloud why the fires aren’t under control yet and insinuated that it’s your and your colleagues’ fault.
You’re on a sortie, getting ready for a particularly white-knuckle drop at a low altitude in poor visibility conditions when an object catches your eye outside the cockpit window: an authorized drone dangerously close to your wing.
Aerial firefighters don’t have to imagine this terrifying scenario; they’ve lived it. Last week, a drone punched a hole in the wing of a Québécois “Super Scooper” plane that had traveled down from Canada to fight the fires, grounding Palisades firefighting operations for an agonizing half-hour. Thirty minutes might not seem like much, but it is precious time lost when the Santa Ana winds have already curtailed aerial operations.
“I am shocked by what happened in Los Angeles with the drone,” Anna Lau, a forestry communication coordinator with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, told me. The Montana DNRC has also had to contend with unauthorized drones grounding its firefighting planes. “We’re following what’s going on very closely, and it’s shocking to us,” Lau went on. Leaving the skies clear so that firefighters can get on with their work “just seems like a no-brainer, especially when people are actively trying to tackle the situation at hand and fighting to save homes, property, and lives.”
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
Although the Super Scooper collision was by far the most egregious case, according to authorities there have been at least 40 “incidents involving drones” in the airspace around L.A. since the fires started. (Notably, the Federal Aviation Administration has not granted any waivers for the air space around Palisades, meaning any drone images you see of the region, including on the news, were “probably shot illegally,” Intelligencer reports.) So far, law enforcement has arrested three people connected to drones flying near the L.A. fires, and the FBI is seeking information regarding the Super Scooper collision.
Such a problem is hardly isolated to these fires, though. The Forest Service reports that drones led to the suspension of or interfered with at least 172 fire responses between 2015 and 2020. Some people, including Mike Fraietta, an FAA-certified drone pilot and the founder of the drone-detection company Gargoyle Systems, believe the true number of interferences is much higher — closer to 400.
Law enforcement likes to say that unauthorized drone use falls into three buckets — clueless, criminal, or careless — and Fraietta was inclined to believe that it’s mostly the former in L.A. Hobbyists and other casual drone operators “don’t know the regulations or that this is a danger,” he said. “There’s a lot of ignorance.” To raise awareness, he suggested law enforcement and the media highlight the steep penalties for flying drones in wildfire no-fly zones, which is punishable by up to 12 months in prison or a fine of $75,000.
“What we’re seeing, particularly in California, is TikTok and Instagram influencers trying to get a shot and get likes,” Fraietta conjectured. In the case of the drone that hit the Super Scooper, it “might have been a case of citizen journalism, like, Well, I have the ability to get this shot and share what’s going on.”
Emergency management teams are waking up, too. Many technologies are on the horizon for drone detection, identification, and deflection, including Wi-Fi jamming, which was used to ground climate activists’ drones at Heathrow Airport in 2019. Jamming is less practical in an emergency situation like the one in L.A., though, where lives could be at stake if people can’t communicate.
Still, the fact of the matter is that firefighters waste precious time dealing with drones when there are far more pressing issues that need their attention. Lau, in Montana, described how even just a 12-minute interruption to firefighting efforts can put a community at risk. “The biggest public awareness message we put out is, ‘If you fly, we can’t,’” she said.
Fraietta, though, noted that drone technology could be used positively in the future, including on wildfire detection and monitoring, prescribed burns, and communicating with firefighters or victims on the ground.
“We don’t want to see this turn into the FAA saying, ‘Hey everyone, no more drones in the United States because of this incident,’” Fraietta said. “You don’t shut down I-95 because a few people are running drugs up and down it, right? Drones are going to be super beneficial to the country long term.”
But critically, in the case of a wildfire, such tools belong in the right hands — not the hands of your neighbor who got a DJI Mini 3 for Christmas. “Their one shot isn’t worth it,” Lau said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Québécois firefighting planes are called Super Scoopers, not super soakers.
Plus 3 more outstanding questions about this ongoing emergency.
As Los Angeles continued to battle multiple big blazes ripping through some of the most beloved (and expensive) areas of the city on Friday, a question lingered in the background: What caused the fires in the first place?
Though fires are less common in California during this time of the year, they aren’t unheard of. In early December 2017, power lines sparked the Thomas Fire near Ventura, California, which burned through to mid-January. At the time it was the largest fire in the state since at least the 1930s. Now it’s the ninth-largest. Although that fire was in a more rural area, it ignited for some of the same reasons we’re seeing fires this week.
Read on for everything we know so far about how the fires started.
Six major fires started during the Santa Ana wind event last week:
Officials are investigating the cause of the fires and have not made any public statements yet. Early eyewitness accounts suggest that the Eaton Fire may have started at the base of a transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison. So far, the company has maintained that an analysis of its equipment showed “no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire.” A Washington Post investigation found that the Palisades Fire could have risen from the remnants of a fire that burned on New Year’s Eve and reignited.
On Thursday morning, Edward Nordskog, a retired fire investigator from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, told me it was unlikely they had even begun looking into the root of the biggest and most destructive of the fires in the Pacific Palisades. “They don't start an investigation until it's safe to go into the area where the fire started, and it just hasn't been safe until probably today,” he said.
It can take years to determine the cause of a fire. Investigators did not pinpoint the cause of the Thomas Fire until March 2019, more than two years after it started.
But Nordskog doesn’t think it will take very long this time. It’s easier to narrow down the possibilities for an urban fire because there are typically both witnesses and surveillance footage, he told me. He said the most common causes of wildfires in Los Angeles are power lines and those started by unhoused people. They can also be caused by sparks from vehicles or equipment.
At more than 40,000 acres burned total, these fires are unlikely to make the charts for the largest in California history. But because they are burning in urban, densely populated, and expensive areas, they could be some of the most devastating. With an estimated 9,000 structures damaged as of Friday morning, the Eaton and Palisades fires are likely to make the list for most destructive wildfire events in the state.
And they will certainly be at the top for costliest. The Palisades Fire has already been declared a likely contender for the most expensive wildfire in U.S. history. It has destroyed more than 5,000 structures in some of the most expensive zip codes in the country. Between that and the Eaton Fire, Accuweather estimates the damages could reach $57 billion.
While we don’t know the root causes of the ignitions, several factors came together to create perfect fire conditions in Southern California this week.
First, there’s the Santa Ana winds, an annual phenomenon in Southern California, when very dry, high-pressure air gets trapped in the Great Basin and begins escaping westward through mountain passes to lower-pressure areas along the coast. Most of the time, the wind in Los Angeles blows eastward from the ocean, but during a Santa Ana event, it changes direction, picking up speed as it rushes toward the sea.
Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the US Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles told me that Santa Ana winds typically blow at maybe 30 to 40 miles per hour, while the winds this week hit upwards of 60 to 70 miles per hour. “More severe than is normal, but not unique,” he said. “We had similar severe winds in 2017 with the Thomas Fire.”
Second, Southern California is currently in the midst of extreme drought. Winter is typically a rainier season, but Los Angeles has seen less than half an inch of rain since July. That means that all the shrubland vegetation in the area is bone-dry. Again, Keeley said, this was not usual, but not unique. Some years are drier than others.
These fires were also not a question of fuel management, Keeley told me. “The fuels are not really the issue in these big fires. It's the extreme winds,” he said. “You can do prescription burning in chaparral and have essentially no impact on Santa Ana wind-driven fires.” As far as he can tell, based on information from CalFire, the Eaton Fire started on an urban street.
While it’s likely that climate change played a role in amplifying the drought, it’s hard to say how big a factor it was. Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, published a long post on X outlining the factors contributing to the fires, including a chart of historic rainfall during the winter in Los Angeles that shows oscillations between wet and dry years over the past eight decades.
But climate change is expected to make dry years drier and wet years wetter, creating a “hydroclimate whiplash,” as Daniel Swain, a pre-eminent expert on climate change and weather in California puts it. In a thread on Bluesky, Swain wrote that “in 2024, Southern California experienced an exceptional episode of wet-to-dry hydroclimate whiplash.” Last year’s rainy winter fostered abundant plant growth, and the proceeding dryness primed the vegetation for fire.
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Editor’s note: This story was last update on Monday, January 13, at 10:00 a.m. ET.