Today’s Rare Ride is largely forgotten. Some call it a “super car,” while others argue over whether it was a kit car or a production vehicle. It seems to be the latter, not that it makes much of a difference 25 years later when so few were made.
Come along and learn about Tojan, a very special take on a Pontiac.
Tasked with building something to serve as the official safety car for the 2021 FIA Formula E World Championship, Mini has delivered a vehicle that bridges the gap between the raucous and rowdy John Cooper Works model and all-electric Mini Electric. While one-offs aren’t usually all that interesting to your average consumer, the Mini Pacesetter seems to be providing the automaker with a space to test some of its theories about how a JCW EV might take shape and will likely foreshadow such a product.
The manufacturer has even acknowledged this, though it’s a little early to expect an electrified version of Mini’s flagship performance model. Despite looking like it’s ready to compete in a series of its own, the Pacesetter uses an unmodified motor lifted from the Mini Electric. That means about 180 horsepower and a smidgen over 200 foot-pounds of torque, which would have been outstanding on the featherweight original. But the last few decades have forced Mini’s products to become comparatively portly, requiring the brand to shave as much weight off the Pacesetter as it could. (Read More…)
I hope this is the last time I write about Volkswagen’s April Fool’s Day faceplant this week.
Really, I do. The clicks are nice, but variety is the spice of life.
Gearing up for its debut on April 15th, Hyundai has released renderings of the Santa Cruz, its ground-breaking pickup named for a sleepy Northern California beach city.
Kia has issued a kind of extended teaser for the all-electric EV6, with the latest example giving us a fairly comprehensive look at the more extravagant version. The EV6 GT will be a swift and squat crossover (or perhaps portly hatchback?) using the E-GMP architecture that currently underpins the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and several more dedicated electric vehicles South Korea has yet to put into production.
That makes the EV6 an incredibly important model for Kia and the Hyundai Motor Group as a whole. Fortunately, the manufacturer seems eager to make a good first impression — which is probably why it led with the 576 horsepower, GT trimmed model. (Read More…)
The reaction to Volkswagen’s epic fail of an April Fool’s Day prank seems to be running the gamut from “how dare they lie” to “Eh, it was dumb but who cares?”
So I figured that while journalists, academics, and others can make their opinion known on Twitter, I’d ask y’all what you think. (Read More…)
As you know by now, Volkswagen pulled the wool over the eyes of the automotive media, the business media, and the general public in a terribly executed April Fool’s Day prank over the past few days.
The company may have done more than anger a few people — it may have run afoul of regulators.
Today, Lexus dropped the LF-Z concept car, stepping on the electric-vehicle (EV) accelerator. By 2025, the company expects to have 20 new PHEV, HEV, and BEV models from which to choose.
Buick is on my brain.
Not only does an Envision test vehicle sit some 20-odd stories beneath my feet in my parking garage, but the brand has been running its usual ad blitz during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (and presumably, the women’s, too). The tourney is one of my favorite sports events of the year, so I’ve been tuning in.
This means I’m seeing many Buick ads. This means the brand that this here site once put on Death Watch — and earned me at least one angry phone call from Buick PR — is still soldiering on.
Late yesterday, news dropped that Volkswagen planned to change its name to Voltswagen. A lot of automotive journalists noted the date and called out the announcement as a premature April’s Fool prank, but further reporting seemed to confirm that the name change was indeed real.
Turns out that it really is an April Fool’s prank gone awry.
On Tuesday, Mercedes announced it would be pouring roughly $59 million (€50 million) to build the all-electric Sprinter van at three facilities. One of them will is the American MBV factory in Ladson, South Carolina, with the remaining two sites naturally situated in Düsseldorf and Ludwigsfelde, Germany.
Over 200,000 Sprinter and Metris model vans have been assembled in the United States since 2006, though the automaker had actually been using the state to avoid the chicken tax for much longer. Considering the region is the second-largest market for Sprinter vans, Mercedes is not interested in dissolving its American commitments either. The investment will be spread across the three facilities for the necessary tooling to build the EV variant the automaker already started selling in Europe.
It is auto-show season.
Or at least, it would be in a “normal” year.
Normally, we’d be in New York, bringing you all the concepts from the New York International Auto Show, usually held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s west side.
This year, with the world still mostly on pause, we’re at home, missing the sights and sounds.
The lawsuits continue against EV startup Rivian. Though it hasn’t built any vehicles to date, the company has an aggressive plan to manufacture its “Tesla killer” vehicles at the former Diamond Star Motors plant at Normal, Illinois, and sell its wares directly to customers via nine showrooms across the nation. Various parties take issue with both the building and selling facets at Rivian, and the company has lawsuits with dealers in Illinois as well as Tesla. (Read More…)
German tuning specialist AC Schnitzer has heralded the introduction of their version the BMW X6 Sports Activity Coupe (SAV), itself neither a coupe nor a proper sporting vehicle.
With President Biden planning to announce an infrastructure proposal that could easily exceed $2 trillion, the automotive industry has come to the realization that some of that money could be used to make its job easier. Following Tesla’s attempt at charming the federal government into making carbon credits more valuable, automotive lobbies, supplier groups, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union have issued a joint letter asking for financial assistance.
Addressed to the president and congress, the document makes numerous requests for help with electric vehicle adoption rates. Industry groups would like to see Biden sign onto significant government tax incentives and subsidies for both buying and manufacturing electric vehicles. But this isn’t limited to passenger cars, they also want tax dollars used to help offset the prices corporations pay on commercial EVs intended for fleet use. Government grants would likewise be set aside for organizations that retool facilities for electric cars, while federal entities make a vow to buy up new fleets that aren’t reliant on liquid fuel. (Read More…)
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