This certainly won’t be of interest to people living in Tim Cain’s neighborhood, or indeed your own, but it just might be for the legions of North Americans who tell survey peddlers that they’re totally considering an electric vehicle for their next purchase. Note: telling a surveyor  you’re considering an EV purchase is as weighty as telling them you’re considering moving to Canada if the next election doesn’t go your way. It’s a vague assurance of nothing.

Anyway, all that to say that a great many automakers are planning an EV onslaught in the coming decade, and buyers may or not greet them at the dealer door. BMW’s role in this product wave involves an electric version of the X3 crossover, plus an i4 sedan and iNext largeish crossover. As with all EVs, the biggest point of competition will be range, and we now have an idea of what to expect from Bimmer’s green machines. (Read More…)

More voices are piping up, alerting minivan-loving North Americans to a future offering from Fiat Chrysler. With the segment shrinking in the face of overwhelming competition from spacious, pleasant-riding crossovers, the possibility of an all-wheel drive Chrysler Pacifica is big news, and one Canadian union official claims it’s on the way.

In the minivan market, it looks like Toyota’s Sienna won’t stand alone as the only AWD offering for long. (Read More…)

Recent speculation of a potential merger, partnership, or alliance between France’s PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler might be pointless, as the offer has already occured, a report in the Wall Street Journal suggests.

Sources familiar with the matter claim PSA approached the Italian-American auto giant earlier this year in the interest of merging the two companies. Apparently, it wasn’t the first time PSA called up FCA for a hookup. The answer was the same. (Read More…)

Revealed what seems like ages ago, Volkswagen’s upcoming flagship car will arrive in the U.S. as a 2019 model — halfway through 2019. Bearing the inelegant name Arteon, the new range-topper had its boat trip delayed by a new European test cycle that impacted the certification and release of numerous German vehicles.

It could be argued that, in the 13 months since the Arteon’s big reveal, consumer interest in midsize sedans — even ones with liftbacks — has eroded even further. No matter. VW’s going to give its CC replacement a shot. A sign of the Arteon’s impending arrival comes from just-released EPA fuel economy figures that won’t blow anyone’s minds. (Read More…)

That didn’t take long, did it? In a Friday morning announcement, General Motors said it plans to bring a second electric product to the Orion Assembly plant in suburban Detroit, home to the Chevrolet Bolt.

Forget Buick and Cadillac, too. This Bolt-based product is destined to carry the bowtie badge. (Read More…)

In the same week Ford Motor Company announced a battery-electric product surge bound for a Michigan assembly plant, General Motors looks ready to announce the same. Coincidence?

Media reports suggest we’ll have an announcement from GM on its Orion Assembly facility by the end of the day. (Read More…)

A legal battle waged since 2016 ended with a historic win for Jaguar Land Rover on Friday. In 2015, China’s Jiangling Motor Corporation debuted the Landwind X7, a compact crossover that looked a lot like the Range Rover Evoque. Okay, not “a lot” — the near was damn near identical, but priced well below the Brit. (That’s a refreshed 2018 X7 you see above; the first was even closer to its muse.)

The Evoque’s doppelganger wasn’t a unique phenomenon, either. Chinese copycat vehicles had become a scourge for foreign automakers operating in that market, and, based on past cases, few expected JLR’s lawsuit to get much traction in the Chinese courts. They were wrong. (Read More…)

Let it never be said that car companies don’t offer people what they want, because, according to sales data, BMW and Mercedes-Benz haven’t sold zero X4s, X6s, GLE Coupes, and GLC Coupes.

There is a market for four-door SUVs with steeply raked rears. Just because you don’t want one and hate the erroneous application of the word “coupe” (this author belongs in both camps) doesn’t mean your neighbor feels the same way. What you see above is Porsche’s first member of this strange new cabal of vehicles. It’s the Cayenne.

The Cayenne Coupe. (Read More…)

This is certainly *not* the theoretical hot crossover we referred to in today’s QOTD. It’s not hot; rather, it’s merely ever so mildly warmer, in a sense, than a stock Tucson.

While Hyundai’s Tucson N Line is a vehicle currently targeted at European buyers, it’s possible the automaker could bring it to America in the near future, bolstering the fledgling N Line lineup (which currently consists of only the Elantra GT). The legitimately hotter N sub-brand also consists of a single vehicle: the revamped-for-2019 Veloster.

So, what does the Tucson N Line bring to the table? (Read More…)

Speaking against a very high-calibre backdrop at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio, President Donald Trump turned up the heat on General Motors to do something for the Lordstown-area economy. The automaker’s now-shuttered assembly plant, which entered “unallocated” status earlier this month, had been an economic driver in northeast Ohio since its opening in 1966.

Trump’s message to GM: Do something with the plant, or sell it to someone who will. While the automaker maintains that the status of its idled plants hinges on United Auto Workers labor negotiations, it does say it’s open to Lordstown Assembly offers. It’s already had some. (Read More…)

Once upon a time, the vehicles populating high school and college student parking lots were a rangy mish-mash of beat-up hatchbacks, faded hand-me-down family sedans, the odd minivan (daughters beware!) and the obligatory Mustang or Camaro. Soon, it’ll be a sea of crossovers. Maybe it already is — your author, understandably, doesn’t make a habit of cruising by such locales at low speed in the interest of checking out rides.

As vehicular variety decreases, the need to stand apart from the crowd hasn’t. Maybe that explains this week’s Chevrolet Blazer SS thought experiment. Sure, a hotter two-row crossover, especially in Blazer form, might not turn your crank, but that doesn’t mean there’s no audience for such a vehicle.

Is this segment in need of more muscle? (Read More…)

The pint-sized Buick Encore subcompact crossover came to China in 2012, and, judging by the photo directly above, the launch of an updated model in 2016 was a splashy affair, indeed.

Back in the days when General Motors was looking to rapidly grow its market share in the world’s largest car market, Chinese and American Encores shared the same underpinnings, engines, and (for the most part) bodies. That’s about to change, and now we have a glimpse of the 2020 Chinese-market Encore ahead of the launch of an American-market model.

Wanna bet the Chinese are getting the looker of the two? (Read More…)

The home of the Ford Mustang will eventually become home to vehicles built atop the automaker’s next-generation electric architecture, the company announced Wednesday. Ford’s plan comes with $900 million in previously announced funding, the vast majority of which is earmarked for the expansion of Michigan’s Flat Rock assembly plant. The rest of the cash goes towards preparations for the next-generation Mustang, which keeps Flat Rock as its home.

Contrary to previous claims, autonomous vehicles will not be among Flat Rock’s future inhabitants, and the same goes for Ford’s upcoming “Mustang inspired” EV crossover. (Read More…)

Approaching my Ascent tester behind a not-so-local dealer, I felt a presence. Like a pre-war bank, this thing was solid, monolithic, immovable, looming over all of humanity and granting entry to only a choice few. Given the profit Subaru’s going to make off these things, it’s not an inaccurate comparison. The last Subaru I drove […]

That headline was originally typed as “government cash,” except that wouldn’t be quite accurate, would it? Canada’s federal government tabled its budget Tuesday, and within those dry, dry pages was a helping hand for the struggling electric vehicle segment. While two of the country’s 10 provinces offer their own EV rebates (Ontario used to pony up a princely sum until a change in government last year saw the program kiboshed), there was never a federal program to stimulate the sale of green vehicles.

How does $5,000 pooled from your friends and neighbors sound? Good? Hold your horses, Tesla fans. You don’t apply. (Read More…)