America on the Road - Episode 157: 2023 Lincoln Corsair PHEV, 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, Chris Sutton from JD Power

The 2023 Lincoln Corsair PHEV is a full-featured 5-passenger luxury crossover filled with high-tech features like Lincoln BlueCruise 1.2 and other niceties. As we found in our 800-mile trek in the heavily revised vehicle, it is an impressive traveling companion for cross-country cruising.

The luxury car business has evolved into the luxury crossover business. Lincoln isn’t alone in switching to follow the desires of luxury customers, and it continues to seek ways to differentiate its SUVs from those of other prestige brands. For the 2023 Corsair, its smallest crossover, Lincoln has emphasizes leading-edge tech. Lincoln BlueCruise 1.2 is a hands-off self-driving system that functions on hundreds of thousands of miles of highways in the United States. And its engineers and product planners have enhanced the infotainment system, the interior, and the exterior while adding new advanced driver assistance systems.

Lincoln equips the Corsair Grand Touring with a plug-in hybrid powertrain that consists of a 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine running the Atkinson cycle, an electronic continuously variable transmission, a rear-axle electric motor, and a lithium-ion battery pack. When fully charged, the battery provides 28 miles of all-electric range. In this episode, we’ll tell you how the Corsair fared during our extended drive.

Also in the road test segment this week, co-host Chris Teague puts the 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV through its paces. We’ll discuss how it compares to the Lincoln Corsair, another plug-in hybrid vehicle.

The top news story this week revolves around new proposed government regulations. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed sweeping emissions cuts for new cars and trucks through 2032. The regulations could radically change what vehicles you can buy and what you’ll pay for them. We’ll have all the troubling details for you coming up.

On the autonomous vehicles front, one of the top companies pursuing self-driving technology had to shut down several of its test vehicles recently, and we’ll tell you why.

And in a special report worth reading, Reuters has reported that Tesla employees not only viewed videos captured in customers’ cars but also routinely shared those videos with others. We will give you details and our comments.

This week’s guest is Chris Sutton, vice president of automotive retail at J.D. Power. He oversees the recently released J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Customer Service Index (CSI) Study. This year’s study suggests that some things you’ve been told about electric cars might not be true. We’ll let you know what and have much more in this episode of America on the Road.