Every few weeks, it seems there’s another Chinese manufacture promising to wriggle into North America. This week it’s Qiantu Motor, which intends to build the K50 electric sports car with help from California-based EV firm Mullen Technologies. According to a preliminary agreement published on Mullen’s website, the American firm will homologate, assemble, and market the electric sports car in North America in 2020.

Simon Lei, Qiantu’s Head of Product Planning, previously expressed the brand’s intent to sell the model within the United States last April. Naturally, we’re always a little skeptical of these kinds of claims, given China’s track record on the matter and the ongoing trade war.  (Read More…)

Yes, dear reader — that cartoon family from Springfield turns thirty today. A brief list of items not yet invented or discovered in 1989 include the internet, reliable anti-lock brakes, and the ineptitude of Rick Wagoner.

The Simpsons have gifted us not only with plenty of great one-liners over the years (“Uh, no, they’re saying, ‘Boo-urns! Boo-urns!”) but also a parking lot full of automobiles.

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If you need to get somewhere off the beaten path just that much more quickly than The Other Guy – or maybe you simply want to one-up your neighbor and their new Sierra AT4 – GMC has an answer for you.

Despite being only about three seconds old, The General is already throwing a new package at the 2019 Sierra. Meant to layer on top of the off-road focused AT4 trim, this new option adds even more horses to the hand-of-god 6.2-liter V8.

And, for once, buyers actually save money by selecting the option package. Speed normally costs money – but not this time.

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If you’ve paid attention to any of Ford’s marketing lately, you’ll know the company has been making vehicles for 115 years. When it comes to F-Series, the best-selling pickup truck line in the country, they’ve been ahead of the pack for 41 years. It should shock nobody that the company knows how to build a […]

Customers won’t get a chance to buy an Audi E-tron SUV until next year, but, if money’s tight, they might want to hold off for a while. The German brand’s first electric utility vehicle (seen above) arrives in the second quarter of 2019, carrying a base price of $74,800 — at least once the launch editions clear out. More E-trons will follow, including a Sportback version of the SUV and a top-flight GT sports sedan.

Green, but still requiring plenty of green to plunk one in your driveway. Audi apparently has a solution for budget-minded premium EV shoppers, and it plans to make it happen with help from Volkswagen. (Read More…)

Considering they’re only making 160 of them, the suicide doors on the eighty Coach Door Edition Lincoln Continentals to be sold next year have garnered quite a bit of attention.

The use of rear-hinged doors on vehicles dates to the horse age. It seems that sometime in the 1930s the moniker “suicide doors” was applied to them, apparently due to people’s propensity  for falling out of cars in the decades before Ford introduced the seat belt (as an option in 1956). There’s also, at least according to something frequently reproduced online, a connection with gangsters pushing people out of cars — though to my ears, that would be more like homicide doors.

I’m not convinced, though, it’s any easier to fall (or be pushed) out of a car with such doors, other than the fact that aerodynamics will help keep the door open while you’re falling (or being pushed). (Read More…)

As we saw yesterday with the (very) limited-edition coach-door Continental, sometimes an automaker finally produces what the people cried out for… years earlier.

One wonders what the demand for this suicide-door sedan might have been had Lincoln decided to launch it alongside the regular model back in 2016. Those rear doors are tailor-made for a low-angle exit shots outside the club in any number of music videos. As well, overseas executives in a certain People’s Republic might have found the additional rear legroom quite appealing — and exclusive.

But Lincoln deserves kudos for going the extra mile and actually altering the platform and body of a car to make its door wish (your door wish?) come true. This wasn’t just an engine swap or some other minor alteration that leaves the car’s overall dimensions intact. Lincoln put this sedan on the taffy puller for you. Which begs the question: if other mainstream automakers were willing to go the Lincoln route, what type of limited-edition variant would you demand of them? (Read More…)

As America’s new vehicle market shifts to vehicles with four driven wheels, greater ride height, and dog-friendly tailgates, it seems more than sensible for the Toyota Prius to take part in some community outreach.

The Prius, America’s 10th-best-selling car just a decade ago, can keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Or, the Prius can make a significant change – via available “independent electric, magnet-less rear motor” – to offer all-wheel drive, one of the feature sets that’s drawing car buyers away from cars.

And that’s exactly what Toyota has done for the otherwise refreshed 2019 Prius (reviewed last week by our own Matt Posky). In a manner of speaking, Toyota expects big things from the Prius AWD-e: 25 percent of Prius customers, to be precise.

But one-fourth of all Prius volume is not what it used to be. In fact, it’s a far cry from what it used to be. A mere fraction of what it used to be. One-quarter of all Prius volume will make the Prius AWD-e barely more common than the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. (Read More…)

Up until I was eleven, I pronounced Porsche in the plebeian, frowned-upon way. “I’ll take the Pour-sh,” I would tell my friends while we played racing video games and shoveled bags of chips into our mouths. Then I met an adult who actually owned one and they set me straight on the matter as I ogled their vintage 911.

“It’s pronounced a little like the woman’s name Portia,” he told me as I nodded and acted as though I understood, even though I had never met a single person with that name.

Since then, I’ve had countless opportunities to utter that name in a condescending manner, and not just regarding the brand. Several of Porsche’s models use names that look easy enough to pronounce, but aren’t. However, as the years roll on, I’ve almost stopped correcting people — as I’ve become absolutely convinced of a conspiracy where Porsche does this intentionally so those in the know can lord it over those who aren’t.  (Read More…)

What new products will Albert Biermann spearhead? That’s what Hyundai watchers wonder as they read that the former BMW M performance head — and later boss of Hyundai’s fledgling N division — has in store for the Korean automaker.

Late last week, Hyundai announced that Biermann would become the first foreign-born executive in charge of the automaker’s R&D. He does so after getting the Kia Stinger and Hyundai N line off the ground; clearly, those at the top approve of his vision. With this latest appointment, Hyundai Motor Group now finds itself with a former Bimmer performance chief and a design head from Bentley. Not a bad place to be. (Read More…)

Last week, a retired college professor walked into Missouri’s Coad Toyota with an interesting proposal. He was willing to part with five first-generation Toyota MR2s as a trade-in for a gently used 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata.

Considering the amount of maintenance five vintage MR2s must require, maybe he’s not the absolute madman we initially presumed. Since the deal went down in Missouri, he probably spent a ludicrous portion of his time on rust prevention alone.  (Read More…)

Tesla’s Dallas-based leasing partner, MUSA Auto Finance, finds itself in a tough spot. Apparently, the business is having trouble keeping up with all the business the automaker is doing. Founded in 2016, MUSA joined up with Tesla in June of this year. However, it has reportedly been unable to finance new leases since October.

According to Automotive News, Tesla caused MUSA’s leasing volume to increase by a factor of six between August to September. As of December, MUSA dealer clients said lease approvals have yet to resume — leaving some dealer partners up a creek without a paddle and some customers without their car.  (Read More…)

Unless you lot have developed powers of which the rest of the world is unaware, you’re reading this post on a computer screen. Ok, maybe on your smartphone. Probably not.

The advent of Windows 3.1 allowed the common nerd to apply wallpaper to the background of the operating system running on their computer screen. The fact I used all those words places me squarely within that group.

Which brings us to today’s question: what car (and we know it’s a car because you’re reading this site) is currently plastered on your screen?

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As you may or may not know, invitations for press junkets often arrive quite some time in advance. So when Nissan sent the invite to drive the 2019 Maxima more than a month before the wraps came off the real thing in Los Angeles, I was excited. See, I’ve always liked the idea of Maxima […]

Like most automakers, utility vehicles make up the bulk of Mazda’s sales, and the ratio is only swinging further in light trucks’ favor. While the new 3 hatch and sedan may be the freshest products on the automaker’s plate, freshly minted CEO Akira Marumoto knows what butters Mazda’s bread.

To keep the adorably midsized automaker in good standing with customers and accountants, the company is taking great pains to ensure the flow of crossovers never stems. Anywhere Mazda builds cars, Marumoto also wants crossover capacity. (Read More…)