If you’re one of the moneyed set who enjoys a pint-sized car powered by a frantic five-cylinder engine, 2022 will be the last opportunity to pick up an Audi TT RS. With the 394 horsepower rocket set for its swan song next year, you know Audi will be offering some sort of special edition to mark the end of this era.
You may recall the brouhaha surrounding the Ford Bronco hardtop, a piece of the SUV that held up the initial rollout of the much-awaited model before causing a recall thanks to odd wear patterns. Specifically, certain roof units had a manufacturing deficiency which caused them to discolor and expose a honeycomb pattern after being subjected to particular levels of water and humidity (read: everyday conditions for some types of customers).
Now, it appears Ford is done like dinner with the issue, electing to destroy every single hardtop collected through the recall.
Our own Mr. Posky waxed at length yesterday about the Stellantis plan to keep their hands in customers’ pockets long after they’ve driven off the lot. Go read his take, if you haven’t already. Meanwhile, the company took care on Software Day to occasionally focus on an upcoming product – the Chrysler Airflow.
If you’re looking to get behind the wheel of Honda’s entrant in the two-row midsize crossover segment, be prepared to open your wallet a bit further than last year. A first blush, it might appear as if Honda jacked prices skyward by five grand but the reality is actually a lot simpler – they simply binned the base model.
Most will agree that a major hurdle to the mass adoption of all-electric vehicles is the hassle and speed (or lack thereof) in charging the things. First you gotta find a station, then find another one after discovering the first one’s broken, and finally loiter in a dingy Burger King while waiting for your vehicle to hoover up enough electrons to get you home.
Help is on the horizon. Stellantis has teamed up with a number of other companies in Europe to build the fantastically named Arena del Futuro, a 0.6-mile test track whose ribbon of tarmac is capable of dynamic induction to charge the batteries of electric vehicles as they drive along.
Like it or lump it, social media is now an outsized part of official corporate communications. It’s to the point where these channels have been seen exclusively used as platforms for official reveals of new models, depending on the demographic an automaker is trying to target. This time around, Toyota has snuck a shadowy reference to an upcoming hot hatch in the background of an otherwise innocuous post about the Corolla Hatchback.
I know – we rarely (if ever) cover powersports on this site, given our mission to bring you news about cars and shine lights on dusty corners of the automotive industry. However, the new Polaris Ranger XP Kinetic is worth your attention, simply for the change it is signaling in terms of electric vehicles.
The all-electric roadmap at General Motors continues apace. This week, the company announced plans to form a joint venture with a group called POSCO Chemical, an outfit that has nothing to do with our News & Social Media Contributor despite sharing a curiously similar surname.
GM’s plan calls for the parties to construct a facility in North America which will process critical battery materials for The General’s new Ultium electric vehicle platform. Note well: these are the gubbins planned to be used in upcoming rigs like the Lyriq and Hummer EV, not the maligned Bolt EV.
No one reading this will assert the current environment is anything but a seller’s market. Numerous vehicles are being hawked for many thousands (in some cases, tens of thousands) over sticker and a vast amount of machines are pre-sold before they arrive at dealerships on the back of a hauler. And all that assumes there are any rigs to be had at all.
One customer north of the border is alleging they have been denied the opportunity to buy a vehicle unless they also agreed to take roughly $3,000 worth of warranties and rustproofing. The dealer, of course, denies it all.
Thanks to Toyota’s glacier-like design cycle, a new Tundra is something most of us will experience only a few times in our adult lives. How long was the last generation around? Well, George W. Bush still had nearly three more years in the White House when the XK50 Tundra was unveiled at the Chicago Auto Show in February 2006. Yeah, it’s been a minute.
All that changed when the curtain dropped on the ’22 Tundra earlier this year. While the mighty and burly TRD Pro has gotten a lot of the press (and most of the promotional photos), there are actually about half a dozen trims on offer, some of which can be layered with options and packages.
When discussing the large-and-in-charge sedan segment, it would appear that reports of its death are greatly exaggerated (at least in Korea). Despite the beyond-dominant popularity of crossovers and SUVs, the crew at Genesis is plowing ahead with packing its portfolio full of sedans. The latest? A revised version of the enormous and in-yer-face G90 dreadnaught.
If you’re an off-road fan looking to plunk money down on an electrified Jeep with an open pickup bed, you might be hanging onto your cash longer than anticipated. Despite the brand heavily hinting at its existence during presentations earlier this year, rumors have cropped up that the Gladiator 4xe may have been pushed to the back burner in favor of other, more pressing projects.
Like updating the Wrangler to better compete with the Bronco, for instance. (Read More…)
Despite what we’d all like to think, America isn’t always the first to receive a particular new vehicle – even when it is made by one of our largest automakers. That was the case with the current Ford Ranger, a pickup truck which was on sale in other markets before it showed up on our shores. Even now, other iterations (Ranger Raptor, anyone?) are not found in North American showrooms.
Such is the case for the next-gen Ranger as well, it seems. Ford launched the revamped mid-sizer in an online event last night, showing off a trio of trims and detailing several powertrains that are unlikely to be options in this country. One thing’s virtually assured, however – it probably won’t take Ford as long to drag this Ranger across the pond as it did with the current model.
There’s no shortage of historical acrimony between Detroit’s automakers, some of which spills over from the showroom to the courtroom. Fresh out of the latter are allegations of corporate espionage against General Motors.
By the way, that awkward headline (‘Jeep maker’) was deployed thanks to the length of time this legal wrangling has consumed; in other words, it would be technically incorrect to specify ‘Stellantis’ when the flap predates their ownership of the Jeep brand.
We know the eyes of our readers generally glaze over like a Thanksgiving ham at the mere mention of an F1 topic. That’s why we don’t run race reports and the like on our front page. However, a few comments from this weekend’s F1 event – plus a follow-up observation by an astute Twitter user – prompt us to deviate from the norm.
Specifically, someone has asked why an outfit with estimated earnings of $1.38 billion continues to rely on volunteers for some of its most important work.
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