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Editors' Picks May 2021 | BMW M3, Toyota Camry and some hot Golfs

We awarded Editors’ Picks status to a number of performance cars this month, but a couple more regular sedans won out, too. April saw us recognize four models, but that increases to six for May. As the weather warms up here in Michigan, we tend to get into the sports cars that we missed driving all winter, resulting in a sports car-heavy month of testing. That explains why the list this month is so heavy on sports cars and hot hatches. In case you missed our previous couple Editors' Picks posts, hereÂ’s a quick refresher on whatÂ’s going on here. We rate all the new cars we drive with a 1-10 score. Cars that are exemplary in their respective segments get EditorsÂ’ Pick status. Those are the ones weÂ’d recommend to our friends, family and anybody whoÂ’s curious and asks the question. The list that youÂ’ll find below consists of every car we rated in May that earned the honor of being an EditorsÂ’ Pick. 2021 Toyota Camry 2021 Toyota Camry XSE Hybrid View 22 Photos Quick take: The Toyota Camry retains its place as one of the best midsize sedans you can buy. It comes in a variety of trims and powertrains, from the potent TRD model to the fuel-sipping hybrid. It's an attractive, functional and well-rounded car offering value and function. Score: 8.5 What it competes with: Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata, Kia K5, Nissan Altima, Mazda6, Subaru Legacy, VW Passat, Chevy Malibu Pros: Highly versatile, efficient hybrid, fun-to-drive sport models Cons: Average infotainment, polarizing exterior, slow base four-cylinder From the editors: Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore — “The Camry is one of the standard bearers in the midsize segment. With many companies abandoning this area, the ones that remain — like Toyota — do it well. Long a bastion of boring design and sleepy driving dynamics, the Camry is now legitimately attractive and offers a range of powertrains. It's a solid entry and along with the Honda Accord, makes the case for midsize sedans to exist." In-depth analysis: 2021 Toyota Camry Review | What's new, pictures, hybrid and AWD fuel economy   2022 Volkswagen GTI The new Volkswagen Golf GTI View 23 Photos Quick take: With engaging dynamics and distinctive styling, the GTI remains the standard for enthusiast hatches.

More automakers working to turn your smartphone into a shareable digital car key

The smartphone killed the phone book, audio player, the pocket digital camera, handheld GPS devices and voice recorders. Now that addictive, transistor-filled candy bar is coming for your car keys. The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) announced that it's unveiled Digital Key Release 1.0 Specification for its member companies, which is the first step in standardizing protocols. As of now, the potential is there for drivers to download a digital key that can lock and unlock the car, start it, and transfer the key to another operator in order to share the car. The CCC's aim is to save development costs, stave off a glut of similar-yet-competing technologies, and create keys that reflect the expanded use cases for cars, i.e., car-sharing services and to-your-car delivery. Next year's Release 2.0 Specification will standardize an authentication protocol between the phone and the vehicle — how a digital key is generated on a secure server and transmitted to the car and the device — and "promise more interoperability between cars and mobile devices." The CCC says that "NFC distance bounding and a direct link to the secure element of the device" will assure security. We take that to mean the phone will need to be in direct contact with the vehicle, at least to open the door. Carmakers and suppliers have been working on digital keys for years now, and the ecosystem for individual owners to open individual cars is growing. Audi showed off its Mobile Key at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, and now calls it Audi Connect Key, but we haven't seen much of it in the field. That same year, Volvo said it expected to sell cars with digital keys only by 2017, which clearly didn't happen. Last year, the head of sales at BMW asked, "Honestly, how many people really need [keys]? They never take it out of their pocket, so why do I need to carry it around?" Even though a digital key offers an owner more convenience and long-distance control over their vehicle, car sharing is the target — and that can even include traditional rental cars. In 2013, Continental began testing a digital key in France, aimed at integrating and simplifying the electric-car-sharing business; everything from finding a free vehicle to driving it and charging it could be done on a phone. A key could be programmed with the driver's information, so that any car the driver gets in will be automatically updated with that driver's preferences, say for audio or seating position.

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.