If they are automotive journalists, which in this case they are, then yes this is completely normal. People get review copies of games / books / movies / phones. So why wouldn’t they loan out cars?

We haven’t technically had an official war since WW2. Every “war” was a special military operation. So this is business as normal because no president wants to have to go through Congress to declare war officially. But hey why should we care about checks and balances on power?