Good morning and welcome to our daily digest of automotive news from around the globe, starting with…

Toyota’s acclaimed GR Yaris was never meant to reach U.S. shores, but earlier this year the Japanese automaker confirmed that American buyers would be getting their own GR hot hatch some time down the line. Now, they’ve fanned the flames of that announcement even more with a photo that could be teasing an upcoming GR Corolla.

Toyota is making a small, last-minute change to the 2022 GR 86. Its marketing department is hitting the "backspace" key and deleting the space between GR and 86 to make the second-generation coupe easier to find on Google and on various social media channels.

First reported by CarScoops, the tweak was confirmed by a spokesperson for the Japanese firm's British division. "It has to do with SEO," the representative explained. Search engine optimization (SEO) is essentially what helps keywords and websites rank higher on Google and other search engines. Interestingly, it sounds like hashtags are also partly to blame: it's better to use the hashtag #GR86 than to figure out how to deal with the space.

The 2022 Nissan Altima hasn't made it to the automaker's site yet, but the sedan is in the starting blocks. After a small number of changes for 2021, mostly to do with pruning trims and combinations, Nissan has made even smaller changes to next year's model. The highlight is a new Midnight Edition Package available on the SR 2.5 trim. This adds dark trim and moldings, a gloss black painted sport grille and spoiler, LED fog lights, black painted heated outside mirrors with LED turn signal indicators, and a Satin black Midnight Edition badge outside, plus gloss black painted 19-inch aluminum-alloy wheels. Inside, there are heated front seats, two-way power lumbar for the driver's seat and a single-panel moonroof. 

The SR 2.5 is the sporty trim with the base four-cylinder engine available in front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. When driving the front wheels, that mill makes 188 horsepower and 180 pound-feet of torque. If sending power to all four wheels, the four-cylinder's output drops to 182 hp and 178 lb-ft. The SR is the only trim available with the more potent 2.0-liter turbocharged, variable compression four-cylinder that gets 236 hp and 267 lb-ft, but the Midnight Edition Package can't be optioned on this model.

The A90 Toyota Supra may be known more as a circuit carver, but that hasn't stopped the Big T from campaigning it in the most American of motorsports: drag racing. Unveiled at Auto Club Speedway in Pomona, Calif., one of the spiritual homes of postwar hot rodding, the funny car previews what fans can expect to see at drag strips for the 2022 NHRA season.

Of course, there is little in common with the actual Supra road car. It drapes a vaguely Supra-esque carbon fiber body over a dedicated tube frame drag chassis. The silhouette is made as slippery as possible, so most of the Supra design cues are just large decals. It may look silly, but it's no more bizarre than the Toyota Celica NHRA car of the 2000s or the outgoing Camry drag car that the Supra is replacing.

How many American car shoppers in 2006 and 2007 considered a Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, or Nissan Altima … and then decided to buy a factory-hot-rod version of the Mazda6 with 274 turbocharged horsepower, all-wheel-drive, and a six-speed manual transmission? Not many! Available here for just those two model years, the Mazdaspeed6 never made much of an impression on our automotive culture, so I was startled to find one in a Denver-area yard while making my car-graveyard rounds.

Toyota made what you’d call a last minute change to its GR 86 coupe that's so small you'd hardly notice it at all. Which is kind of ironic, because the whole point of it is to make the little boxer coupe even more visible, online at least.

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Road Test Editor Zac Palmer. This week, they talk about driving the Chevy Colorado ZR2 AEV Bison, Audi A3 and S3, Toyota Corolla XSE hatchback and the new Acura RDX. As for news, they discuss the reveal of the new Acura Integra, and talk about what's new at the 2021 L.A. Auto Show. Finally, they help a listener pick a car from the list of their childhood favorites.

Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Lexus is back on top of Consumer Reports' annual reliability rankings. Toyota Motor Corp's luxury division dethrones last year's winner, upstart Mazda, to second place, while the Toyota brand itself rounds out the podium in third place. In general, while Asian brands topped the list, Europeans ranked second, and domestics brought up the rear. 

Lexus' high marks stem from the Land Cruiser Prado-based GX SUV, which got a perfect score of 100. Mazda's second place finish was the result of strong showings by the Miata, CX-9, CX-5, and CX-30, but dragged down by the Mazda 3's mid-pack score. Likewise, nearly all of Toyota's lineup, from Prius to Avalon, all had very high marks, but the RAV4 and Corolla Hatchback brought down the class average.

Mitsubishi unveiled a brand new fully electric SUV at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show in China, reviving the Airtrek name which was used in the first generation Outlander (2001-2008). The model was teased back in April 2021 described as as an "e-cruising SUV".

The driver of a 2015 Nissan Altima has miraculously survived a crash that saw a semi-truck completely crush the Japanese sedan.

We might have just gotten our first glimpse at one of Mazda's highly-anticipated rear-wheel-drive cars. The upcoming Mazda CX-60 has been spotted during what appears to be a commercial or promotional video shoot in Japan.

A spy video captured two vehicles driving down a coastal mountain road (the video has since been taken down), but screenshots depict a larger-than-CX-5 SUV that is said to be built on Mazda's upcoming large vehicle platform. A license plate that reads "Mazda CX-60" in the company's official font confirms that it's the upcoming SUV.

J.D. Power announced its 2022 U.S. ALG Residual Value awards Thursday, with Honda and Hyundai topping the charts at three models apiece in the industry-standard study. The term "residual" is an industry projection of resale value three years from the original purchase date – a key metric in calculating lease costs and projecting new-car depreciation. 

Award winners included several enthusiast-friendly options, including the BMW 2 Series, Dodge Charger, Subaru WRX, Mercedes-AMG GT and Toyota Tacoma. Even the Ford Bronco was recognized, beating out the Jeep Wrangler in the Off-Road Utility segment. That may seem odd given the car's issue-plagued launch, but scarcity apparently trumps quality control issues over the longer term. Here's a scrolling complete list of winners broken down by segment:

The 2023 Nissan Ariya, the electric SUV shown to the American public for the first time at the L.A. Auto Show, will carry a base price of $47,995. That would be more than other, similarly sized electric SUVs, including the VW ID.4 and almost certainly the Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra twins. There are reasons for this. First, the Ariya has a standard range of 300 miles, and although it dips to 285 or 264 depending on trim level/performance output, all are more than those aforementioned choices. Second, after checking out the Ariya in person at the L.A. Auto Show, it has another advantage that certainly warrants a higher price: its knockout interior.

From a materials perspective, the Ariya cabin is a step above what you'll find in the others, and is indeed superior to the similarly priced Ford Mustang Mach-E — which has an above-average cabin itself. It's definitely a step above Nissan's similarly sized gas-powered SUV, the Rogue. As with that and other Nissans, the dash and door tops are covered in a soft, leather-like material, but the door-to-door strip of convincing open-pore wood-like trim does much of the heavy lifting in elevating this cabin to new heights for both Nissan and this growing segment of vehicles. Not only does it serve as a dominant premium visual and tactile element, its slick inclusion of illuminated, touch-operated climate controls are modern and just seriously cool. And true, while we often complain about touch-sensitive vehicle controls (they're truly terrible in the ID.4), these at least seem to be placed far enough apart, are indeed illuminated (unlike ID.4), easily identified, and are kept to a minimum. Also, the wood placement looks so much cooler than the usual piano black plastic application that some functionality tradeoff should be made more acceptable.