“What brings you to Vermont?” asked the young woman I was sitting beside on my flight to Burlington to drive the newly refreshed Passat. “Volkswagen,” I replied simply. After a pause, and with an eyebrow raised, she came back with the question: “Diesel?” This is how every conversation about Volkswagen will start for years to come. And, to be fair, it’s also […]

Volkswagen has suspended its chief of quality control for “incriminating correspondence” it found regarding its illegally polluting diesel cars, German newspaper Bild (via Automotive News) reported Wednesday. Tuch was suspended last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Frank Tuch is the fifth high-ranking official suspended from Volkswagen because of the scandal. According to reports, Tuch wasn’t part of the company when it developed the EA 189 engines that have become the center of the cheating scandal. The former Lotus COO and Porsche quality control officer may have known about the illegal software after he joined the company in 2010.

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I think we can all take a moment to appreciate the fine, fine work that Stanford researchers have put into making a 1981 Delorean do its own donuts in a parking lot on “Back to the Future” day Wednesday. Bravo.

But the car, dubbed MARTY (Multiple Actuator Research Test bed for Yaw control), is more than just epic clickbait for a made-up, 1980s-movie holiday. The car is display for autonomous vehicle control that can go beyond a car’s “safety limits” to exploit physics.

Or, you know, the way you disable stability control to do the same donuts in a nearby parking lot.

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Lexus released Wednesday a hint of what’s to come from the automaker’s 2015 Tokyo Motor Show display. According to the automaker, Lexus will be showing their “vision of progressive luxury” — which is vague-booking at its finest.

Although many believe the concept will be the automaker’s next-generation LS — which is certainly plausible considering Mercedes-Benz S Class, BMW 7 Series, Audi A8, et al. — it could be something different; Lexus has the Mirai and new Prius (aka CT) to play with from Toyota.

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Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Honda could do no wrong in enthusiasts’ eyes. Nearly everything was a hit. The CRX, Civic, Prelude, NSX and Integra all handled beautifully, taking well to both motorsport and unwise modification.

Near the turn of the century, however, some folks decreed that Honda had lost its way. The double-wishbone suspension was phased out in most cars, replaced by the space-saving, less-expensive McPherson strut. Honda enthusiasts decided that this change fundamentally altered the character of the cars.

As it turns out, Honda had one last round in the chamber.

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It’s unusual, though not unheard-of, for sub-10-year-old cars to show up in the cheap self-service wrecking yards; most that do are from Detroit.

Or Korea.

I saw this ’07 Sedona covered with fingerpaint and hippie stickers in Wisconson a couple months ago, and now I’ve found this ’09 Kia Rondo in Colorado. The Rondo never made much of an impression in the United States and disappeared without a trace after the 2010 model year, so it’s of some interest as a forgotten car. (Read More…)

A lawsuit filed in Southern California said that GMC’s headlights in their 2013 and 2014 pickups are too dim and that the automaker knowingly expanded the use of its headlights to other trucks and SUVs, despite customers’ complaints that the cars were unsafe to drive at night.

The lawsuit, filed on Oct. 19, was first reported by Law 360.

According to court documents, the trucks were fitted with a single bulb for low and high beams, rather than three bulbs normally used for fog lights, low- and high-beam lights. According to the lawsuit, the truck owner paid for aftermarket lights to make the truck safe to drive.

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If history is any indication, North American consumers may get their first look at the Scion C-HR at the New York Auto Show in April 2016.

Autoblog confirmed Tuesday that Toyota would show off its production-ready cute ‘ute next March at the Geneva Auto Show. Last month, Scion teased a concept it would be showing in Los Angeles next month, widely considered to be the C-HR in Scion clothes. Both announcements may mean that the C-HR is following a pattern started by the Scion iM.

In 2014, Scion showed off an “iM Concept” in Los Angeles before taking the wraps off the production version in April 2015 at the New York Auto Show.

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According to The Truth About Cars’ stock exchange bureau chief, Ferrari is good and Tesla is bad today.*

Tesla shares have dropped 10 percent on news today that Consumer Reports would pull its “Recommended” rating from the Model S because of concerns about the car’s reliability. That’s bad.

Also, initial shares of supercar-maker Ferrari may be going for more than expected due to the stock’s appeal on office walls and potential value people may find in owning another Ferrari-branded item beyond overpriced shirts.  (Read More…)

Car companies should know better than to send detailed drawings of unreleased cars to Chinese toymakers. 

Because they don’t, here is the new Volvo V90 wagon in toy-car form. The wagon, which appeared on CarNewsChina, appears to take several cues from our newly favorite Swedish car, the XC90.

The wagon sports headlights from the XC90 as well as the front fascia from Alex Dykes’ favorite new car.

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Government officials in the capital city of Norway said Monday they would like to ban vehicles from a region in its city center by 2019 to reduce greenhouse gases, according to The Guardian.

The plan has had mixed reaction according to the newspaper, Verdans Gang. There are only about 1,000 residents in the zone where vehicles may be banned, but roughly 90,000 workers commute there everyday, according to the newspaper. Residents have said that a ban on vehicles could add up to 45 minutes to their daily commute.

In its statement, the Oslo city government said the city would be free from fossil fuels by 2030.

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An interesting combination of reports, compiled by the New York Times, shows that Americans saved money at the pumps from cheaper gas is mostly going to more gas and more expensive gas.

The average American should have saved roughly $41 from cheaper gas prices, according to a report by JPMorgan. Instead of taking home those savings, most people only took home $22. A separate study by Brown University and University of Chicago researchers indicated that most people were buying more expensive gas when gas prices dipped.

The phenomenon, which is called “mental accounting,” roughly translates to people spending a target amount of money — regardless of price. (Read More…)

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will look further into claims that 2011-2012 F-150 trucks may have a faulty brake vacuum pump on cold starts that caused seven crashes, including one injury, the Detroit News reported.

According to the report, nearly 253,000 trucks are affected by the investigation. Ford has said that it will comply with the investigation and that a recall shouldn’t be necessary for the trucks because the failing vacuum pump will sufficiently notify drivers before braking distance is significantly impacted.

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Nissan is sending 10 Renault Twizys Nissan New Mobility Concept vehicles to San Francisco as part its citywide ride sharing service Scoot.

The small, all-electric Renault Twizy Scoot Quad will seat two people, have a range of roughly 40 miles and a top speed of 25 mph. The cars will cost $8 per ride or $80 per day to rent.

According to Nissan, the cars are being sent to the ride-sharing service to study transportation in urban areas — and to see if they can sell them anywhere else, probably.

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During the first three months of Honda HR-V availability, U.S. sales of the Honda Fit jumped 25 percent.

Yet as the public’s HR-V awareness increased – and sales of the Fit-based subcompact CUV decreased due to supply constraints – Fit sales fell through the floor in August and September of 2015. August sales of the Fit were cut in half; September Fit volume plunged 81 percent, falling 5,349 units from what was a 41-month high in September 2014 to only 1,279 sales in September 2015.

U.S. HR-V sales in September were nearly four times stronger than Fit sales, an astonishing figure for a number of reasons. (Read More…)