Ready to get enspired[sic]?
Buick’s latest concept vehicle, appearing at this week’s Beijing Motor Show, carries on the time-honored tradition of saddling vaporware with awful names, but the vehicle itself is worthy of further consideration. Decked out in a Chinese consumer-friendly red paint job, the coupe-like four-door SUV might not be all that conceptual. (Read More…)
2019 Ram 1500s have begun arriving on dealer lots, but only in limited numbers. Not every trim and drivetrain configuration is currently available, as V6-powered models are not yet eligible for sale. Meanwhile, production of the previous-generation model continues.
Hoping to get more Ram transactions on its sales sheet, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has embarked on a multi-pronged strategy to lure buyers into any and all of its trucks and vans. In many cases, the sales will exist only on paper. (Read More…)
Shock, horror, outrage, grudging acceptance, agreement. This pretty much covers the reaction to the announcement buried within Ford Motor Company’s first-quarter earnings report.
The automaker that brought us the Thunderbird, Fairlane, Crown Victoria, LTD, Galaxy, Torino, Pinto, Fairmont, Tempo, Taurus, Fusion, Fiesta, Festiva (sorry), LTD II, Contour, EXP, Custom, Five Hundred, and other car models will relegate its passenger car lineup to just the Mustang and a lightly lifted Focus hatch, now classified as a crossover.
Almost anything can be a crossover these days.
Be it bold or short-sighted, Ford has at least made its vision of the near-term automotive future crystal clear. And buyers helped form that vision. Consumer preference led Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to make a similar decision two years ago, just without the same resulting ripples of outrage. No one wanted a Dodge Dart or Chrysler 200, so it left the compact and midsize sandbox in the hands of other automakers. Traditionalists still have their Dodge Charger and Challenger and Chrysler 300, and police fleets can turn to the Charger if the Ford Police Interceptor Utility isn’t to their liking. Urban types have the Fiat brand while it’s still around.
That covers two-thirds of the Detroit Three. But what about General Motors? (Read More…)
You like Fusions, Foci, and Fiestas? Well, you better get to shopping. Pretty soon, Ford’s car lineup will be down to just two – the Mustang and the upcoming Focus Active.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The Blue Oval automaker is going all in on trucks and crossovers, as well as electrified vehicles, as it plans to remake three-fourths of its lineup by 2020. This all comes from a Q1 earnings report.
We’re always surprised with what counts as a van in Europe. For example, Ford just showcased a new one based on the Fiesta at the Birmingham Commercial Vehicle Show — and it’s kind of wonderful. However, we’re unlikely to see it on our roads. A vehicle like this makes almost no sense for the North American market.
In fact, I can only think of a handful of applications for such an automobile: high-volume pizza delivery, flower delivery, amateur plumber, organ transport, and pet grooming for a business that only takes modestly sized animals. But they would all have to take place in an extremely-dense urban environment to rationalize the use of such a small vehicle. Otherwise, business owners are going to splurge on a proper small van like the Transit Connect. (Read More…)
It’s been a while since BMW pushed out an all-electric vehicle. The i3 was launched in 2013 and things has been relatively quiet at Bavarian Motor Works ever since. However, the brand maintained that more i-badged vehicles would arrive once it gets EV production costs under control, stating that its next electric would be the iX3 crossover.
Arriving in Beijing this week in concept form, the vehicle looks refreshingly like a production model — with a few stylistic touches separating itself from BMW’s core fleet. You might even mistake it for a refreshed X3, and that’s kind of the point. For the most part, the company’s initial foray into electrification served to test the market’s willingness for such vehicles and act as a bit of a spectacle. That’s not to be the case with the new batch.
BMW wants the upcoming EVs to have more mainstream success than the i3 or i8, and normalizing them is a big part of that. That’s also the reason it chose to base the next one on the high-volume X3. (Read More…)
Now that former brand president Johan de Nysschen has left the job of running Cadillac to a Canuck, it would be nice to see the brand take a page from Lincoln and revamp its naming strategy. What you see above is purported to be the upcoming Cadillac CT6 XT6, a full-size unibody crossover that’s on track to plug a major hole in the brand’s lineup.
Slotted above the popular XT5 midsize crossover and below the top-rung Escalade, the XT6 (as it’s tentatively named) promises three roomy rows of lux-mobile motoring. This vehicle, along with the compact XT4 launching later this year, was all part of de Nysschen plan to bring home the bacon in the domestic market. (Read More…)
Audi is recalling some 1.16 million vehicles worldwide, 342,867 of them in the United States, to prevent the risk of fire in several 2.0-liter models.
The issue stems from a component Audi’s had trouble with before: the coolant pump. According to the automaker’s engineers, the pump can either become blocked with debris from the cooling system or short-circuit from moisture within the pump. Regardless of the cause, an increasing number of reports of overheating pumps tipped Audi off that its earlier recall wasn’t enough. (Read More…)
Bosch says its engineers have developed a new diesel exhaust system that could lower emissions to a point where governments no longer have to worry about banning the fuel.
It’s not a defeat device.
If you’ll recall, Robert Bosch GmbH found itself caught up in Volkswagen Groups emissions scandal. Owners of affected cars accused the company of helping develop the illegal software that allowed the vehicles to fool environmental regulators. Bosch launched an internal probe as a sign of good faith and has not officially been charged with any wrongdoing by federal authorities.
That’s good news for the company, because any attempt to promote diesel-friendly equipment would have been overshadowed by a preexisting scandal — especially something as miraculous-sounding as this. (Read More…)
There are some vehicles on the market that offer bargain pricing without punishing their buyers. The Mitsubishi Outlander Sport 2.4 SEL AWC isn’t one of those. Mitsubishi has seemingly been in “barely getting by mode” for years now, and the Outlander gives a clue as to why.
Michigan State Police, along with a baker’s dozen of truckers and a couple of suburban police departments, came up with a clever solution to avert a suicide early Tuesday morning. Some time around 1:00 a.m., police received a report of a man getting ready to jump off the overpass where I-696 runs under Coolidge Hwy, just a couple of miles north of Detroit. He had either climbed over or around the protective fence and was standing on the top of the bridge’s side barrier, above eastbound traffic, near the median.
There happens to be a Michigan State Police post just a half mile away, so response was both quick and massive. While negotiators from the MSP, Oak Park, and Huntington Woods PDs talked to the man, the state police began shutting down eastbound traffic on the interstate highway. Well, they didn’t shut down traffic entirely. While cars and light trucks were rerouted off the freeway, about a half dozen tractor-trailer rigs were let through to the overpass, where police directed them to line up closely, side-by-side, directly under the bridge. The idea was to shorten the fall if the man decided to go ahead and jump. The same was done on the westbound side of the overpass. A total of 14 truckers apparently volunteered to help save the man’s life, though only 13 fit under the bridge. (Read More…)
Long the preferred ride of the casual golf membership set, the Lexus ES enjoys a reputation of high reliability and very gradual change. Toss that cred out the window, as the 2019 ES undergoes what’s arguably the most significant revamp in its nearly three-decade-long history.
Revealed Wednesday in Beijing, the new ES rides atop a platform shared with its fellow Kentucky-built stablemate, the Toyota Avalon, and grows in all the time-honored ways. It’s longer, lower, and wider than the outgoing version. More power and more speeds come to the sedan’s sole powertrain, while the body undergoes a transformation that takes years off (the age of its perceived driver).
With this 2019 model, Lexus seems pretty determined to rid the ES of its longstanding image as a staid conveyance for those with high-performing mutual funds. How determined? There’s now, for the first time, an ES F Sport. (Read More…)
Our man Healey sampled the latest Jetta not long ago, finding it to be a conservative box that has left most of the sporty spunk to its Golf cousin. VW’s MQB platform knows no bounds.
Of the five trims available, the base S has potential to sit at the Ace of Base table. After all, no matter how much ones spends on a 2019 Jetta, one will – right now, at least – find the same engine under its hood. The only trim on which a stick shift appears? The base S. Achtung!
Let’s find out what else is on board.
For most people, not having a brand new car sort of budget can mean scrounging around on AutoTrader, Cars.com, eBay, or even the ever-professional Craigslist for used vehicles. The resulting experiences end up shaping the future of our car ownership, our finances, and perhaps our legal situations in some cases.
Today we want you to know about your sketchiest used car buying experience.
Jaguar is offering a new appearance package for the XE, although it’s marketing it as a wholly unique trim. The new “Landmark Edition” retains all of the features you’d expect to see on the sport sedan, while adding a handful of visual upgrades that provide a sportier look without crossing into teenage-tuner territory.
The exterior features a unique sport front bumper and body-colored side sills. Jaguar also mentioned a trunk-mounted spoiler but it’s extremely difficult to distinguish any differences from the standard R-Sport. Meanwhile, side window surrounds, door mirror caps, and grille surrounds have been given the ever-popular black treatment. Although Jaguar appears to have done a more tasteful job with its de-chroming than some other European carmakers. (Read More…)
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