PepsiCo nearly doubled the number of new electric big rigs Tesla will have to manufacture after reserving 100 units. Adding to the list of orders by more than a dozen companies, including other massive companies like Wal-Mart and Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi is helping Tesla make a case for EVs with a fixation on freight.

Last year, the food brand stated it wanted to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2030. With a fleet of over 10,000 units, semi trucks might be a good place to seek improvements. Granted, depending upon how it’s generated, pulling energy from the grid isn’t a perfect solution. But, at that point, it’s someone else’s problem.  (Read More…)

Despite Volkswagen being the premiere brand for “clean diesel” technology just a few short years ago, it’s now pressing aggressively into electrification. In fact, the company that admitted to widespread cheating on emissions tests following its pricey 2015 scandal is currently trying to convince the world to ditch diesel subsidies. Go green like us, the company wants everyone to hear.

Matthias Müller, CEO of Volkswagen Group, stated in a recent interview that the German government should stop subsidizing diesel entirely.

While a perspicacious position on the part of VW, it also serves as a reminder that German automakers benefited heavily from Europe’s once-popular diesel tax programs. However, with most of the world souring on the fuel, the automaker sees an opportunity to hurt its competition and help itself as it hurries to bring EVs to market.  (Read More…)

While General Motors has become progressively more brazen in outlining its plans for the future, Ford has kept its cards a bit closer to the chest. We do know both companies have similar long-term goals, but Ford has been (rather wisely) preoccupied, adjusting its fleet to meet global demand and ensuring production flexibilities that should prevent it from being caught off guard by an industry turnaround.

It’s interesting because, a little over a year ago, former Ford CEO Mark Fields was promising a complete evolution of the automaker into something called “a mobility company.” However, it now looks as if GM is the firm making a beeline toward alternative revenue streams and a new business model, while Ford takes a more measured approach.  (Read More…)

Last month, Volkswagen global brand head Herbert Diess said that Chattanooga would be the likely location for the company’s new electric vehicle plant. But he was also careful to specify that VW had made “no formal decision” on the matter.

While it’s always best to wait for the press release to say anything definitive, the automaker has begun posting openings for specialized positions that would relate to its upcoming MEB platform in Tennessee. Perviously, the automaker had only said it intended to build MEB vehicles at its plant in Zwickau, Germany, beginning with the I.D. hatchback model in 2019. It also mentioned it was planning a facility in China while the American site was still under consideration.  (Read More…)

We know the odds of your owning a $3 million Bugatti Chiron are pretty slim, so recall information from the brand doesn’t pertain directly to you. However, it’s sometimes interesting to examine how the other half lives. Have you ever wondered what several million dollars will get you when you spend it on a car that may have left the factory less than perfect?

According to the manufacturer, you are graced by the presence of one of Bugatti’s “Flying Doctors.” These mobile mechanics will begin contacting 47 Chiron owners to schedule dates where they can visit and examine the vehicles for faulty welds in the front seat recliner brackets. The bad welds are only expected to affect one-percent of the total, which works out to a perplexing half a car by our math. But, when you pay a few million for a car, you expect dapper concierge technicians at the ready.
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On Wednesday, 22 mayors issued a letter to members of the House and Senate conference committee that’s attempting to finalize a rushed tax plan before the end of the year, saying the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit allows them to better pursue clean-energy initiatives within their cities. The current versions of the bill has the House eliminating the credit, while the Senate has voted to keep it. So far, no automaker has reached the credit’s 200,000-vehicle threshold, and the industry — now backed with mayoral might — has pressed the U.S. government to maintain the incentive.

Alright, so it isn’t the power play that will turn the tide. But it does show that there exists a large group outside of manufacturers and EV fans that wants to keep the credits in place.  (Read More…)

Ford’s former head of performance car manufacturing, Dave Pericak, is now the engineering director for the automaker’s North American unibody vehicles. While in charge of Ford Performance, the division launched the Raptor, Focus RS, Shelby GT350, and GT. Prior to taking the helm in 2014, he was also the chief engineer of the 50th anniversary Mustang.

Now responsible for mainstream models from both Ford and Lincoln, Pericak’s previous duties will be split between Mark Rushbrook and Hermann Salenbauch. Rushbrook will handle the company’s racing efforts as Salenbauch runs Ford’s production vehicle development. (Read More…)

The Saab 9-3 has to have one of the strangest histories of any automobile ever to reach mass production. Intended as a replacement for the 900, the model used a pair of GM-based platforms split between two generations before dying out when Saab went bankrupt in December of 2011.

The company’s assets were purchased by National Electric Vehicle Sweden the following year. NEVS spent the following years attempting to relaunch the 9-3 as an all-electric vehicle. Despite multiple occasions where it seemed like the project had stagnated into oblivion, the firm actually started assembly on a rebadged 9-3 EV sedan in Tianjin, China, this December.

Now the company is saying it intends to expand production to Saab’s vintage factory in Trollhättan, Sweden, while also considering adding additional facilities in China and Turkey. Who could have imagined that the world’s next hot-ticket EV would be a model introduced in 2002 under a defunct nameplate?  (Read More…)

While the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has steadily upgraded its standards over the last two years, the effort hasn’t been without casualties. In a new effort to improve headlight safety and impact protection, the organization has changed its testing criteria for 2018 to include both illumination and passenger-side frontal impacts.

Unfortunately, including these aspects in its final verdict of how safe a vehicle is has removed numerous models from consideration for 2018’s Top Safety Pick+ awards. Last year, 38 vehicles qualified for the safety plus appointment. This year, however, the grand total only came to 15 models — most wearing badges from Hyundai Motor Group and Subaru.

The IIHS makes no apologies for keeping so many cars from receiving top honors. Instead, it claims it was time to heap higher expectations on automakers for items like visibility and passenger safety. (Read More…)

When you’re selling the self-professed “King of Beers,” you’re going to want to transport them in a style befitting of royalty. Either that, or you’re interested in keeping your shipping costs to a minimum and have the capital necessary to invest in new technologies like an electric semi.

Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser and over a dozen other beer brands, has decided to purchase 40 of Tesla’s battery-electric trucks. The company said it made the move in hopes of reducing fuel costs and cutting vehicle emissions. We’d also gamble that the adult beverage purveyor is interested in the vehicle’s claimed autonomous driving capabilities. (Read More…)

Amazon’s Echo has already invaded homes across North America, but it’s now beginning to creep into vehicle infotainment systems. My parents have one and both are quite fond of its ability to answer basic queries through intuitive voice commands. Though my mother refers to the system as my father’s “new wife,” it prefers to be addressed as Alexa when being issued instructions. If you need another point of reference, it’s reminiscent of Apple’s Siri, the computer from Star Trek, and any other automated technology using a female voice as the primary interface.

However, as handy as these systems are, they sometimes make mistakes. Alexa is great at giving me the weather but, when you give her more complex requests, she’ll sometimes get confused. That’s not a big problem when you are able to whip out your phone and go online, but it can be real annoying when driving. Early voice command interfaces in automobiles were infuriating — it was often easier to give up and input whatever information you were trying to shout at Ford Sync, BMW iDrive, or whatever decade-old system you happened to be using.

Thankfully, voice recognition is far better now than it was in 2008. But with so many concerns about automotive safety cropping up, it’s a little surprising that nobody has yet perfected an interface that effectively allows motorists to keep their hands where they belong — on the wheel.  (Read More…)

General Motors, the company that ran a campaign criticizing Ford for moving away from steel on its F-Series, is expected to implement carbon fiber in the beds of large pickup trucks within two years. Hopefully, the wait gives consumers time to forget some rather negative ads that bemoaned the use of aluminum for its high repair costs and chance of deformation in an impact.

Carbon fiber is ridiculously strong and should hold up in any side-by-side impact test against aluminum. That is, until you start considering price. Carbon fiber costs substantially more to manufacture, form, and fix than either steel or aluminum. That’s probably why GM plans to limit its usage to only highest trim levels, at least until it can figure out a way to keep production costs down.  (Read More…)

Italy and Germany are opposing attempts to give the European Union more authority over the way national car regulators approve new cars for sale. As wild as it is to learn that Germany is standing in the way of stricter automotive regulation and oversight, allow us to assure you that you’ve not misread the above statement. For some reason, Deutschland doesn’t want to see enhanced industry surveillance.

Our best guess is that the opposition has something to do with Volkswagen Group’s diesel crisis, recent concerns that BMW may have utilized a “shut off” device that masked NOx emissions, and the ongoing investigation into a German automotive cartel that may have operated for decades. But there’s also a chance these automakers simply don’t want to deal with the red tape that comes along with piling on government oversight.  (Read More…)

After announcing its new in-car marketplace earlier this week, General Motors is taking some heat from the National Safety Council. While we weren’t entirely sold on the shopping service either, our concerns revolved mainly around the automaker’s initial push into consumer data acquisition and targeted advertising.

We glossed over the safety angle, for the most part, mainly because we hadn’t yet played with the feature. However, the council’s worries focus squarely on the potential risk for distracted driving.

Upon marketplace’s release, GM tried to make clear that the service took those dangers into account, offering what it claims is a safer alternative to mobile phone use. But National Safety Council President Deborah Hersman believes the app will only create more accidents, hinting at the role cumbersome in-car technologies may have played in last year’s 5.6-percent rise in U.S. auto fatalities. (Read More…)

California Assemblyman Phil Ting, a Democrat chairing the chamber’s budget committee, says he intends to introduce a bill that would allow the state’s motor vehicle department to register only automobiles that emit no carbon dioxide, such as battery-electric vehicles or hydrogen fuel cell cars.

The proposed legislation would ultimately ban internal combustion engines, mimicking similar actions taken by France and the United Kingdom. Ting claims that, without a plan in place, California’s attempt to dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions by 2050 will prove ineffective.  (Read More…)