If you enjoy unboxing videos, you’ll definitely want to check out this one. It features the unboxing of a new 2023 Ducati Panigale V4 R, a special edition bike developed by Ducati for the World SuperBike Championship.
The Panigale V4 R is the most extreme variation in the Panigale V4 lineup and is designed for racing. It boasts up to 240.5 horsepower in its racing configuration, but for EURO 5 compliance, the power is limited to 218 horsepower. With a racing exhaust, it can reach up to 237 horsepower.
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The Panigale V4 R features various engine enhancements, including new camshafts, pistons with DLC coating, and new connecting rods. It also comes with lightweight titanium and carbon parts. Unlike the standard Panigale, the V4 R is a limited-production model designed for homologation purposes.
The unboxing process is relatively simple, with the front wheel attached during shipping and the rear securely fastened with brackets, a bolt, and a rod. Only 500 units of this special edition Panigale were produced.
Nothing, a company that has recently filed trademarks for its future smartwatch lineup, may be a couple of years away from launching its smartwatch. The fact that they have taken steps to protect their intellectual property suggests that they have a genuine interest in entering the smartwatch market.
Interestingly, this news adds context to a tweet from Nothing’s founder, Carl Pei, in which he questioned the usefulness of smartwatches and asked his followers about their experiences with them. This could have been a subtle hint at Nothing’s plans to develop their own smartwatch.
Got the Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro on Sunday to learn about smart watches, but I don’t know what to use it for… Feels kind of useless? What do you use smart watches for?
If Nothing follows through with its plans, it will be interesting to see if their smartwatch features the same unconventional design language as their other products. At this point, it is unclear whether the smartwatch will be a full-fledged Wear OS-powered device or a more budget-friendly fitness tracker. However, based on Nothing’s history, it is more likely that they will release a comprehensive smartwatch.
There is nothing more quintessentially American in the vehicle universe than the pickup truck. Most of the top-selling vehicles in America are full-sized pickups, such as the Ford F-Series, Chevy Silverado, and Ram 1500. Mid-sized pickups also make it into the top ten list. At the opposite end of the spectrum, ranking low on these lists is the compact pickup.
The Hyundai Santa Cruz seems to be positioned to attempt to change this dynamic, and in doing so, change the bigger-is-better world of American pickups. Does it have the image, features, and specs needed to accomplish this goal in the land of wide open spaces and brawny trucks? Sadly, it does not seem to have what it takes.
With the Santa Cruz, Hyundai is big game hunting in the largest segment of the American vehicle market with a pint-sized predator. We all know what will happen when a fox takes on a grizzly. The Santa Cruz is a marvel of pickup downsizing. It’s a beautiful vehicle with plenty of luxury, and cool tech, and is fun to drive.
J.D. Power even rated it as one of the most reliable pickups on the road. So what’s not to love? In almost every way, the Santa Cruz is more a car than a truck, and in that lies its difficulty in appealing to people who love trucks. Except for gas mileage, in the eyes of a truck lover, it’s one truck compromise after another.
Why Americans Love Pickup Trucks, And The Santa Cruz May Break Your Heart
Hyundai
A front 3/4 outdoor shot of a Hyundai Santa Cruz
American full-sized pickups are just as luxurious as any car but also strong, bulletproof, versatile, and durable (think Ford Tough). How can a compact pickup like the Santa Cruz compete with a huge luxury battleship that can take a beating?
There are almost as many reasons why Americans love full-sized pickups as there are different models. For many truck buyers, pickups are the Swiss Army knife of vehicles. With one truck, you can rule all the roads and carry all the loads. There is nothing a full-sized pickup can’t do except possibly find a large enough parking space close to your preferred entrance.
With a full-sized pickup, you can haul the kids and all their friends in the cab while hauling enough construction material in the bed to build them a tree house. You’ll have enough ground clearance and 4×4 power to go off-road almost anywhere, as well as make it safely home through snow-covered roads without ending up in a ditch. You could even connect a snow plow and blaze your own trail.
Hyundai
A shot of the side profile of a 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz
Driving a full-sized pickup, you will not feel like a bite-sized appetizer in the land of giant trucks. If protection from wild bumpers and wilder road rage matters to the potential buyer, bigger always feels safer, whether accurate or not. When it comes to trucks in America, perception is king.
Does the Santa Cruz deliver comparable hauling capacity, off-road ability, bigger is safer perception, or have enough space for the whole gang as a full-sized pickup? Sadly, it does not. How can it compete with something almost twice its size? A stock Santa Cruz, with its slightly below-average ground clearance of 8.6 inches, is not on many lists of the best off-road trucks, while many full-sized and mid-sized pickups top those lists.
The Santa Cruz is also hurt by an impression of being underpowered compared to its larger brethren. In showrooms filled with big V-6 and V-8 pickups, the Santa Cruz’s four-cylinder engine just doesn’t provide enough perceived fire in the belly. Even the turbocharged 2.5-liter four with 281 horsepower and 311 pound-feet of torque seem weak by comparison, and this weakness appears confirmed by its towing capacity.
Compared to typical full and mid-sized American trucks, the Santa Cruz feels more like it was designed for the urban cowboy and cowgirl lifestyle than people who get their boots dirty. All this does not make it a bad vehicle, and it does not mean you can’t go off-roading with your Santa Cruz, but it does seem to put it at a serious competitive disadvantage in the eyes of the typical American truck lover. The Santa Cruz is a gorgeous, well-made piece of metal, and maybe that’s why it will break many hearts. It’s got the looks but not the coveted truck oomph.
It’s A Pickup Truck That Can’t Haul Your Cargo Or Your Friends And Family
Most people in the American truck market likely view the Santa Cruz more as a compact compromise than a full-blooded, born in the U.S.A. pickup truck. The Santa Cruz, with its limited towing capacity of 3,500 to 5,000 pounds, cannot even trailer most mid and full-sized pickups. Compared to the over 10,000 pound towing capacity of full-sized pickups, the Santa Cruz feels like it’s missing that critical towing tool that makes a pickup the Swiss Army knife of vehicles. So if you want to pull anything more than smaller travel trailers or boats, the Santa Cruz is not the best truck for the job.
When most truck lovers think of a four-door pickup, they imagine a spacious crew cab with over 40 inches of rear legroom. On paper, the dimensions of the Santa Cruz’s four-door cab sound fine, with 36.5 inches of rear legroom, but one look inside sends a different cramped message. Again, it’s a case of perception. Can four or even five adults fit inside this compact truck? In theory, yes, but it doesn’t look like they will enjoy a long ride in the back.
Hyundai
A shot of the rear seats in a 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz
Rear Seating Dimensions
Headroom: 40.1 inches
Legroom: 36.5 inches
Shoulder room: 56.1 inches
Hip room: 53.5 inches
For many American truck shoppers, the Santa Cruz’s pint-size pickup bed is likely the biggest obstacle of them all to true love. One of the reasons people buy pickups is to have the option of hauling big things around in that big open pickup bed. It really doesn’t matter that most people use their pickups to haul little more than bags of groceries on a regular basis. It’s the potential that counts. Once again, it’s the Swiss Army Knife effect.
Hyundai
A shot of the bed in a 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz
Not that many years ago, the standard size of a pickup bed was eight feet. That’s changed, and long beds are now 8 feet or more, standard beds are 6.5 feet, and short beds are 5.8 feet. In this field, the Santa Cruz clocks in with only 4.3 feet of bed space. That’s half the length of a long bed. This is not a truck that’s going to be hauling larger pieces of furniture, big household appliances, construction materials, or even luggage for a family of four on a road trip. With its 27 cubic feet of cargo capacity under its included tonneau cover, this is a truck that does not even give you the enclosed cargo capacity of many compact hatchbacks.
Goldilocks, the Three Bears, and most American truck buyers would have a hard time considering the enclosed cargo capacity of the Santa Cruz anything other than ice-cold porridge. Again, none of this makes the Santa Cruz a poor choice for many people. It’s just one more thing many American truck customers will find missing from their must-have list.
This Hyundai Compact Pickup Truck Is Neither Truck Nor A Car
Could American truck lovers learn to love a pint-sized Santa Cruz? If sales figures are any indication, the answer is no. Even among compact pickup trucks, the Santa Cruz is being outsold. The Ford Maverick is arguably the closest competitor to the Santa Cruz. In 2022 Ford sold 74,370 Mavericks, while Hyundai sold 36,480 Santa Cruz pickups. In that same year, a total of 2,702,515 pickups were sold in America.
So the Santa Cruz garnered only 1.3-percent of that pickup market. By comparison, in 2022, Ford sold 653,957 F-Series pickups which equals about 24-percent of the market, while the Chevy Silverado got 19-percent and the Ram 1500 took home 17-percent of all pickup sales. In 2022, only two ICE powered pickups had lower sales figures than the Santa Cruz.
So the Santa Cruz does not appear to have what it will take to attract American truck buyers in droves. Smaller is probably not the answer for breaking into the American pickup market. In the future, long before 2035 and the phase-out of ICE, big pickup trucks in America will have to become more energy efficient, but it’s unlikely that will be accomplished with smaller engines in smaller packages like the Santa Cruz. That route simply won’t fly in the land of the freeway and home of big open spaces.
For the American pickup lover, improved energy efficiency will come from electrification that delivers even more horsepower and more fun per mile. Until then, the bottom line is that the Santa Cruz may be perceived as neither a typical pickup nor a typical car, and as neither fish nor fowl, it risks satisfying few people at the American truck-buying dinner table.
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