News Roundup: Honda’s new Pilot and Accord, and a cop-car winter wipeout

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Welcome to our round-up of the biggest breaking stories on Driving.ca from this past week. Get caught up and ready to get on with the weekend, because it’s hard keeping pace in a digital traffic jam.

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Here’s what you missed while you were away.

Honda reveals all-new 2023 Pilot and 2023 Accord

The fourth-generation Honda Pilot was revealed this week, taking a place at the front of the family-friendly brand as the most powerful, largest, and, in the newly available TrailSport trim, most rugged production Honda SUV to date. It’s got more length and therefore more cargo and passenger space than the outgoing model, but uses the same 3.5L V6, albeit with a handful of more horsepower, for a total of 285 hp and 262 lb-ft of torque. The TrailSport designation has this year been upgraded from a mostly-visual upgrade to a full trim status, with off-road-spec suspension tuning, special stabilizer bars, and all-terrain tires. The 2023 Honda Pilot also features an upright grille and flared fenders, new LEDs out back, and gloss black trim. 

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Elsewhere in Honda’s portfolio, the Accord has entered its 11th generation in the 2023 model year. Visual changes to the new sedan are subtle, but looks aren’t the main attention-getter here anyway. That would be the hybrid options, which now top the Accord’s range in Sport and Touring guise, and include two electric motors and a 2.0-litre naturally-aspirated Atkinson-cycle four with a combined 204 hp. In fact, only the base EX is pure gas, running off of Honda’s 1.5L turbo four and making 192 hp. Learn more about the 2023 Honda Accord here. 

Here’s how much the 2023 Lexus RX will cost in Canada

The Lexus RX enjoys strong sales figures as the brand’s best-selling vehicle in Canada and beyond. When it arrives at dealers later this year, the popular SUV will be wearing a price tag somewhere between $58,650 and $85,600.

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At the low end (“low” being a relative term here in luxury land) is the RX 350 in a number of trims, including three models with F Sport packages starting at $63,250. On the middle shelf, the 350h models start at $60,150 and cap at $75,650, while up on the top, the RX 500h starts at $79,800 for the F Sport Performance 2, hitting $85,600 for the F Sport Performance 3 at the peak. Find out what kinds of perks and performance the options offer at the full pricing rundown here. 

All of the 2023 Lexus RX models, hybrids included, are to be manufactured at Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Cambridge, Ontario.

A look at the off-road Porsche 911 ‘Dakar’

Porsche is preparing to go off-piste in a major way, showing off a few angles of its new off-roading 911, now officially dubbed the “Dakar,” after the Paris-Dakar Rally winner from 1984. The car will debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show this month, where it will probably be far less dusty, sandy, or snowy than it is in the gallery of images. The German brand has been busy putting the prototype through the paces in all the world’s tough places, like on France’s Château de Lastours test track, in the sands of Dubai, on frozen lakes in Sweden, and even over some jumps. Sure looks like it rips!

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Specs have yet to be released, but we should have them soon, as the L.A. Auto Show is set to kick off on November 18.  

B.C. police go viral after colliding emergency vehicles on icy road

When winter does its worst and covers Canadian roads in the right kind of cold and wet, not even the most seasoned drivers in the most capable vehicles can guarantee they won’t get caught up in the slide. Video footage of a fire and rescue pickup pushing an unmarked police SUV down an icy road in the B.C. community of Williams Lake went viral on the social media platform TikTok this week. On its way down the hill, the SUV clips a parked pickup, before coming to a rest fender-to-bumper with its first-responder buddy. 

To its credit, the Williams Lake RCMP bureau did well to make the best of the small smash-up, turning it into yet another viral opportunity by ordering a custom cake with two icing vehicles colliding on it above the words “Congrats on your first viral video.” There was just a bit of blame to go around, however, with the RCMP adding to a Facebook post “our Constables did insist we point out that the #williamslakefire truck started it.”

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Micro-mobile ‘SARIT’ prototypes debut at Parliament Hill

Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach has completed a pair of prototypes of his SARIT (‘Safe Affordable Reliable Innovative Transport’), which essentially look like three-wheeled miniature Smart cars but may actually be the future of city transport. Measuring in at three-and-a-half feet wide, seven-and-a-half feet long, and five-and-a-half feet tall, the micro-mobility vehicles are actually considerably smaller than anything currently out there. “You can fit four of them perfectly in a single parking space,” says Stronach. 

The zero-emissions ‘micro-mobility’ vehicles are expected to have a top speed of 32 km/h, a 100-km range, and a price of around $6,000, making it possible, according to Stronach, to “drive to work and back for less than a dollar.” It’s been two years since work began on the SARIT, and a completion date isn’t yet on the calendar.